Meta Ad Library: how to find your competitors' app ads and see which ones work

What the Meta Ad Library shows, and what it leaves out

You probably have a live app, few downloads, and a few hundred dollars of Meta ads behind you that brought almost nothing. Someone told you to look at what competitors run. This is where you look, and it is free.

Meta says people can search all active ads running across its products. We read it logged out for every app on Chartjump, so you do not need an account to look. For each ad you get the video or image, the text, the Page that ran it and the date it started.

What you do not get decides how you should use it:

• No spend, reach or installs for normal ads. Meta adds spend and reach for ads about social issues, elections or politics, which does not help you.
• No history. Outside those topics, an ad leaves the normal search once it stops. So you only see what an app still pays for, never the tests it killed.
• The EU is the exception. Meta shows more for ads delivered in the EU and keeps them archived for one year after they stop, so an EU country is the place to look for ended ads.

That second gap is useful. Because failed ads disappear, an ad that is still there after months has outlived the others from its advertiser.

How to search the Meta Ad Library for a competitor's app

• Open facebook.com/ads/library. Pick a location and set the category to all ads.
• Leave the country wide if you can. Winning formats often run far from home: Plant Parent's oldest ads are in Spanish, Crushie AI's are in Chinese and Japanese, and Learna runs in Spanish, Vietnamese and Turkish. If you search only your own country you can miss them.
• Search the app's name and pick its Page from the suggestions.
• Copy the publisher from the App Store page and search that as well. Summary is sold by Labhouse Mobile SL, Swipewipe by MWM. We found Shortical's ads on two Pages, so one search can miss some.
• Then run the app name as a plain keyword search, to catch ads that are not on the app's own Page.
• Open each ad and confirm that it shows or names the app.

Where a competitor search goes wrong

We ran these searches for every app we track. Four problems kept coming back.

• Other companies' ads. A search for Muse, the reels editor, also returns ads for Meta's own Muse. We tied only 3 distinct videos to the editor. Even with a clear name, some results could not be tied to the app: 52 of 359 ads for AI Cleaner, 23 of 227 for Suno, 7 of 39 for Badoo.
• Ads on a creator's Page. Runway's visible push is partner creators with 50% off codes, and AI Catch also runs paid creator partnerships. A search limited to the app's own Page can miss these, which is why the keyword search matters.
• A count that is only a floor. Keyword results are what the search returned, not a full list. LazyFit's 28 ads and BitePal's 30 are lower limits. Use the counts to see how an app works, not to compare budgets.
• An empty result that misleads. Umax returned 0 active ads, but its founder says a little over $200,000 went to influencers in launch month. Swipewipe shows 13 ads while its agency reports 200+ Spark ads a month on TikTok. No ads on Meta does not mean no marketing.

Chartjump has done this matching for the apps it tracks: the confirmed ads with a link to each one in the library, how long each has run, its versions and its first words on screen.

MuseSee how Muse gets its usersRunwaySee how Runway gets its usersUmaxSee how Umax gets its users

How to tell which ads are working

None of these signals proves an ad makes money. A small ad can run for months on little spend. Together they are still the best public evidence you can get.

• Run length. Read the start date on each ad. An advertiser that kept paying for 100 days has seen numbers you have not. Cal AI's ad opening on "315LBS TO 219LBS" had run 169 days when we read it.
• Versions. Look for the line "ads use this creative and text". It tells you how many live ads share that creative and text. Loora's "Sorry, my English is not good." has 18 at 160 days. Swipewipe's before and after video opening on "wrong way" has 11 at 87 days. Advertisers duplicate the videos they want to push.
• The same hook returning. Summary has run "Had to expose this Apple Watch hack" in one ad at 46 days and another at 33, then tested "trick" in place of "hack". A hook that keeps coming back in new videos is the thing to study.
• Translation. StressWatch runs "To my girls with apple watches, you need this!!" at 99 days, and versions of its hooks in French, German and Japanese at 96. Paying to translate a hook is a strong sign of what the team believes in.

Now the signal to ignore: anything brand new. DramaWave's longest ad had run 7 days when we read it. Of Xena's six longest visible ads, four had run only 2 days. A new ad tells you what a team is testing, not what worked.

