How to see your competitors' Facebook and Instagram ads
Three free ways to see the ads your competitors are running on Facebook and Instagram, what to look for, and how to find competitors you don't know yet.
Short answer: every active Facebook and Instagram ad is public in the Meta Ad Library. Search a competitor's name there to see all the ads they're running, when each started, and on which platforms. To find competitors you don't know yet, start from your product instead: search the Library with a picture of it in Squinto, and you'll see every store advertising the same item.
1. Search the competitor in the Ad Library
- Open the Meta Ad Library.
- Set the country to All (or your market) and the category to All ads.
- Type the competitor's brand and pick their page from the suggestions.
- You'll see all their active ads, how many there are, and when each one started.
No account is needed, and the competitor isn't notified.
2. Start from their page
On the competitor's Facebook page, open Page transparency and choose Go to Ad Library. On Instagram, open their account's menu and choose About this account. Both lead to the same list.
3. Start from the product, to find competitors you don't know
Searching by name only shows competitors you've already heard of. In e-commerce, most of the competition for a product is stores you've never seen, with generic names, selling the same item.
To find them, start from the product:
- Take a picture of your product, or the competitor's product photo.
- Drop it into Squinto and drag a box over the product.
- Squinto searches the live Meta Ad Library in every country and returns the active ads that show the same product, ranked by match.
You'll see which stores advertise it, in which languages, and how long each ad has been running. The first search is free.
What to look at in a competitor's ads
| Signal | What it tells you | |---|---| | Start date | An ad running for weeks is likely profitable. New ads are tests. | | Number of versions | Many copies of one ad means they're scaling or testing angles. | | Offer | Discounts, bundles, free shipping, guarantees: what the market expects. | | Hook | The first line or first seconds: the problem they lead with. | | Landing page | Price, product page and checkout: where the ad sends people. | | Countries and languages | Where they're selling, and markets they haven't reached yet. |
Keep it to research
Use what you find to understand the market: which products sell, which angles work, what prices look like. Don't copy creatives or product photos; they belong to the advertiser.
Questions
Can competitors see that I looked at their ads? No. The Ad Library is public and anonymous.
Can I see how much a competitor spends? Not for commercial ads. The Library shows spend only for ads about social issues, elections or politics. For EU ads it shows reach estimates.
Can I see their past ads? Outside the EU, commercial ads disappear when they stop. Ads shown in the EU stay for a year after they last ran.
More on the Library's filters and limits in how to use the Meta Ad Library.