Snapchat ads library: how to search Snap's Ads Gallery
The Snapchat ads library is Snap's Ads Gallery, built for EU ads, plus a separate political ads library. How to search both, what they show, and when it is worth it.
Snapchat has two ads libraries. The Snap Ads Gallery, at adsgallery.snap.com, holds commercial ads; its own header says it finds "ads delivered in European Union and other jurisdictions in the last 12 months". The Political and Advocacy Ads Library, at snap.com/political-ads, holds political ads as yearly downloads.
For a competitor's ads, you want the Ads Gallery. It is small and plain, and it has one feature most libraries lack: an exact impression count for every ad.
What the Snapchat ads library covers
The Ads Gallery exists because of the EU's Digital Services Act, which requires large platforms to publish the ads they show in the EU and keep them for a year. The "Shown in" country filter lists EU member states. Snap's header mentions other jurisdictions, but the menu does not name them, so treat it as an EU library.
It has two tabs:
- Ads, the paid ads, searchable by the account that ran them.
- Commercial Content, which Snap's developer documentation describes as organic commercial content that is currently live on Snap.
The gallery opens without a Snapchat account.
How to search the Snap Ads Gallery
- Open the gallery and choose your cookie setting.
- Type the advertiser's name in the search box. Snap asks for the ad publisher's name and warns that the spelling must be exact. In practice a brand name can match the legal entity behind it: a search for "Netflix" returns ads published by "Netflix, Inc.". If nothing comes back, try the legal company name and the agency name.
- Narrow it down. "Shown in" picks a country, Ad Status filters by whether an ad is still running, and the date filter defaults to Anytime.
- Scan the cards. Each shows the ad publisher, the brand advertised, start and end dates, total impressions and an Active label for ads still running.
- Open See Details for the full record.
What each ad shows
| Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Preview | The ad as it appears in the app, including the call to action button and the website it points to |
| Organization Charged | Who paid for the ad |
| Ad Start Date and Ad End Date | When it ran; the end date reads N/A while it is still live |
| Total Impressions | An exact number, not a range |
| Impressions by country | The same total split across the countries it ran in |
| Demographics | The age targeting, such as 18 and over |
| Devices | Any device targeting |
Snap adds a note under the impression figures: they cover the ad's lifetime or the last 12 months for each country, and they are impressions, not unique people.
Why the exact impressions matter
Pinterest gives you reach in bands, and Microsoft gives impressions in ranges. Snap gives you the number.
That makes the Ads Gallery a rare library where you can rank a competitor's ads against each other by exposure. Open every ad from one advertiser, write down the impressions and the start date, and divide one by the other. The ads with the highest impressions per day are the ones they are putting money behind. Those are the ones to study.
A hypothetical example. Say a rival has three live ads:
| Ad | Running for | Total impressions | Per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 60 days | 1,200,000 | 20,000 |
| B | 10 days | 400,000 | 40,000 |
| C | 90 days | 270,000 | 3,000 |
Ad B is the newest and gets twice the daily exposure of anything else, so that is probably where their budget is this month. Ad C has run longest on very little, which looks like a cheap always-on ad rather than a winner.
Two cautions. The figure is impressions in the covered countries only, so a brand that mainly advertises in the US will look small. And impressions measure exposure, not success. A big number on a new ad can be a test with a large budget, not a winner.
The Snap political ads library
The Political and Advocacy Ads Library is a page of downloadable archives, one per year from 2018 to 2026. Snap's business help says these cover all political, issue and advocacy ads with impressions, spend and the paying organisation.
It is useful if you work in politics, campaigning or advocacy, and for spotting which organisations are spending on an issue in your sector. For commercial competitor research it is the wrong tool, because ordinary brand ads are not in it.
Is Snapchat competitor research worth doing?
Usually not as a regular habit. Ask three questions first.
Are your customers on Snapchat? If you sell to people under 25, perhaps. If you sell accountancy software, no.
Does your competitor appear in the gallery at all? Search their name with "Shown in" set to All. If nothing comes back under any name you can think of, either they do not advertise on Snapchat or they only do so outside the EU. Either way, you are done.
Does Snapchat send them traffic? Checking a competitor's traffic sources tells you whether Snapchat registers. If it does not, their Snapchat ads are a small line in their budget.
If all three answers point to yes, a check once a quarter is plenty. Note the number of active ads, the top three by impressions per day, and the website each one points to. If the same competitor is also on TikTok, the TikTok ad library guide covers the other platform worth checking for youth-focused brands.
What the Snap Ads Gallery will not tell you
Spend. None for commercial ads.
Detailed targeting. The details panel lists demographics and devices. If you want interests and postcodes, Pinterest's repository is more open than Snap's.
Results. No swipe-ups, clicks or installs.
Ads outside the EU. A US-only advertiser will not appear. Few paid ad spy tools cover Snapchat, so check before you pay; the ad spy tools roundup says which ones are worth a trial.
For every other platform's library, and which matter for your kind of business, see the full list of ad libraries.
A note on Figo
Figo does not cover Snapchat ads. It reads the Google, Meta and TikTok ad libraries for each competitor once a week. For Snapchat, the Ads Gallery above is the tool, and it is free.
Questions people ask
Is there a Snapchat ads library for US ads?
Not for commercial ads. The Ads Gallery's country filter lists EU countries. Political and advocacy ads are the exception, published in Snap's Political and Advocacy Ads Library as yearly downloads.
Can I see how much a competitor spends on Snapchat?
No. The Ads Gallery shows impressions, not spend. Snap publishes spend only for political and advocacy ads.
What is the difference between Ad Publisher and Brand Advertised?
The publisher is the account that ran the ad, often a legal entity or an agency. Brand Advertised is the brand being promoted, and it is sometimes left blank.
How far back does the Snap Ads Gallery go?
Twelve months. Snap describes it as ads delivered in the last 12 months, and an ad's impression total covers its lifetime or the last 12 months.
See it on your own competitors
Figo checks their ads, pages, rankings and reviews every week, then tells you what to do in plain words. Set up in two minutes.
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