Facebook Ads Library Creative Scraper

An Apify Actor that scrapes commercial ad creatives from Meta Ads Library using Playwright browser automation with live GraphQL response interception — bypassing the official API restriction that hides commercial ads.

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Why This Actor Exists

The official Meta Ads Library API only exposes political, social issue, housing, employment, and credit ads. Commercial ads — the most valuable category for competitive intelligence — are intentionally hidden from the API.

This Actor solves that by opening the actual Ads Library web UI in a real Chromium browser, then intercepting the live GraphQL responses that Facebook's own JavaScript fires to load the ad cards. You get exactly what the UI shows, parsed into clean structured JSON.

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Key Features

• Full commercial creative access: Captures brand ads that the official API never returns.
• Dual search modes: Search by keyword/brand OR browse all ads from a specific Facebook Page ID.
• Rich creative data: Images, videos, carousels with per-card data, CTA type, ad copy, link title/description.
• Audience insights: Spend estimates, impression ranges, demographic distribution, regional delivery, EU DSA reach.

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Input Parameters

Field	Type	Description	Default
start_url	String	Direct URL from the Facebook Ads Library with search filters. If provided, other filters are ignored.	""
search_query	String	Keyword or brand name to search	""
country	String	ISO 2-letter country code or "ALL"	"ALL"
ad_type	String	ALL, POLITICAL_AND_ISSUE_ADS, HOUSING_ADS, EMPLOYMENT_ADS, CREDIT_ADS	"ALL"
active_status	String	ALL, ACTIVE, INACTIVE	"ALL"
media_type	String	ALL, image, meme, video, none	"ALL"
page_ids	Array<String>	Filter by specific Facebook Page IDs	null
date_preset	String	ALL, last_7_days, last_30_days, last_90_days	"ALL"
max_ads	Integer	Maximum ad creatives to collect	100
scroll_pause_ms	Integer	Pause between scroll steps in ms (increase for slow connections)	2000

Input Example — Direct Start URL

{
  "start_url": "https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=active&ad_type=all&country=US&q=nike&media_type=video",
  "max_ads": 150
}

Input Example — Keyword Search

{
  "search_query": "Nike",
  "country": "US",
  "active_status": "ACTIVE",
  "media_type": "video",
  "max_ads": 200
}

Input Example — Scrape All Ads from a Specific Page

{
  "page_ids": ["123456789"],
  "active_status": "ALL",
  "max_ads": 500
}

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Output Data Structure

Each record in the Dataset represents a detailed ad archive object exactly matching the Meta Ads Library GraphQL schema.

Sample Output (JSON)

[
  {
    "ad_archive_id": "1702938977100376",
    "collation_count": null,
    "collation_id": null,
    "is_active": true,
    "page_id": "15087023444",
    "page_is_deleted": false,
    "snapshot": {
      "branded_content": null,
      "page_id": "15087023444",
      "page_is_deleted": false,
      "page_profile_uri": "https://www.facebook.com/nike/",
      "root_reshared_post": null,
      "byline": null,
      "disclaimer_label": null,
      "page_name": "Nike",
      "page_profile_picture_url": "https://scontent.fdnk2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/...",
      "event": null,
      "caption": "itunes.apple.com",
      "cta_text": "Install now",
      "cards": [
        {
          "body": "Bring sports more fully into your day with the Nike App.",
          "cta_type": "INSTALL_MOBILE_APP",
          "caption": "itunes.apple.com",
          "link_description": "₱5,039",
          "link_url": "https://www.nike.com/ph/t/...",
          "title": "Cosmic Unity 3 Basketball Shoes",
          "cta_text": "Install Now",
          "original_image_url": "https://scontent.fdnk2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/...",
          "resized_image_url": "https://scontent.fdnk2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/...",
          "watermarked_resized_image_url": ""
        }
      ],
      "body": {
        "text": "Bring sports more fully into your day with the Nike App."
      },
      "cta_type": "INSTALL_MOBILE_APP",
      "display_format": "DPA",
      "link_description": null,
      "link_url": "http://itunes.apple.com/app/id1095459556",
      "images": [],
      "page_categories": [
        "Sportswear",
        "Product/service"
      ],
      "page_like_count": 39551236,
      "title": "{{product.name}}",
      "videos": [],
      "is_reshared": false
    },
    "has_user_reported": false,
    "report_count": null,
    "menu_items": [],
    "state_media_run_label": null,
    "page_name": "Nike",
    "impressions_with_index": {
      "impressions_text": null,
      "impressions_index": -1
    },
    "gated_type": "ELIGIBLE",
    "categories": [
      "UNKNOWN"
    ],
    "is_aaa_eligible": false,
    "contains_digital_created_media": false,
    "reach_estimate": null,
    "currency": "",
    "spend": null,
    "end_date": "1788073200",
    "publisher_platform": [
      "FACEBOOK",
      "INSTAGRAM",
      "AUDIENCE_NETWORK",
      "MESSENGER"
    ],
    "start_date": "1744009200",
    "contains_sensitive_content": false,
    "total_active_time": null,
    "regional_regulation_data": {
      "finserv": {
        "is_deemed_finserv": false,
        "is_limited_delivery": false
      },
      "tw_anti_scam": {
        "is_limited_delivery": false
      }
    },
    "hide_data_status": "NONE",
    "fev_info": null,
    "ad_id": null,
    "targeted_or_reached_countries": [],
    "url": "https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=active&ad_type=all&country=ALL&view_all_page_id=15087023444",
    "total": 3357,
    "position": 1,
    "ads_count": 1,
    "start_date_formatted": "2025-04-07 07:00:00",
    "end_date_formatted": "2026-08-30 07:00:00",
    "ad_library_url": "https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?id=1702938977100376",
    "scraped_at": "2026-08-30T15:54:48.621419+00:00"
  }
]

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Common Use Cases

• Competitive intelligence: Monitor competitors' ad strategies, messaging, and creative formats.
• Creative research: Find winning ad creatives in your niche for inspiration and benchmarking.
• Spend tracking: Estimate competitor budgets based on spend range metadata.
• Audience analysis: Understand demographic targeting through distribution data.
• Creative library building: Build searchable repositories of brand ads for analysis.
• Agency reporting: Deliver creative performance benchmarks to clients.