What long-running app ads have in common

These are real ads and how long each had run when we read the library. None of them opens with the app's name.

• Crushie AI: a screen demo of a chat, 477 days. The hook is one line of the story, not a feature.
• LazyFit: "If you're plus-size, I beg you to try this!" over a 28 day bed pilates challenge, 362 days and 4 versions. The Spanish version has run 440.
• Plant Parent: "¡NO me mates!", 408 days. The plant begs you not to kill it, then a phone scan shows the fix. A German version asks what your plant is trying to tell you.
• Simply Sing: "Are you TONE DEAF !? Do you think you can't sing?", 252 days, leading to a vocal range test.
• Muse: "This app creates Reels for you", 210 days and 5 versions. Hands hold the phone, and the editor is on screen from the first frame, for 15 seconds.
• AI Home Design: "I asked AI to redesign my home.", 81 days. A plain before and after.
• AI Remodel: "Nothing fits in this corner", 76 days. It opens on the problem and then shows the result.

Three patterns repeat. The first line names a person or a problem, like plus-size, tone deaf or a small corner. The result or the app gets shown fast. And the format is cheap: a phone screen, a before and after, or one person talking.

Small accounts count as well. You do not need 230 ads like Cal AI. AbMaxx has 46 ads with one version each, GoTall has 10, and AI Home Design has 6. Much of what you can copy comes from ad accounts that size.

LazyFitSee how LazyFit gets its usersPlant ParentSee how Plant Parent gets its usersAI Home DesignSee how AI Home Design gets its users

What to do with what you find

• Pick five apps that sell to the same person as yours, not only direct competitors. Summary and StressWatch both sell through the Apple Watch, so a watch app could learn from either.
• From each one, take the five oldest ads you can confirm. Write down the first words on screen, the first words spoken, the format, the length, the run length and the versions.
• Look for what repeats across apps. One long-running ad could be an accident, but the same structure at three apps is a pattern.
• Write your own hooks in that structure, about your app and your user. Copy the structure and never the video, since the footage belongs to someone else.
• Post the versions as normal TikToks and Reels first. Put money only behind the one that holds attention, then make versions of that, as the apps above do.

Our TikTok ad library guide covers the same search on TikTok, where it is much weaker. The UGC ads guide covers scripts and costs, and the guide to marketing an app covers what to do before you buy any ads.

StressWatchSee how StressWatch gets its usersSummarySee how Summary gets its usersAbMaxxSee how AbMaxx gets its users

Questions

Does the Meta Ad Library show all ads?

Meta says it shows all active ads running across its products. It does not show stopped ads, except ads about social issues, elections or politics and ads delivered in the EU. A keyword search also returns only part of an app's ads, so treat any count as a lower limit.

Does the Meta Ad Library show Instagram ads?

Yes. It covers Meta's products, and Meta names Facebook and Instagram when it describes the library. You search one library for both, with no separate Instagram tool to find.

How do you search the Meta Ad Library?

Go to facebook.com/ads/library, pick a location and the all ads category, then type a name. Search the app, then its publisher from the App Store page, then the app name as a keyword. Open each ad and confirm it shows the app.

Can you see how much a competitor spends in the Meta Ad Library?

No, not for normal app ads. Spend and reach appear for social issue, election and political ads. For an app, use how long an ad has run and how many live ads share its video as the best public signs.

Why is the Meta Ad Library not showing any ads for an app?

Usually the app runs none at that moment, runs them under another Page or publisher, or your country filter hides them. Try the publisher name and a keyword search. Umax returned 0 active ads when we read it and still grew through paid creators on TikTok.

Can you use the Meta Ad Library API to get competitors' app ads?

Only partly. Meta describes the API as covering ads about social issues, elections or politics, plus ads delivered to the EU and associated territories and, for authorized users, public branded content. It is not a feed of a competitor's US app ads, so for a few apps the website is enough.

Do you need a Facebook account to use the Meta Ad Library?

Not to read it. We read the ads of every app on Chartjump logged out, including start dates and versions.