Facebook Ads Library Scraper - Meta & Instagram Ads

Scrape the Facebook Ad Library (Meta Ad Library) and get every ad that Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads, WhatsApp and Audience Network show for a keyword, an advertiser page or an Ad Library URL. Get the ad copy, headline, call to action, landing page, image and video URLs, carousel cards, platforms and run dates for each ad. For political and issue ads, also get the spend, impressions, reach and "Paid for by" disclaimer.

Search any country, or all countries at once. Filter by ad status, category, media type, platform, language and date. Download the ads as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read them from the API.

No Facebook account. No login. No coding needed.

What does Facebook Ads Library Scraper do?

• Keyword search — find ads that contain any of your words, or an exact phrase, the same as the Ad Library search box.
• Advertiser search — get all ads of one or more Facebook pages, for example every ad your competitor runs now.
• Ad Library URLs — paste a search you built on facebook.com/ads/library, and the scraper uses its filters.
• Many searches in one run — give a list of keywords, page IDs and URLs. Each one is a separate search, and each ad tells you which search found it.
• Creatives — image URLs, HD video URLs, video previews and every card of carousel and dynamic ads.
• Political ad transparency — spend range, impressions range, reach estimate and the "Paid for by" disclaimer that Meta publishes for political, election and issue ads.
• Filters — country (or all countries), active or inactive ads, ad category, media type (image, video, meme or text only), platform, language and the dates the ads were shown.

Why scrape the Facebook Ad Library?

• Competitor research — see every ad a competitor runs, which creatives they keep running, and when they start a new campaign.
• Creative inspiration and swipe files — collect winning hooks, headlines, offers and calls to action in your niche before you spend money on tests.
• E-commerce and dropshipping — find products with ads that have run for months, a strong sign that they sell.
• Agencies — monitor the ads of all your clients and their competitors on a schedule, and report changes.
• Political and election research — track spend, reach and sponsors of political and issue ads, by country and by date.
• Market and brand monitoring — find out who advertises on your brand name or your keywords, in any country and language.
• AI and data projects — give fresh ad copy to an LLM to find angles, summarize campaigns or build a creative database.

How to scrape the Facebook Ad Library

1. Open the scraper in Apify Console and click Try for free.
2. Enter one or more Search keywords, for example nike or running shoes. You can also enter Advertiser page IDs or paste Ad Library URLs.
3. Select the Country. Select All countries to search everywhere.
4. Set the optional filters: ad status, ad category, media type, platforms, languages, dates and sort order.
5. Set Maximum ads per search.
6. Click Start. The run log shows the progress of each search.
7. When the run finishes, open the Output tab, or download the ads as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML.

How to find the page ID of an advertiser

Open the Facebook Ad Library, search for the advertiser and click its name. The URL of the page that opens contains view_all_page_id= followed by a number. That number is the page ID. You can also paste that whole URL into Ad Library URLs. Each ad in the output also has a pageId, so you can find all ads of an advertiser that an earlier keyword search found.

Input

Field	Description	Default
searchQueries	Keywords or advertiser names to search for. Each keyword is one search.	—
pageIds	Facebook page IDs of advertisers. Each page is one search.	—
adLibraryUrls	Search or advertiser URLs from facebook.com/ads/library. Each URL is one search. Filters in the URL are used; other filters come from the fields below.	—
searchType	keyword (any of the words) or exact_phrase.	keyword
country	Two-letter country code, for example US, GB, DE, IN, or ALL for all countries.	US
activeStatus	active, inactive or all.	active
adType	all, political_and_issue_ads, housing_ads, employment_ads or financial_products_and_services_ads.	all
mediaType	all, image, video, meme or none (text only).	all
platforms	Any of facebook, instagram, messenger, audience_network, threads, whatsapp. Empty means all platforms.	all
languages	Two-letter language codes, for example en, es, de, ja. Empty means all languages.	all
dateFrom, dateTo	Get only ads that were shown in this date range (YYYY-MM-DD).	—
sortBy	impressions (most impressions first) or newest.	impressions
maxAdsPerSearch	Maximum number of ads for each search (1 to 100,000).	100

You must give at least one keyword, page ID or URL.

