How to tell which of a competitor’s Facebook ads are working

What is the one free signal the Ad Library gives you?

The start date. Meta’s Business Help Center lists what a viewer sees under “See ad details,” and the first item is “Active or inactive: The date an ad started running and whether or not it’s currently running.”^[1] For a commercial ad that did not reach the EU, the same page’s table says the dates column “Only includes the date in which the ad started to run” and that archival is “No.”^[1]

That is the whole dataset for a US competitor. Advertisers do not keep paying for losing ads for long, so the age of a live ad is a proxy for whether it earns its spend. A proxy, not a measurement: the library does not say what was spent, whether delivery was continuous, or whether the ad beat a sibling variant.^[8]

How do you see how long a Facebook ad has been running?

Open the competitor’s Page in the Ad Library and read the “Started running on” line on each card. An ad appears there within 24 hours of its first impression.^[3]

1. 1

   Open facebook.com/ads/library

   No account is needed. Set the country to the market you sell in and the ad category to “All ads”.^[3]
2. 2

   Pick the Page, not the keyword

   Type the brand name and choose its Page from the dropdown; a keyword search also returns other advertisers who mention the name. Bookmark the resulting URL.
3. 3

   Filter to active ads

   For a commercial advertiser outside the EU this changes little, since inactive ads are not kept.^[1]
4. 4

   Read the date on each card

   Count the days to today. Note the Library ID too: a relaunched ad gets a new ID and a fresh date.^[7]
5. 5

   Open the details

   “See ad details” shows the full creative and the platforms. When Meta has grouped copies, the button reads “See summary details” and the card says how many ads use the creative and text.^[10]

Write the date down. Because inactive commercial ads vanish, the only way to know an ad ran 70 days and then stopped is to have seen it on day 1 and on day 70. A weekly screenshot is enough.

What do variant counts and run-time thresholds tell you?

Whether the advertiser is still testing, and how far an ad has outlived its cohort. “3 ads use this creative and text” means the same ad is running as three copies, usually in several ad sets; “This ad has multiple versions” means the advertiser gave Meta several images or texts to mix.^[10] Adplexity reads a brand running 40 variations as “in aggressive testing mode” and one running three to five as “likely scaling proven creative.”^[9] Copies count most when the ad is also weeks old: Adligator’s rule is that “3–5 copies on a creative that already has 14+ days is a strong vote.”^[7]

The day thresholds are practitioner rules, not Meta figures. Adplexity says to focus on ads over 30 days and to “spend extra time on ads that you see have been running for 60 to 90 days.”^[9] Adligator put numbers behind the rule by checking 4,634 US ads in August 2026 for how many were still live at each age.^[7]

The platforms line says where the ad is bought: all four Meta surfaces at once means automatic placements, Instagram alone was a deliberate choice.

What can the Ad Library not tell you?

Four things. Results: commercial ads carry no spend, impression or reach data, except in the EU and UK, where the Digital Services Act makes Meta show reach.^[1] History: Meta’s help page says “For all ads, you can search for ads that are currently active,” and inactive ads only “For ads that are about issues, elections or politics,” kept for 7 years.^[2]

Alerts: there is no follow button, saved search, digest or feed; the only “Subscribe to email updates” link on the library’s front page is for Meta’s own news.^[3] Segwise’s 2026 guide: “It does not let you follow a brand. There is no notification, no RSS feed, no watchlist.”^[11]

An API you can use: the Ad Library API covers political ads worldwide for 7 years and “Ads of any type that were delivered to the United Kingdom (UK) or European Union during the past year.”^[4] The developer reference: “Ads that did not reach any location in the EU will only return if they are about social issues, elections or politics.”^[5] A tracker for US commercial ads has to read the public pages.

How do you track competitor ads automatically?

Meta sends no alerts, so you add them, in one of three ways. The manual way is a fixed weekly check: a bookmarked Page URL per competitor, 30 minutes on a Monday, screenshots of every card, and a note of what appeared and disappeared. Free, but a launch can be a week old before you see it.

The second is a page-change monitor. Visualping’s guide describes pasting a competitor’s Ad Library URL into its monitor so it can send “alerts whenever new ads go live or existing ones are updated.”^[12] It says the page changed; you still read the dates yourself.

The third is a tracker that reads the pages for you and keeps what it saw, so the day count survives the ad stopping. Showfolk’s competitor ad tracker checks your named competitors’ Ad Library pages once a day, lists what appeared and stopped, flags any ad that has run 30 days, and drafts a reply ad in your brand.

How do you answer a winning ad without copying it?

Take the structure, not the ad. When a competitor’s ad passes 30 days, write down four things: the hook (the first line of the primary text or the headline on the image), the offer, the proof it leans on, and the format. The photograph, the exact words and the brand colors are theirs; reusing them is a legal risk and a bad ad, because it spends your budget on their recognition.

