What you can see
- Every ad a competitor is currently running
- Creative format — static, video, carousel
- Ad copy and messaging
- How long each ad has been live
- How many variants they are running simultaneously
Longevity is the signal
The single most useful field is how long an ad has run. Advertisers pause ads that lose money. An ad running for months is almost certainly profitable. An ad running for three days tells you nothing — it may be about to be switched off. Read the library accordingly: study the long-running ads, ignore the new ones.What to look for
Repeated angles. If three competitors all lead with delivery speed, that is probably what the market responds to. Format concentration. If everyone runs video and you run static, that is worth testing — but test it, do not assume it. Offer structure. Discounts, bundles, free shipping thresholds, guarantees. This tells you the competitive floor you are pricing against. Volume of variants. A competitor running forty creatives is iterating aggressively. That is a signal about their process, and about how fast creative decays in your category.What you cannot see, and must not infer
This is where ad library research usually goes wrong:- Spend. The library does not show budget. A long-running ad is likely profitable; you cannot tell whether it spends £50 or £50,000 a day.
- Performance. No impressions, clicks, or conversion data.
- Targeting. Audiences are not shown.
- Profitability. Longevity implies it, but a well-funded competitor may run unprofitable ads for strategic reasons.
How to use it
Ask directly:Show me what competitors are running in the Meta ad library.
Which of my competitors’ ads have been running longest?
What messaging angles are common across my competitive set?Use the output as input to testing, not as a plan to copy. An ad working for a competitor with different pricing, positioning, and audience may not work for you — and copying creative outright is both legally risky and commercially weak.