You spot a competitor's ad in the library and the first question is: is this ad working? The answer matters, because you are about to either carry the idea into your own ad or put it in a report as "the competitor's strongest ad".
The honest starting point: the Meta Ad Library does not publish spend, impressions, clicks or sales for commercial ads. Nobody can show you from the library that a competitor's ad is profitable. What we can show you are signals read from the advertiser's own behaviour. One by one they are weak; read together they make a strong estimate.
This article covers what each signal tells you and what it does not. The short version is our winning ad checklist.
1. Running time: how many days has the ad been live?
AdVantage Scope writes on every card how many days the ad has been running. The library shows this as a start date; the extension does the counting for you.
What it tells you: Advertisers do not usually keep paying for an ad that does not work. An ad that has been on for weeks or months is most likely working for the advertiser.
What it does not tell you: Running time does not show the budget. An ad that has been on for a long time may also be sitting on the side with a small budget. Do not treat time as proof on its own; read it with the signals below. We cover finding long-running ads in a separate article.
2. Status: is the ad still live?
The card badge has four stages: Test, Growth, Winner and Ended.
- Test: the ad has just gone live and the advertiser is still testing it.
- Growth: it has passed the test stage and is still live.
- Winner: it has been live for 45 days or more and is still active.
- Ended: it passed the test stage but has been taken down.
What it tells you: If one of two ads of the same age is Winner and the other is Ended, the difference is the advertiser's decision. They kept one on and switched the other off. A switched-off ad does not count as a winner, however long it lived.
What it does not tell you: Why an ad was switched off. The season may have ended, the stock may have run out, or the ad may have been replaced by a new version.
To filter cards by stage, use the Stage filter; it also works on the Starter plan.
3. Variations: how many ads use the same creative?
Some cards carry a variation badge. Hover over it and the extension shows how many different ads share this creative and copy; if the number cannot be read, it says the ad has multiple creative variations.
What it tells you: If the advertiser uses the same creative and copy in several ads, they are running that idea in several places. When a long running time and many variations appear together, the signal gets stronger.
What it does not tell you: Which variation works better. We cover how to tell whether a competitor is scaling an ad in our variations article. Filtering cards by variation count is on the Pro plan.
4. Button: what does the ad ask people to do?
The card shows the ad's button: Shop Now, Learn More, Sign Up and the like.
What it tells you: Buttons like Shop Now, Buy Now and Order Now go straight to a sale. A sales-button ad that stays on for a long time says something different from a lead-collecting ad that stays on for a long time: the first one is most likely bringing in direct sales.
What it does not tell you: How many clicks the button gets. A lead-collecting ad may also be doing its job in the advertiser's funnel; do not weigh it on the same scale as a sales ad.
The summary counter at the top of the panel adds up the scan's ads with a Shop Now, Buy Now or Order Now button; it shows you how much of the search goes straight to a sale. To filter cards by button, the Button Filter is on the Starter plan.
5. Landing address: where does the ad go?
Under the card you see the domain the ad links to; click it and the landing address opens. If the address contains a product (/products/) or collection (/collections/) path, or sits on a Shopify domain, the card shows a Shopify badge; the Shopify Type filter separates the ads that go to a product page from those that go to a collection page.
What it tells you: An ad that goes to a single product page shows that the advertiser is pushing that product. If several long-lived ads go to the same product page, the competitor is investing in that product.
What it does not tell you: The page's conversion rate. Open the page and look at the price, the offer and the reviews yourself.
6. Comparison: put it next to the competitor's own ads
Instead of reading an ad on its own, place it next to the competitor's other ads. Type the competitor's domain into Search card text, then set Sort to Longest Running.
- If the ad you are looking at is at the top of the list, it is one of the ideas the competitor has kept the longest.
- If it sits in the middle and the competitor's other ads live much longer, it is an ordinary ad.
- If the list has several Ended versions of the same creative, the competitor may have tried the idea and dropped it.
Read the signals together
One signal can mislead. A strong estimate is when the signals point the same way:
- the Winner badge, meaning a long run and still active,
- several variations,
- a sales button,
- an address that goes to a specific product page,
- a high place in the competitor's own list.
If all five show up together, this ad is most likely working for the competitor. If two show up, make a note and look again in a few weeks.
The opposite is information too. A new ad with the Test badge and no variation badge is not a decision yet; the competitor does not know the answer either. Copying it means running the competitor's test for them with your budget. Put it on a list and open the same search again in a few weeks: if it is still live and its badge has changed, the signal gets stronger on its own. If it has been switched off, the competitor has learned something for you and told you for free.
Cost
The Ad Library is free and public. On the extension's free plan you scan 2,000 ads a day, the limit renews in 6-hour windows, and no credit card is required. You can see which plan the stage, button and variation filters are on the pricing page.
To do this with the extension: Winning ad checklist