The Facebook Ad Library: How to Check What Competitors Are Running, and What You May Take From It
The Facebook ad library shows which ads competitors have live right now: what is actually visible in Israel, how to search it, and what you may not copy.
The Facebook ad library is the free tool that lets you see which ads are running right now for any business advertising on Meta, including your competitors. You need no permissions, no ad account and no connection of any kind to the business you are looking at. That said, most guides promise things there that the tool simply does not show. In this article we separate what you really see in Israel from what is only visible on political ads, show how to search properly, give you a research sheet to copy, and explain what you may take from other people's ads and what already counts as copying.
What the Facebook ad library shows in Israel, and what it does not
This is the point at which most articles mislead, so we will start there. According to Meta's help page, the picture splits in two:
- For all ads, meaning the ad of a barbershop, a clinic or an online store too, you can search for the ads that are currently active across Meta's products.
- For ads about social issues, elections or politics there is an extra layer of transparency: you can also search ads that are no longer active, and see who funded the ad, a spend range, an impressions range and a demographic breakdown. Those ads are kept in the library for seven years.
The conclusion for an ordinary Israeli business matters: in the library you will see the creative, the Page running it, when the ad started running and which platforms it is shown on. You will not see how much your competitor is spending, how many leads they are getting or who they are targeting. Anyone promising you "a look at your competitors' budgets" is talking about political ads, not about the business across the street.
Two more points from the same page. The ads in the library are attributed to the Facebook Pages running them, so every ad card carries the name of the Page and lets you move from there to all of its active ads. In addition, an ad that does not comply with the advertising policies may still appear in the library with a warning message, and in limited circumstances ads are removed from it, for instance following a serious breach of the community standards or a valid government request.
How to search the library: country, category, advertiser and keyword
The route itself is short. Here is how Meta describes it:
- Open the ad library. Entry is free and does not require an ad account.
- Choose a country. To check the local market, choose Israel. That choice filters the results, so a competitor advertising in other markets as well will show you a different list in every country.
- In the ad category list choose "All ads". That default is what is relevant to businesses. The political category is another world.
- Type a Page name or a keyword in the search bar.
- Open "See ad details" to see more information about the ad and the advertiser.
In the results you get several filters: country, platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network), a keyword search, and filtering by impressions received over a given period. Every ad card shows the ad's library ID, the date it first appeared on Meta's technologies, and the icons of the platforms it is running on. You can also copy a direct link to the ad through the options menu, and that is the single most useful thing when you want to save a finding for the team.
When you view a Page itself in the library, Meta also shows when the Page was created and which name changes it has been through. A Page created two months ago that has changed its name twice is important context before you conclude that a competitor "dominates the market".
What you can genuinely learn from competitors' ads
The tool does not give you performance data, but it gives you something else: the decisions the competitor has made. These are the five questions we answer in every check of this kind:
- What is the offer? A promotion, a free check, a downloadable guide or a price. The offer is what you take an idea from, not the wording.
- How many versions are running in parallel? A Page running eight versions of the same message is working from a method, not a guess. How to build a test like that for yourself we set out in our guide to paid social ad creative.
- How long has the ad been live? The start date is the only clue to a lifespan. It is a rough estimate only: an ad that has been running for months is probably working, but the library does not show conversions, and large advertisers sometimes leave weak ads active.
- Where does the link go? Click, and land on the landing page or the form. That is where half the learning is. We gathered a collection of good and bad examples in our article on 10 landing page examples.
- Which platforms is it running on? The platform icons reveal whether this is an Instagram-only campaign or a broad deployment.
There is one more use that almost nobody makes, which is checking yourself. Search for your own Page and see exactly which ads are running in your name right now. It is the simplest way to confirm that the agency is running what you approved, and to catch an old ad carrying a promotion that has ended. The rest of the permissions and the ownership of the account are best sorted out according to our guide to the business portfolio and agency access.
