Facebook (Meta) Ads Library Scraper

What does Meta Ads Library Scraper do?

Meta Ads Library Scraper extracts ad intelligence from the Meta Ad Library: ad copy, images, videos, CTAs, landing page links, page details, run dates and how many days each ad has been running. To get that data, type in a keyword and a country and click "Save & Start". Alternatively, give it one or more Facebook page IDs to pull every ad those pages are running, or paste an Ad Library search URL straight from your browser.

No Facebook login, no cookies, no Meta API key.

Why days running matters

You can't see a competitor's spend, clicks or conversions. You can see how long each ad has been live. Nobody keeps paying to run an ad for 60 days by accident, so time on air is the best public signal that an ad is working.

Every item comes with a daysRunning field. Sort your dataset by it and your competitors' proven creatives come to the top, while this week's tests sit at the bottom.

What ad data can I extract?

📝 Ad copy, title and caption	📅 Start and end dates
🖼 Images (original and resized)	⏳ Days running
🎬 Videos (HD, SD and thumbnails)	🟢 Active / inactive status
🎠 Carousel cards	📱 Platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads…)
🔘 CTA text and type	🏷 Page name, ID, categories and likes
🔗 Landing page URLs	🇪🇺 EU reach, age and gender breakdown*
🆔 Ad archive ID and link	📸 Instagram handle and followers*

* With fetchDetails enabled.

Can I use the official Meta Ad Library API instead?

You can, but it only covers political and social-issue ads, and it needs a Meta developer account plus identity verification by physical mail. Commercial ads — the ones you want for competitor research — are not in it.

This scraper reads the same public Ad Library the website shows, with no account or key, and returns every ad category.

Why scrape the Meta Ad Library?

🕵️ Find the creatives competitors keep paying to run

✨ Track what a brand is testing this week, and what it dropped

🎨 Build a swipe file of ad copy, images and videos

🛬 See which landing pages get the most ads pointed at them

📊 Research angles and offers across a whole niche by keyword

🇪🇺 Pull EU reach and demographics for ads that ran in Europe

How do I use Meta Ads Library Scraper?

1. Create a free Apify account using your email.
2. Open Meta Ads Library Scraper.
3. Type a keyword, or a page ID, or paste an Ad Library URL.
4. Click "Start" and wait for the data to be extracted.
5. Download your data in JSON, JSONL, CSV, Excel, HTML or XML.

Input

The input is a keyword, a page ID or an Ad Library URL, plus the filters you want. For a fuller explanation, head over to the input tab.

{
  "query": "pizza",
  "country": "US",
  "sortBy": "mostRecent",
  "activeStatus": "active",
  "mediaType": "all",
  "maxItems": 100,
  "fetchDetails": false
}

Field	Type	Description
maxItems	integer	Maximum number of ads to scrape. Empty or 0 means unlimited, so the run stops at your maximum cost per run or at the run timeout.
query	string	Keywords to search for, one per line, up to 5. Each one runs as its own search, in parallel. Ignored when pageId is set.
pageId	string	All ads from these pages. Up to 5 numeric page IDs, one per line or comma separated. Ignores the search query.
country	string	ISO country code (US, BR, GB…) or ALL.
category	string	all, political_and_issue_ads, housing_ads, employment_ads, credit_ads.
mediaType	string	all, image, meme, image_and_meme, video, none.
sortBy	string	mostRecent or impressions.
activeStatus	string	active, inactive or all.
minDate / maxDate	string	Delivery date range, YYYY-MM-DD.
fetchDetails	boolean	Adds advertiser and transparency data under _details. One extra request per ad, so runs are slower.
maxConcurrency	integer	Searches running in parallel, each on its own proxy IP. Default 3, up to 5.
urls	array	Up to 5 Ad Library search URLs copied from your browser. Filters in the URL override the fields above.
searchType	string	keyword (default) or exactPhrase.
languages	array	Ad language codes (en, pt, es…).
proxyConfiguration	object	Residential proxies are required — see below. Used by default, leave as is.

You need at least one of query, pageId or urls, with at most 5 entries each; runs over the limit are refused.

query and pageId both take several entries, one per line, and each entry runs as its own search. Meta's API only honours one page ID per request, which is why the Actor splits them.

Proxies: residential is required

Meta blocks datacenter IP ranges. A residential proxy is needed for running, and proxyConfiguration already defaults to one.

Output sample

The results are wrapped into a dataset you can find in the Storage tab. Here's an excerpt of what the input above returns. You can download it as JSON, JSONL, Excel, HTML, CSV or XML.

