TikTok Ad Library and Creative Center: how to use both

TikTok has two places to see ads, and they answer different questions. The TikTok Ad Library at library.tiktok.com/ads is a transparency archive: search an advertiser and see their ads, dates and reach. Creative Center Top Ads is an inspiration gallery of high-performing ads, ranked and filterable by industry and objective.

The catch that most guides skip: the Ad Library only covers ads shown in Europe. Its country list is the EEA countries plus Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom. If your competitor only advertises in the US, Canada or Australia, the Ad Library will show you nothing, and Creative Center becomes the only official window.

How to search the TikTok Ad Library

The Ad Library is part of TikTok's Commercial Content Library, which also has an All ads report and an Other commercial content tab.

1. Pick an Ad target country. All countries, or one of the European markets in the list.
2. Set the Last shown date. It defaults to the past month.
3. Type an advertiser name or keyword and press Search.
4. Open Filters to narrow by Ad type (All ad types, Video, Image, Text), Ad status (All statuses, Active, Inactive), Age, Gender and Unique reach.
5. Read the order. Results are sorted by last shown date, newest first.

Each result card shows the advertiser, First shown, Last shown and Unique users seen, a range such as 0 to 1K.

How the search matches

TikTok documents its "fuzzy search" in the library's FAQ, and it explains most of the odd results people get. A search without quotation marks returns up to 5,000 results. It matches the ad's title, the advertiser name, the "paid by" name and the caption text, and ranks ads containing your whole phrase first, then two words, then one. Words match only whole: Care does not match Career.

Two consequences. A keyword search for a brand name returns any ad whose caption mentions it, including resellers and fans. And a result count of exactly 5,000 is the cap, not the true number. To see one competitor's ads, put their name in quotation marks to avoid the fuzzy match, open one of their ads and click See all ads under the advertiser name.

What a TikTok ad's details page shows

This is where the library earns its keep. For an ad shown in the EEA, the details page has three blocks:

Ad summary. First shown, last shown, the advertising objective (Reach, for example) and unique users seen.

Targeting summary. Reach broken down by location, age and gender, then the additional parameters the advertiser set: location, language, high spending power, audience, interest targeting categories, creator interactions, video interactions, device and operating system. Each reads either as a value or "Not used".

Ad. The advertiser, who paid, the advertiser's registered location, the caption, the call to action and the external website linked.

Two limits on that detail. The age and gender split of reach only started in June 2026, so older ads show reach by country alone. And ads shown only in the UK, Switzerland or Turkey get the ad and the basic dates but not the extra EEA transparency.

The objective and targeting lines are the competitive gold. A competitor whose ads all run on a Reach objective with "Not used" everywhere is buying broad awareness. One using video interactions and custom audiences is retargeting people who already watched them.

The All ads report

The All ads report tab takes an advertiser name, a country and a date range, and draws two charts: ads published by country, and ads published by day, counting unique ads with at least one impression. TikTok notes that changes can take up to 48 hours to show there.

The by-day chart is the fastest way to spot a competitor's campaign bursts across whatever date range you set. A spike of new ads in one week is a launch or a sale worth matching against their website.

How to use Creative Center Top Ads

Open Creative Center Top Ads. TikTok describes it as high-performing auction ads, and adds that the ads shown "are limited to those that have been authorized by advertisers". It is a curated gallery, not a record.

The filters:

• Region, including the US.
• Industry.
• Objective: Traffic, App Installs, Conversions, Video Views, Reach, Lead Generation, Product sales.
• Period: last 7, 30 or 180 days.
• Ad Language, Ad Format (Spark ads or Non-Spark ads) and Likes.

Sort by For You, Reach or CTR, or under Others by 2s view rate, 6s view rate, CVR or likes. Each card shows the objective, the industry, likes, a CTR band such as "Top 61%" and a budget level of low, medium or high. Each card has a See analytics link. Logged out you see a first batch, and TikTok asks you to log in for the rest.

There is also a Search by brand or product keywords box, which is worth a try for a competitor's name. If they have not authorised their ads for Creative Center, they will not appear.

What Creative Center is good for

Use it to answer "what works in my category" rather than "what is my competitor doing". Filter to your region, your industry and the Conversions objective, sort by CTR over 30 days, and watch the top ten. Note the first two seconds of each: the hook, whether a person is on screen, whether there is text on the first frame. Then sort by 6s view rate and see which hooks hold attention past the opening.

Spark ads run from an existing organic post, often a creator's. If the top ads in your category are mostly Spark ads, the winning format is a creator talking, not a produced spot.

A monthly TikTok routine

1. If a competitor sells in Europe, search their exact advertiser name in the Ad Library for the last month. Log new ads with first shown date, objective, unique users seen and the website linked.
2. Open the All ads report for them once a quarter and note any spikes.
3. In Creative Center, run the same category filter each month and screenshot the top ten. Over six months you see which formats last.
4. If they only advertise outside Europe, watch their own TikTok account and use the TikTok competitor analysis method, because no free library will show their ads.

If you want this checked every week

Ours, so judge accordingly. Figo reads the TikTok Ad Library once a week for each competitor you track, together with the Google Ads Transparency Center and the Meta Ad Library, and alerts you by email and Slack when new ads appear. Because it reads the same library, it has the same European scope: for a competitor that only runs TikTok ads in the US, Figo will not see them either. Plans start at $49 a month for three competitors, with a 7 day free trial.

For paid tools that index TikTok ads outside Europe, see our TikTok ad spy tools roundup. For how TikTok compares with the other libraries, the ad libraries hub has every platform in one table, and how to see every ad a competitor is running covers Google and Meta alongside TikTok.