Then make your own version of the structure. If their winner is a product shot with a one-line guarantee, shoot yours with your guarantee in your typeface. Our guide on recreating an ad style without copying it walks through turning a reference into a layout brief. Showfolk’s tracker writes its reply ad the same way: it reads the flagged ad for angle and offer, then builds a new ad around your product with your logo and headline as real text layers.

One caution. Markifact’s review of 40 competitor ads found 26 had run at least 30 days and 18 at least 60, and still concluded that runtime “does not tell you how much the advertiser spent, whether delivery was continuous, or whether the ad beat another variant.”^[8] Treat a long runner as a strong hypothesis, and let your own account decide.

Questions people ask

How do I see how long a Facebook ad has been running?

Open the Meta Ad Library at facebook.com/ads/library, search the advertiser, pick its Page and read the Started running on date on each card. For commercial ads it is the only date shown, and the ad leaves the library once it stops, so note the date when you first see it.

Does the Meta Ad Library show how much a competitor spends?

Not for ordinary commercial ads. Spend ranges, impressions and reach breakdowns appear only for ads about social issues, elections or politics. Ads delivered to the EU or UK show an estimated reach and targeting selections under the Digital Services Act, but still no spend.

Can I get alerts when a competitor launches a new Facebook ad?

Not from Meta. The Ad Library has no follow, saved-search or notification feature. Check the competitor’s Page URL weekly, put a page-change monitor such as Visualping on it, or use a tracker like Showfolk’s that reads the library once a day and flags ads that have run 30 days.

How long does a competitor ad need to run before it counts as working?

The common practitioner threshold is 30 days, with 60 to 90 days read as a likely top performer. These are rules of thumb, not Meta data. In one August 2026 sample of 4,634 US ads only 6.5% were still running at 30 days and 2.1% at 90.

Can I use the Ad Library API to track US competitor ads?

No. The Ad Library API returns ads about social issues, elections or politics worldwide, plus all ads delivered to the EU or UK in the past year. Commercial ads that never reached the EU or UK are not returned, and access requires the identity confirmation used for political advertisers.

What does ‘3 ads use this creative and text’ mean?

The same ad is running as three separate copies, usually in different ad sets or audiences, and Meta has grouped them on one card. It is a sign the advertiser is testing or scaling that creative, and it means most when the ad is also a few weeks old.

Sources

Every figure above points at one of these. Facts were last checked on October 7, 2026.

1. [1]Meta Business Help Center: About the Meta Ad Library. The “Active or inactive” detail, the table of what is shown per ad type (start date only and no archival for commercial ads; 7 years for political ads; one year after the last impression for EU and UK ads), and the Digital Services Act reason
2. [2]Facebook Help Center: What is the Meta Ad Library and how do I search it?. Active ads only for all ads; inactive ads searchable only for issue, electoral or political ads, stored for 7 years
3. [3]Meta Ad Library (the library’s own front page). Ads appear within 24 hours of the first impression and changes show within 24 hours; the EU and UK one-year scope; the only subscription offered is Meta’s email updates about the library
4. [4]Meta Ad Library API. What the API covers (political ads worldwide for 7 years, all ads delivered to the UK or EU for one year), the identity confirmation at facebook.com/ID, and which fields are political-only
5. [5]Meta for Developers: Graph API reference, ads_archive. “Ads that did not reach any location in the EU will only return if they are about social issues, elections or politics”
6. [6]Meta Transparency Center: Meta Ad Library tools. EU ads displayed while active and archived for one year after the last impression; the API described as covering political ads and ads delivered to the EU
7. [7]Adligator, August 2026: 6 signals a competitor’s Facebook ad is actually winning. Survival data on 4,634 US ads (19.4% at 7 days, 6.5% at 30, 2.1% at 90), the copies-times-age rule, and the start date resetting on relaunch. A vendor’s own measurement, not Meta data
8. [8]Markifact, July 2026: We analyzed 40 competitor ads in the Meta Ad Library. 40 ads from eight brands on July 20, 2026: 26 at 30 or more days, 18 at 60 or more; the caveat that runtime does not show spend, continuity or which variant won
9. [9]Adplexity: How to spy on competitor Facebook ads. The practitioner rules: 30 days as the threshold, 60 to 90 days as likely best performers, 40 variations as testing and three to five as scaling
10. [10]Adship, September 2026: Meta Ad Library, how to search it. The card wording: “Started running on”, “See ad details”, “See summary details” for grouped copies, “3 ads use this creative and text” and “This ad has multiple versions”
11. [11]Segwise, April 2026: How to track competitor ads on Meta. “It does not let you follow a brand. There is no notification, no RSS feed, no watchlist.”
12. [12]Visualping: Monitoring competitor Facebook and Instagram ad libraries. A page-change monitor pointed at an Ad Library URL, with daily or hourly checks