Input examples

All active ads of two advertisers (Nike and Foot Locker) in the United States, newest first:

{
    "pageIds": ["15087023444", "67997232685"],
    "country": "US",
    "sortBy": "newest",
    "maxAdsPerSearch": 500
}

Video ads in Spanish that mention an exact phrase in Mexico, shown in September 2026:

{
    "searchQueries": ["envío gratis"],
    "searchType": "exact_phrase",
    "country": "MX",
    "mediaType": "video",
    "languages": ["es"],
    "activeStatus": "all",
    "dateFrom": "2026-09-01",
    "dateTo": "2026-09-30"
}

Political ads about an election, with spend and reach:

{
    "searchQueries": ["election", "vote"],
    "country": "US",
    "adType": "political_and_issue_ads",
    "activeStatus": "all",
    "maxAdsPerSearch": 1000
}

Output

Each ad is one item in the dataset. This is a shortened example:

{
    "adArchiveId": "2958021017868670",
    "snapshotUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?id=2958021017868670",
    "pageId": "112036763854033",
    "pageName": "Friends of Sunset Dunes",
    "pageProfileUri": "https://www.facebook.com/friendsofoceanbeachpark/",
    "isActive": true,
    "startDate": "2026-09-18T07:00:00.000Z",
    "endDate": "2026-10-04T07:00:00.000Z",
    "platforms": ["FACEBOOK", "INSTAGRAM"],
    "categories": ["POLITICAL"],
    "bodyText": "Proposition G would destroy Sunset Dunes...",
    "title": "Vote NO on G to Save Sunset Dunes Park",
    "ctaText": "Learn more",
    "ctaType": "LEARN_MORE",
    "linkUrl": "https://savesunsetdunes.org/",
    "displayFormat": "DCO",
    "imageCount": 0,
    "videoCount": 4,
    "cardCount": 4,
    "imageUrls": [],
    "videoUrls": ["https://video.xx.fbcdn.net/..."],
    "videoPreviewImageUrls": ["https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/..."],
    "cards": [
        {
            "title": "Vote NO on G to Save Sunset Dunes Park",
            "body": "Proposition G would destroy Sunset Dunes...",
            "linkUrl": "https://savesunsetdunes.org/",
            "ctaText": "Learn more",
            "imageUrl": null,
            "videoUrl": "https://video.xx.fbcdn.net/..."
        }
    ],
    "pageLikeCount": 1541,
    "paidForBy": "No on G, Save Sunset Dunes Park, sponsored by Friends of Sunset Dunes",
    "spend": "$8K-$9K",
    "currency": "USD",
    "impressionsText": ">1M",
    "reachEstimate": "500K-1M",
    "containsAiContent": false,
    "searchTerm": "vote",
    "searchType": "keyword",
    "searchCountry": "US",
    "searchUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=active&ad_type=political_and_issue_ads&country=US&media_type=all&q=vote&search_type=keyword_unordered",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-04T13:01:56.000Z"
}

You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel. The Output tab has three views: Ads (copy, CTA and dates), Creatives (images, videos and cards) and Spend and reach (political and regulated ads).

Output fields

Field	Description
adArchiveId, snapshotUrl	Ad Library ID of the ad and the public link that shows it
pageId, pageName, pageProfileUri, pageProfilePictureUrl	The advertiser page
isActive, startDate, endDate	Status and run dates. For an active ad, endDate is the most recent day
platforms	Where the ad runs: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads, WhatsApp, Audience Network
bodyText, title, caption, linkDescription	The ad copy
ctaText, ctaType, linkUrl	Call to action and landing page
displayFormat	Image, video, carousel, dynamic (DCO), catalog (DPA) or text
imageUrls, videoUrls, videoPreviewImageUrls, cards	The creative: media links and carousel cards
imageCount, videoCount, cardCount	Number of images, videos and cards
collationCount	Number of ads that use the same creative
pageLikeCount, pageCategories	Size and category of the advertiser page
categories	Ad Library categories, for example POLITICAL or EMPLOYMENT
paidForBy, spend, currency, impressionsText, reachEstimate	Transparency data. Meta publishes it for political and issue ads, and reach for some other regulated ads
containsAiContent	Meta labels the creative as AI-generated or digitally created
searchTerm, searchType, searchCountry, searchUrl	The search that found the ad
scrapedAt	When the run collected the ad

Run summary

Each run also saves a SUMMARY record in the key-value store. It shows the number of ads and the result of each search, for example max_ads (the limit was reached), end_of_results (all ads were collected), no_results or charge_limit (the run reached your maximum cost per run).

How much does it cost to scrape the Facebook Ad Library?

The scraper uses pay-per-event pricing, so you pay only for what you get:

Event	When it is charged
search	Once per run, when the run starts
result	Once for each ad saved to the dataset

See the Pricing tab for the current prices. Set a maximum cost per run in the run options to cap the bill: the scraper stops when it reaches the limit and keeps every ad collected so far.

Use the scraper with the Apify API

You can run the scraper and read the ads from any programming language with the Apify API. Get your API token in Apify Console under Settings → API & Integrations, and replace <YOUR_API_TOKEN> below.

