How to see every ad a competitor is running on Google, Meta and TikTok
All three ad platforms publish the ads that run on them. Here is where to look, what each library shows and hides, how to read a competitor's ads for their strategy, and how to get it every week without the clicking.
Every major ad platform now publishes the ads running on it. You do not need a tool to see what a competitor is advertising. You need to know where to look and how to read it. This guide covers the free way for each platform, then the Figo way, which is the same three sources read for you every week.
Where the ads are
| Platform | Library | Search by | Shows | Does not show |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google (Search, YouTube, Display, Shopping) | Ads Transparency Center | Advertiser name or website | Every ad an advertiser has shown, the format, the dates it ran, the regions | Spend, keywords, targeting, landing page for many formats |
| Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger) | Meta Ad Library | Page name or keyword, filtered by country | Active ads with creative, copy, landing link, start date, platforms | Spend and reach for ordinary ads (only political and issue ads get those) |
| TikTok | TikTok Ad Library | Advertiser name, keyword, region, date | Ad video, first and last shown dates, target region, rough reach band | Spend, exact targeting |
Google: the Ads Transparency Center
- Open the Ads Transparency Center.
- Type the competitor's website or company name. Pick the verified advertiser from the list. Watch for near-matches: "King Kong" the agency and a toy brand share a name.
- Set the region to the country you sell in, or leave it on all regions to see everything.
- Switch the date range from 30 days to a year to see what they have tested.
What to read for: which formats they use (text ads mean search, video means YouTube, image means Display), how many ads are live at once, and which ads have run for months. An ad that has run for six months is an ad that works.
What it hides: the keywords, the budget, and often the landing page. For text ads you can usually read the landing page from the display URL.
Meta: the Ad Library
- Open the Meta Ad Library.
- Set the country. Meta ads are shown per country, so an Australian competitor's ads only appear when Australia is selected, or when you pick "All".
- Choose "All ads" as the category and type the competitor's Facebook page name.
- Open a few ads and click "See ad details" for the platforms it runs on, the landing page, and the start date.
What to read for: the offer in the first line of copy, the landing page, how many variations they are testing at once, and how long the oldest one has run. Meta is where most small businesses spend, so this is usually the richest library of the three.
What it hides: spend and reach for ordinary ads. Only political and social issue ads show those.
TikTok: the Ad Library
- Open the TikTok Ad Library.
- Set the region and a date range.
- Search by advertiser name. TikTok matches on the advertiser's name, not the website, so try the brand name and the legal name.
What to read for: whether they are on TikTok at all (most service businesses are not), the hook in the first two seconds, and the reach band.
Reading ads for strategy
Counting ads is the easy part. The useful questions are these.
| Question | Where the answer is |
|---|---|
| What offer are they leading with | The first line of the Meta copy and the Google headline |
| Which page do they want people to land on | The landing link in Meta ad details, the display URL in Google text ads |
| What are they testing right now | Ads started in the last two weeks |
| What has worked for them | Ads that have run for three months or more without a pause |
| Where they are spending, roughly | The platform with the most live ads, and the longest running ones |
| Are they targeting a new market | A new region in Google, a new country filter in Meta, a new city in the copy |
The catches
Names, not websites. All three libraries index advertisers by name, not by domain. A business that trades under one name and advertises under another shows up under the second. Meta pages are the most confusing, because a business can run ads from several pages.
Country filters. Meta hides ads that do not run in the selected country. Google's region filter does the same. A competitor that only advertises to tourists in another country can look silent from home.
Counts are ceilings. Big advertisers run hundreds of ads. Google paginates at 40 a page, and most tools only read the first page or two. When a tool shows exactly 40 or 80 ads for a big advertiser, that is the page size, not the true count.
No spend, ever. Libraries show creatives and dates. They do not show money. Every spend figure you see in a tool is an estimate built from ad counts and run lengths.
The Figo way
Figo reads all three libraries for every competitor you add, once on day one and then once a week. For each competitor it shows the ads that are live, the newest creatives with their images and landing pages, which ads started and stopped this week, and how many run on each platform. The Monday briefing turns that into lines like "Started 6 new Google Ads, 4 pointing at /google-ads-agency" with the action next to it. The scan alert email goes out the same day a check finds new ads.
Figo also resolves the naming problem once. It finds the Google advertiser and the Meta page that belong to the competitor's website, remembers them, and uses them on every later check, so the counts do not drift because someone searched a slightly different name. See what that looks like in a sample briefing, or add your competitors and have the first check done before your coffee is cold.
Questions people ask
Can I see how much a competitor spends on ads?
No. None of the three libraries show spend, budgets, bids, targeting or results for ordinary commercial ads. Anyone selling you a competitor's ad spend is estimating it, usually from the number of ads and how long they have run.
Why does a competitor show zero ads when I know they advertise?
Three common reasons. They advertise under a different legal name or page than the website suggests. Their ads run only in a country you did not filter for. Or they use a platform the libraries do not cover, like Bing, LinkedIn in some regions, or programmatic display.
Are the ad libraries legal to use?
Yes. Google, Meta and TikTok publish them on purpose, for transparency. They are public pages anyone can open.
How far back do they go?
Google shows ads from the last 30 days by default and up to a year with a filter. Meta shows active ads, and inactive ones for some categories. TikTok shows ads from the last several months. None of them are a complete history.
See it on your own competitors
Figo checks their ads, pages, rankings, reviews and AI answers every week, then tells you what to do in plain words. Set up in two minutes.
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