Guides

Ad Library Guides

Four ad libraries get searched constantly and understood only loosely: Meta's, Facebook's, Google's Ads Transparency Center and TikTok's Commercial Content Library. Each guide below covers one archive properly — how to search it, what its filters actually control, and where its research runs out.

How to use these guides

One archive, one guide, no guesswork

Ad transparency tools look similar from a distance — a search box, a grid of creatives, a few filters — but the details that matter for research differ from platform to platform: what counts as a political ad, how long a listing stays up, whether you can search by keyword or only by advertiser. Treating them as interchangeable is how people miss what they're actually looking for.

Pick the guide for the platform you're researching. If you're new to ad transparency research altogether, start with the Meta guide — its archive is the oldest of the four and the one the others borrowed conventions from.

Each guide ends the same way: once you've found the pattern you're looking for — an angle, an offer structure, a visual style — the next step is making your own version of it. That's what the tool on this site is for.

Read the archive, generate the ad here instead

These guides tell you what's out there. When you've found the pattern worth reusing, skip the manual mockup and generate the ad directly.

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Questions

Before you dig in

Are these four separate ad libraries?

Three are: Meta operates one archive that also happens to be reachable from Facebook's own help pages (hence two guides), Google runs a separate Ads Transparency Center, and TikTok runs its own Commercial Content Library. Meta's and Facebook's guides cover the same tool from two entry points.

Do I need an account to search any of them?

No. All four are public tools — no login, no advertiser account, no approval process to browse what's published.

Which one should I check first?

Whichever platform your competitor or category actually advertises on. If you don't know yet, Meta's archive has the deepest history and the widest reach, so it's a reasonable default.

Can this site search those archives for me?

No — this site doesn't index, mirror or search anyone else's ad library. It's a generator: you describe the ad you want and it makes one, informed by whatever research you've already done.

Keep exploring

AdLibrary.net is an independent ad generation tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn, X or Pinterest. Platform names are used only to describe the ad formats the generator renders for.