A competitor research sheet to copy
A check that is not written down is forgotten. This is the table we fill in on three to five competitors, once a quarter:
| What you check | Where you see it | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Number of active ads | At the top of the search results for the Page | Whether there is serious activity here or a single ad |
| Start date of each ad | At the top of each ad | Which are the veterans, meaning what is probably working |
| The offer and the call to action | In the ad text | What the market is promising customers today |
| Format and placements | In the creative and the icons | Vertical video, image or carousel, and where it is running |
| Link destination | Clicking the ad | A landing page, an instant form, WhatsApp or a shop |
Once it is filled in, look for the gap. If every competitor is offering the same promotion and the same offer, your opportunity is usually a different angle rather than a bigger discount. How that connects to the actual cost per lead we explained in our article on what Facebook and Instagram advertising costs.
Inspiration versus copying: what you may take from other people's ads
The line here is simpler than it seems. A competitor's creative, meaning the video, the image and the text, is somebody else's work. Their trade name and logo are protected as trademarks. So copying those assets is not "inspiration", and it exposes you both to a lawsuit and to having the ad rejected by Meta. We are not giving legal advice here, and where there is genuine doubt it is worth asking a lawyer.
What you may take: the structure. The type of offer, the marketing angle, the order of the arguments, the length of the video, the choice of format, the type of proof on display. All of those you apply to your own content, with your own footage and in your own language.
What you may not do, however tempting:
- Download a competitor's video or image and re-upload it, even with a different logo on it.
- Use a competitor's name or logo in the text or the creative, including "the cheap alternative to X".
- Copy ad text word for word, even if you have swapped the business name.
- Adopt a claim that is not true for you. Someone else's "10-year warranty" is their claim, and you will have to stand behind it.
A quick test before you publish: can you point at an existing asset and say "that is theirs"? If so, it is copying. If the result would have been built even without access to the library, it is inspiration.
Parallel libraries: Google and TikTok
Meta is not the only one providing transparency, and when a competitor advertises across several channels it is worth checking them all.
Google. In the Ads Transparency Center you can search for active ads that have been shown on Google by advertiser name or by website address, and choose the region, including Israel. It is the equivalent tool for checking competitors in search and display. How a campaign like that is built in the first place we set out in our guide to Google campaign management.
TikTok. In the Top Ads library in the Creative Center you can go through high-performing auction ads, filter by region, campaign objective, language and format, and sort by CTR or reach. One important difference from Meta's library: TikTok states explicitly that the ads displayed there are limited to those advertisers have authorised for display, which makes it an inspiration library rather than a full record of everything running.
What Simple Web does about it
Simple Web is an AI-first marketing agency from Bnei Brak, certified Meta partners and Google advertising experts, working with 200+ businesses and holding 35 five-star Google reviews. In our paid social service, library research is a fixed part of the start: before we upload a first ad, we go through the competitors in the sector and the area, document the offers that are running and the formats, and build the first test angles out of them. It is worth saying what we do not do with it: we do not replicate anybody's creative.
Further down the road we return to the library once a quarter, because offers in the market move. You get a monthly report showing what each lead costs, and the ad account is opened in your name and stays in your ownership. We produce the videos and images ourselves, combining studio work and AI tools, and not out of what we saw at a competitor's.
Summary
The Facebook ad library is the best free research tool a small business has, provided you know what it actually shows: active ads, a start date and platforms, not budgets or results. Choose Israel, choose "All ads", search by Page, and record the findings in a single table. Then take the structure rather than the files, and build your own version. Want us to go over your competitors and see what is running in your market right now? Book a free diagnostic call with us.
Sources
- Meta: What is the Meta Ad Library and how do I search it: what is shown for all ads versus political ads, the search steps, the filters and the seven-year retention of political ads
- Meta Ad Library: the tool itself, free entry and choosing a country
- Google: Ads Transparency Center: searching an advertiser's or a site's active ads, with a region selector
- TikTok Creative Center: Top Ads: filtering auction ads by region, objective, language and format, and the clarification that the display is limited to ads authorised by advertisers
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