HTTP (cURL) — run the scraper and get the ads in one call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/hgservices~facebook-ads-library-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "searchQueries": ["running shoes"], "country": "US", "maxAdsPerSearch": 50 }'

Change format=json to format=csv or format=xlsx to get a spreadsheet. For runs that take longer than 5 minutes, start the run with POST /v2/acts/hgservices~facebook-ads-library-scraper/runs and read the dataset when it finishes.

JavaScript / Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' });

const run = await client.actor('hgservices/facebook-ads-library-scraper').call({
    searchQueries: ['running shoes', 'protein powder'],
    country: 'GB',
    mediaType: 'video',
    maxAdsPerSearch: 100,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
for (const ad of items) {
    console.log(ad.pageName, ad.startDate.slice(0, 10), ad.title, ad.videoUrls[0]);
}

Python (apify-client 3.0 or later)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

run = client.actor("hgservices/facebook-ads-library-scraper").call(run_input={
    "pageIds": ["15087023444"],
    "country": "ALL",
    "activeStatus": "all",
    "maxAdsPerSearch": 500,
})
if run is None:
    raise RuntimeError("The run was not found.")

for ad in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(ad["startDate"][:10], ad["displayFormat"], ad["bodyText"])

Use Facebook ads data in Claude, ChatGPT and other AI assistants

This scraper works as a tool for AI assistants through the Apify MCP server. Your assistant can find the scraper, read its input options, run it and use the ads in its answer.

Claude (claude.ai or Claude Desktop) — Go to Settings → Connectors, add a custom connector, and enter https://mcp.apify.com. Sign in to Apify when Claude asks.

Claude Code

$claude mcp add --transport http apify https://mcp.apify.com

ChatGPT — Turn on Developer mode in Settings → Apps & Connectors → Advanced settings. Then create a connector with the MCP server URL https://mcp.apify.com.

Cursor, VS Code and other MCP clients — Add https://mcp.apify.com as a remote MCP server. To give the assistant only this scraper, use https://mcp.apify.com?tools=hgservices/facebook-ads-library-scraper.

Then ask in plain language:

Use the Facebook Ads Library Scraper to get the 50 newest active ads of Nike in the US, and summarize the main offers and hooks.

Find video ads in Germany that mention "Schuhe", and list the advertisers that run the most ads.

Get political ads about "vote" in the US and make a table of sponsors, spend and reach.

For the best results, tell the assistant the keywords or the advertiser, the country and the number of ads. This keeps the run fast and the cost low.

Integrations and scheduling

Connect the scraper to the tools you already use with Apify integrations: Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, n8n, Airbyte, Keboola and more. Use webhooks to call your own endpoint when a run finishes.

Use Schedules in Apify Console to monitor ads automatically. For example, run a search for your competitors' page IDs every morning with sortBy: "newest", and compare the adArchiveId values with the previous day to find new ads.

Tips

• Advertiser searches are the most precise. A keyword search also finds ads that only mention the word. Use pageIds to get only the ads of one advertiser.
• Use "Newest first" with a small maxAdsPerSearch to monitor new ads quickly and at a low cost.
• Spend and reach data exist only for political, election and issue ads (and reach for some other regulated categories). Set adType to political_and_issue_ads to get them. Commercial ads have no spend data in the Ad Library.
• Download media soon. Image and video URLs are temporary Facebook links that stop working after a few days.
• Dates filter the days on which the ads were shown, not only the day they started.
• Broaden a search with no results: use ALL countries, activeStatus: "all", or fewer filters.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape the Facebook Ad Library? The Ad Library is a public transparency database that Meta publishes for everyone. This scraper collects only that public data, and it does not log in to Facebook. You are responsible for how you use the data, including compliance with Meta's terms and with data protection laws such as GDPR. If you are not sure, ask a lawyer.

Do I need a Facebook account or the Meta Ad Library API? No. The scraper needs no account, no access token and no identity check.

How many ads can I get? Up to 100,000 ads for each search, and up to 1,000 searches in one run. The scraper removes duplicate ads within each search. If two searches find the same ad, each search returns it, with its own searchTerm.

Why did my search return fewer ads than the Ad Library website shows? The number on the website is an estimate. Also check the filters: the scraper uses the country, status and media type of your input.

Why do some ads have {{product.name}}-style text? Some catalog ads fill in the text for each viewer. The scraper uses the text of the first card when the main text is a template. When no card has text, the template stays.

Can I scrape a single ad by its ID? Use the advertiser's page ID or a keyword. A URL that shows only one ad (?id=...) is not a search.

Support

Found a bug or need a new field? Open an issue in the Issues tab. For a custom solution, such as a scheduled pipeline into your database, contact the author through Apify.