The Facebook Ad Library Is Free. Here Is How to Actually Use It.

Go to facebook.com/ads/library. Select your country and category. For most media buyers, pick "All ads" to see everything. You do not need a Facebook account to search, but being logged in helps.

Type a brand name in the search bar. You will see every active ad they run. Sort by newest or filter by platform (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network). This is the fastest way to spy on a specific competitor.

Search keywords related to your product. "Dog food" shows every ad mentioning dog food. "Weight loss" shows that niche. The results are not great for broad terms but work well for specific products.

Switch the country filter to see what ads run in different markets. An ad killing it in the UK might work in the US. Or vice versa. Cross-market research is an underused advantage.

Each ad shows when it started running. If an ad has been live for 30+ days, it is profitable. Ads that lose money get killed fast. Longevity is the best indicator of a winner.

Look at the image or video. Read the copy. Check the headline and CTA. Note the format (single image, carousel, video). Ask: what hook are they using? What emotion does this trigger? What is the offer?

Screenshot the ad or copy the link. Save it in Notion, Foreplay, or a Google Drive folder. Tag it by niche, format, and what caught your eye. Your swipe file is only useful if it is organized.

Brands often run 5-20 variations of the same concept. Scroll through all of them. See what they test: different hooks, different images, different CTAs. This tells you their creative testing strategy.

The Ad Library shows you ads. That is it. No performance data. No landing pages. No copy analysis. No AI generation. For that, you need a proper ad research tool that turns what you find into ads you can run.