How to Find Your Competitors' Facebook Ads in 5 Minutes

Five minutes is all you need to pull every active Facebook ad a competitor is running. Here is the exact workflow, written so anyone — marketer, founder, intern — can do it without an account, a credit card, or a single line of code.

Step 1 — Open the Facebook Ad Library

Go to facebook.com/ads/library. You will see a country picker and a search box. The country picker matters: a brand might run ten ads in the US and zero in the UK. Start with the country where you compete.

Step 2 — Find the right page

Type the brand name. Facebook will autosuggest verified pages with a blue checkmark. Pick the official page (be careful — counterfeit pages exist). The Facebook Ad Library now shows every active ad that page is running.

Step 3 — Sort by start date

Click Filters → Date range and look for the oldest still-active ads. Anything running for 60+ days is a proven winner — Meta would have killed it if it weren't converting. These are the ads to model.

Step 4 — Read the variations

Click any ad and pick See ad details. You will see every variation under that campaign. Pay attention to:

• The hook (first 3 seconds of video, first line of copy)
• The offer (free shipping, % off, bundle, BOGO)
• The CTA (Shop Now, Learn More, Sign Up)
• The landing destination (homepage, PDP, quiz, lead form)

Step 5 — Save and compare

The Library has no native save or export. You have three options: screenshot, copy URLs into a Notion table, or use a tool like AdScrape that snapshots every ad daily so you can search history, download creatives, and compare brands side-by-side.

Three common mistakes

1. Searching the wrong country. A US ad does not show up in a UK Library search.
2. Ignoring older ads. The shiny new ad might be a loser by next week.
3. Copying creatives literally. Model the angle, not the exact text.