Twitter ads library: how to use the X Ads Repository

The Twitter ads library is now the X Ads Repository, at ads.x.com/ads-repository. X launched it in 2023 to meet the EU's Digital Services Act, and it only covers ads served in the EU. You search for an advertiser, pick a country and a date range, and X builds a downloadable report rather than showing you the ads on screen.

It is the weakest of the major ad libraries. It is still the only public record of what a competitor runs on X, so here is how to get the most out of it.

What the Twitter ads library includes

According to X's help centre, the repository holds, for ads served in the EU:

• The advertiser, the account that ran the ad.
• The funding entity, who paid for it.
• The main targeting parameters the advertiser chose.
• Impressions and reach.
• Information on ads that were halted from running on the platform.

Where an ad was paid for by credit card, X withholds the name of the person paying to protect their privacy. You can request it through a form linked from the help page.

The repository page also offers a single download of X's full commercial communications dataset, separate from the advertiser search.

How to search the X Ads Repository

1. Open the repository. The page opens without signing in.
2. Search for the advertiser by their X account.
3. Choose the country. The menu offers "Entire EU" or any single EU country. It opens with France selected, so change it.
4. Choose the dates. Presets cover today, yesterday, the last 7 days, this quarter, last quarter and this year, or you can pick a custom range on the calendar.
5. Click Create report. X warns that it may take a while, depending on how wide your search is.
6. Download the file and open it in a spreadsheet.

Several handles. Brands sometimes advertise from more than one account, such as a main brand handle and a regional or product one. The repository searches one account at a time, so list every handle a competitor uses before you start.

If the file is blank, X says that may mean the advertiser served no ads in that period and country. Before you conclude they do not advertise, widen the dates to "This year" and set the country to Entire EU.

For larger pulls, the same report is available through the API. X's help page walks through it: create a developer account, create an app to get a bearer token, request an export for an account, country and date range, then check its status until the file is ready.

How to read the report

Expect to work in a spreadsheet, not scroll through a gallery. Four things are worth pulling out for each competitor.

How many ads, and when. Count the rows, then pull the same report for each of the last few months. A sudden jump in one month usually means a launch or a sale.

The funding entity. If it differs from the advertiser, the ads may be bought by an agency or a parent company. That can tell you who buys their media.

The targeting. The main parameters show who they want: locations, and the audience choices X records. Compare them with the customer you think they are chasing.

Impressions against reach. Divide one by the other to get frequency. A high frequency on a small reach usually means retargeting or a tightly targeted push. A low frequency on a big reach looks like awareness spending.

Why it is the weakest of the major libraries

Be clear about the limits before you spend an afternoon on it.

The old political ads archive does not help either. X still offers downloads of political ads from May 2018 to November 2019, and US issue ads from August 2018 to November 2019, but nothing newer for political ads in that archive.

The upside is detail. For EU ads you get the funding entity, the targeting and the reach, which is more than Google shows for ads outside Europe.

Seeing a competitor's X ads outside the EU

There is no complete way. These are the realistic options.

Watch their own account. Ads on X are posts, and some of them began as ordinary posts on the brand's account. A post with unusually high engagement for that account is worth a second look.

Check whether X matters to them. If X barely registers in a competitor's traffic sources, their X ads are a small line in their budget and not worth hours of yours.

Look at the platforms that are worldwide. If you sell to businesses, the LinkedIn ad library covers ads in every country and is the more useful check for B2B.

Paid ad spy tools. Few cover X. Test with a competitor you already know before you pay.

When X ads research is worth the effort

If your buyers spend their working day on X, check your two or three closest rivals once a quarter. Pull a report for "This year" and "Entire EU", note the ad count, the targeting and the frequency, and move on.

If your buyers are not there, check once, confirm your competitors are not advertising, and stop. Time spent on X ads research is better spent on Google and Meta for almost every small business. For how X fits alongside the other platforms, see how to monitor competitor social media and the full list of ad libraries.

A note on Figo

Figo does not cover X or Twitter. It reads the Google, Meta and TikTok ad libraries for each competitor once a week, so for X the repository above is the tool, and it is free.