How to Use the Facebook Ad Library

What it is

One Meta archive, a Facebook-shaped entry point

There's no separate "Facebook Ad Library" product — it's the same archive covered in our Meta guide, reachable at the same facebook.com/ads/library address. The name persists because Facebook's own Page settings and business help center link to it under that label, and because most people researching a competitor start from a Facebook Page, not from Meta's corporate site.

The practical reason to think of it as "the Facebook one" is the Platforms filter: you can narrow every search down to ads eligible to run specifically on Facebook Feed, Facebook Reels, Facebook Marketplace or Facebook video feeds, excluding Instagram and Messenger placements entirely.

Everything else — the data fields, the disclosure rules, the seven-year retention for political ads — is identical to Meta's Ad Library, because it's not a different system underneath.

How to search it

Finding a specific advertiser's ads

The workflow is the same advertiser-first search as the general Meta archive, with one extra filter step to isolate Facebook placements.

1. 1

   Go to facebook.com/ads/library

   No separate URL exists for a "Facebook-only" version — you reach it through the same entry point and filter down from there.

2. 2

   Search the Page name

   Type the advertiser's Facebook Page name. Results match on Page identity, so a misspelled or outdated brand name won't surface anything.

3. 3

   Set Platforms to Facebook

   Under filters, restrict Platforms to Facebook to drop Instagram- and Messenger-only creative from the results — useful when a brand runs very different creative per surface.

4. 4

   Set the country

   As with the general archive, results are scoped to one country per search; the same ad can appear under multiple countries with different variants.

5. 5

   Check the Page itself, not just the ad

   Each result links back to the advertiser's Facebook Page, which is worth a look for how they've positioned themselves beyond the ad creative alone.

6. 6

   Open the detail view for issue/political ads

   As on the general archive, only the issue-and-political category shows spend ranges and audience breakdowns; ordinary product ads don't.

7. 7

   Track what you find manually

   No saved searches or bookmarking exists here either — keep your own notes on angle, offer and visual style as you go.

Filters

What the filters actually do

Platforms is the filter unique to thinking about this as "the Facebook library" — it limits eligible surfaces to Facebook Feed, Reels, Marketplace and video feeds, dropping Instagram and Messenger from the result set.

Country still scopes results to one market at a time, matched to where the ad was served rather than where the advertiser is headquartered — identical behavior to the wider Meta archive.

Ad category still switches between "All ads" (no spend or audience data) and the political/issue category (spend ranges, age, gender and region breakdowns) — this split isn't affected by which platform filter you've applied.

Limits

What you cannot do with it

Same three gaps as the general Meta archive, worth restating for the Facebook-specific search path:

• You cannot export results.

  No CSV, no public API — screenshots and manual notes are the only way to keep what you find.

• You cannot see spend on ordinary product ads.

  Filtering to Facebook-only doesn't add performance data; that field simply doesn't exist outside the political/issue category.

• You cannot generate creative here.

  It's a read-only record of ads that already ran. Building something new from what you've seen happens elsewhere.

What comes next

A faster workflow for making the ad

Narrowing to Facebook-only placements is useful when you're specifically planning a Feed or Reels campaign and don't want Instagram-style creative skewing your read of what's working. Once you've isolated the pattern, though, the archive's job is done.

Describe the offer, product or hook you want below and generate the ad directly, sized for Facebook Feed from the start — no manual resizing from an Instagram-shaped mockup.

FAQ

Facebook Ad Library, answered