Meta Ad Library: how to research competitors and turn what you find into tests

Quick answer

To research competitors, open the Meta Ad Library, choose your country and All ads, then search for the advertiser's Page or a keyword. Look at the hook, offer, image and video. Ads Editor brings search, AI analysis and adaptation ideas into a single workflow, already available to subscribers.

What is the Meta Ad Library?

It is a free, public tool to look up ads running across Meta's products. You can search for a brand, open its ads and see how it presents its products, services and offers. You do not need access to the competitor's ad account to do this research.

It helps answer practical questions: which pain points does the market highlight? How do the videos open? What kind of proof shows up? Which commercial terms keep repeating? The goal is to find ideas to test, not to assume that everything running is working.

How do you see a competitor's ads in the Meta Ad Library?

1. Open the Meta Ad Library.
2. Choose your country (for example, United States) if that is the market you want to study.
3. Select All ads to search commercial ads.
4. Type the competitor's name and confirm the right Page in the results list.
5. Open the ads that interest you and check the copy, image or video, call to action and start date.
6. Use the available filters to focus on the format, platform or period that makes sense for your test.

If you do not have a competitor list yet, start with a keyword a buyer would use, such as "online baking course" or "meal prep delivery". Then confirm which advertiser published each result. A company may mention another brand in its copy; that does not mean the ad belongs to the brand it mentions.

What should you analyze in each competitor creative?

Before saving dozens of ads, define the question behind your research. If your problem is a weak opening, focus on hooks. If people click but do not move forward, look at how other brands explain the offer and remove doubts.

• Hook: what grabs attention in the first line, the first scene or the first look at the image?
• Angle: which pain point, desire or benefit organizes the message?
• Proof: is there a demo, a testimonial, a comparison or a concrete explanation?
• Offer: what does the person get and which terms are shown?
• Format: is it someone talking to the camera, a demo, an image with text or another type of ad?
• Call to action: does the ad ask for a purchase, a conversation, a sign-up or another next step?

Also write down what could get in the way: text that is hard to read, a slow opening, too much information or an offer that is not clear. A reference can teach you as much through what you would reuse as through what you would do differently.

Does an old or repeated ad mean it sells?

No. Time running, number of versions and repetition of the creative help you choose what to investigate, but they do not reveal the result. An ad can stay active with little delivery, because of an operational decision or simply because nobody reviewed it.

Look at whether a theme appears across several ads, how the versions change and which arguments repeat. That shows the advertiser's visible choices. To know whether the idea fits your client, you need to test it in your own account.

How does competitor research work in Ads Editor?

Ads Editor brings together the Ad Library search, the organization of your references and AI analysis of the creatives. Instead of jumping between searches, screenshots and scattered notes, you select the ads that matter and carry the analysis into building your next tests.

Search and choose what is worth analyzing

You can start from the competitor's name, @ handle or link, or from a snippet of ad copy. The screen asks you to confirm the advertiser when needed. You can also search several competitors in the same batch and load more results to widen your selection.

Filters help you separate images, videos and other formats, find copy and sort ads by start date. You choose the ads before starting the analysis. Searching and selecting do not use AI credits; the cost of the analysis is shown in the workflow.

Analyze image, video and copy together

The analysis looks at the available media as well as the ad copy. For images, it examines visual elements, composition, readable text, product and call to action. For videos, it looks at selected scenes across the ad and the speech transcript when available.

That lets you study how the opening grabs attention, how the argument unfolds and whether image, speech and copy reinforce the same offer. The result highlights hook, angle, proof, possible weaknesses and ways to adapt the idea to your account.

Save references and compare competitors

Favorites make it easy to come back to advertisers. Folders hold selections of creatives, and the library collects ads gathered in earlier searches. Completed analyses stay in your history, so you can reopen them without running the same AI analysis again.

You can compare analyses of different competitors, dig deeper into the patterns you found and export the study as a PDF. You can also combine this reading with analyses of your own ads, keeping your account's real results separate from the competitors' public information.

The search brings back a sample of what is available, not a complete history of everything the brand has ever run. Updates happen when you run a new search; it is not automatic monitoring with alerts.

From reference to script: how to turn the analysis into a test

With the analyses you selected, Ads Editor helps you develop ideas using the context of your product and your offer. Suggestions can include hook, script, primary text, headline, call to action and visual direction. They are materials to guide production, not finished video or image files.

1. Pick one idea to investigate: for example, showing the product in use right at the opening.
2. Bring in your client's context: product, audience, offer, differentiators and the proof they actually have.
3. Adapt the structure: create an opening, a demo and a call to action that match that offer.
4. Define the test: choose what you will compare and which result you will track.
5. Produce and launch the variations: keep things organized so you can later tell what each ad was testing.

See how to set up a creative test in Meta Ads. Once the assets are ready, bulk upload in Ads Editor helps you get the variations into your campaigns without repeating the work ad by ad.

Why is the Meta Ad Library not showing ads?

• Country and category: confirm the market you are searching and the All ads option.
• Advertiser identity: the Page name may differ from the Instagram handle or the trade name you know.
• Search too narrow: remove filters and try other words related to the offer.
• Ad availability: the ad may not be active or may not be available in that search. Not finding it does not prove the company stopped advertising.
• Ad Library loading: if the page does not load, try again later or check in another browser.

Research is most useful when it ends with a decision: which hook to test, which doubt to clear up or which demo to produce. Save the reference, write the hypothesis and judge the result in your own account.