How to find your competitor’s Facebook ads

Finding your competitors’ ads is one of the fastest ways to reverse-engineer their creative strategy, targeting, and potential ad spend.

By keeping an eye on what’s working for them, you can adapt your own campaigns, save time on testing, and stay one step ahead.

In this guide, you’ll learn two straightforward methods, plus some bonus tips to track down competitors’ Facebook ads in minutes.

Find competitor ads in the Facebook ad library

Facebook’s Ad Library was launched in 2019 to provide full transparency into active and inactive ads on its platform. It’s completely free and doesn’t require an account.

This is a great resource to find your competitor’s current ads in one place. There are many guides on the Facebook ad library to help you find winning ads, and analyze competitor ads, -however we’re going to be focused on finding a specific brand’s ads.

Head over to the Facebook ad library

You can visit the ad library from here. No need to signup, its completely open.

Then enter your competitor’s name and select ‘All ads’ in the dropdown to the left. If your comp runs Facebook ads, their name should popup in the list.

Here’s an example of me searching for Bunnings Australia ads:

Now I can go through their ads and figure out their creative strategy, creatives and offers they are running right now.

Here are some of the things I can do with the ad library:

Filter and Sort
- Date range: Narrow down to a timeframe (e.g., “Last 30 days”).
- Ad type: Filter by format, eg: image, video, carousel, etc.
- Platform: See ads running on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or Audience Network.
Analyze Their Creative & Copy
- Note CTAs, imagery styles, and headline formulas.
- Look at engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares) to gauge which ads resonate.
- Click through to their landing page to reverse-engineer their funnel and offer.
Bonus: Export Your Findings
While Facebook doesn’t offer a native export, you can:
- Take screenshots or use browser extensions (e.g., Full Page Screen Capture).
- Manually log ad details in a spreadsheet.
- Automate scraping with Facebook’s Ad Library API for high-volume research.

PS, don’t rely on copying the ad’s link from the library as those links will expire when the ad campaign stops running.

Find ads through your Facebook feed

Sometimes you’re going through your feed and you might stumble upon a really well made ad.

You can get a reference of that ad inside the Facebook ad library and do research on the brand.

Why this works

You discover ads that are hyper-targeted to your exact demographic or interests.
You capture timely promotions and seasonal offers you might otherwise miss.

Here’s how you can find their ads inside the ad library:

For this example, I found this ad in my feed from this agency promoting their off. I’m going to view their ads in the ad library to get a better understanding of what offers they are running right now.

Step 1. Click on the 3 dots on the top right corner of the ad

Step 2. Click on “Why am I seeing this ad?

Step 3. Click on the first button

Step 4. Select the last option in the next screen

Boom! This will open up the ad library page for this brand. Now I can view all their current running ads and check out their offers on their landing pages.

Wrap up

Staying on top of your competitors’ Facebook ads doesn’t have to be time-consuming.

The Ad Library gives you a centralized hub for broad research, while inspecting ads in your feed reveals hyper-targeted campaigns aimed at profiles like yours.

Combine these methods with the bonus tips above to build a dynamic, data-driven ad strategy.

Start uncovering your competitors’ winning ads today—and turn their insights into your next high-ROI campaign.