See which Facebook Ads are running and level-up your ad strategy
The Facebook Ad Library is here! In an effort to be more transparent, Facebook has launched a new feature that allows you to see exactly which ads are being shown.
The aptly-named Facebook Ad Library is a one-stop destination for all active ads currently running on the Facebook platform.
No longer do you have to go into each page individually see which ads are running, you can find them all on this website.
The Facebook Ad Library Uses:
- General curiosity and interest in what ads are being shown where (transparency)
- Marketing strategy: discover which copy/images/strategy seems to be trending amongst your peers and/or competitors.
For digital marketers, our main use of the website is to see what ad formats and copywriting seems to be trending.
We can view pages of our client’s competitors and gain insights into their overall marketing objectives.
Note, we don’t have access to any competitor’s statistics but we make a reasonable assumption that the accounts we look at are only running ads that are working for them.
By the same token, the website allows you to see inactive ads as well. It is worthwhile to check inactive ads in the sense that these ads might hold clues as to what doesn’t work.
Remember, you are not able to see all the targeting details at this point, but this is a big step forward for Facebook and there will probably be more features added in the future.
We also want to stress that the intention of the ads library is for education and transparency.
It is not a place to steal ideas and plagiarise. You have been warned.
How to use the Facebook Ads Library
We’ve broken it down into 4 ridiculously simple steps:
- Website
- Search
- Filter by
- Review
Step 1: Website
Go onto the library here.
Step 2: Search
In the search bar, type in a name, topic or organisation.
We used ourselves, Big Domino Marketing as an example:
Here is a snapshot of what Facebook returned on the search:
You can also click on “Page Transparency” for more information about the page itself.
3. Filter by
Using the filter options, you can select by area, active or inactive ads.
It can be quite interesting to see how ads differ according to country!
4. Review
Take a look at the results you get and filter some more to view other options.
Be sure to check active vs inactive ads and ads across different countries.
Take note of what seems to be a recurring theme, trend or feature of the ads.
The takeaway
We love that we no longer have to go onto Facebook pages one by one to click the “Info and Ads” section to see what ads are running.
The Facebook Ads Library is a cool tool to see what ads are running where and what seems to be working the best.
Have fun checking out your competition, and get loads of ideas for your next ad campaign.