[{
  "ad_archive_id": "574945338232404",
  "page_id": "194210777106441",
  "page_name": "Muppet Mania",
  "is_active": true,
  "start_date": 1732089600,
  "end_date": 1741334400,
  "daysRunning": 108,
  "publisher_platform": ["FACEBOOK", "INSTAGRAM"],
  "url": "https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?id=574945338232404",
  "snapshot": {
    "body": { "text": "Limited Edition - The Muppets. Order here https://instock.click/uFO7UYBo" },
    "title": "Only available for a limited time!",
    "caption": "instock.click",
    "cta_text": "Shop now",
    "cta_type": "SHOP_NOW",
    "display_format": "IMAGE",
    "link_url": "https://instock.click/uFO7UYBo",
    "link_description": "Made In USA - Shipping WORLDWIDE !!!",
    "images": [{
      "original_image_url": "https://scontent-det1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/466796040_966955675270816.jpg",
      "resized_image_url": "https://scontent-det1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/467006778_3951980601753306.jpg"
    }],
    "videos": [],
    "cards": [],
    "page_categories": ["Clothing (Brand)"],
    "page_like_count": 284,
    "page_profile_uri": "https://www.facebook.com/61554673251967/"
  }
}]

With fetchDetails enabled, each ad also carries an _details object with advertiser and transparency data: Instagram handle and followers, page likes and category, and — for ads that ran in Europe — EU reach with an age × gender × country breakdown.

Every item is the raw ad record from the Ad Library, plus two fields this Actor adds: daysRunning and url.

How many ads can you scrape?

Input	Speed
One search	about 150 ads/minute
Four searches, maxConcurrency 1	about 200 ads/minute
Four searches, maxConcurrency 4	about 430 ads/minute

Paging through one search is sequential — each page needs the cursor from the previous one — so maxConcurrency only changes anything when you pass several queries, page IDs or URLs. With a single search it makes no difference.

How much will scraping the Meta Ad Library cost you?

This Actor charges per ad saved, so the price is easy to predict: 1,000 ads cost you the per-result price times 1,000, and nothing is charged for ads you don't get. You can cap any run with the maximum cost per run setting, and the Actor stops as soon as it hits it.

If you turn on fetchDetails, each ad detail is charged as a separate event, so a run with details on costs more than the same run without it.

Run summary

Besides the ads, every run stores a RUN_SUMMARY record in its key-value store with the stats for that run: ads scraped, searches used, pages fetched, details fetched or failed, proxy sessions used, retried requests and rate limits hit. It is written as the run goes, so even a run that times out keeps its stats.

Want a frontend to store and visualize the ads?

The Ad Library only shows what is live today. When a competitor switches an ad off it disappears, and the image and video links expire, so the ad and everything you could have learned from it is gone.

Meta Ads Competitor Tracker is a free, self-hosted companion for that: it collects ads on a schedule, mirrors every creative into your own storage, keeps the history after ads go off air, and gives you a searchable library ranked by time on air.

Integrations

Meta Ads Library Scraper can be connected with almost any cloud service or web app thanks to integrations on the Apify platform. You can integrate with Make, Zapier, Slack, Airbyte, GitHub, Google Sheets, Google Drive and more.

You can also use webhooks to carry out an action whenever an event occurs, e.g. get a notification whenever a run finishes successfully.

Using Meta Ads Library Scraper with the Apify API

The Apify API gives you programmatic access to the Apify platform. The API is organized around RESTful HTTP endpoints that let you manage, schedule and run Apify Actors, access datasets, monitor performance and fetch results.

Use the apify-client NPM package for Node.js or the apify-client PyPI package for Python. Check the Apify API reference docs for full details, or click the API tab for code examples.

Is it legal to scrape the Meta Ad Library?

The Ad Library is a public transparency tool published by Meta, and this Actor only reads what is already shown there. Still, ad records name the pages and profiles that ran the ads, so results can contain personal data. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so.

When using Facebook Ad Library Scraper, please consider the following:

• Respect the Platform's Terms: Ensure your use case complies with Facebook's terms of service and policies.
• Avoid Overloading Servers: Implement reasonable request rates to avoid overwhelming the website.
• Data Privacy Regulations: Be aware of and comply with personal data protection laws like GDPR.
• Legal Advice: If uncertain about the legal implications, consult with a legal professional.

For more insights on web scraping legality, please refer to our blog post: is web scraping legal?

Notes and limitations

• Date filters work on delivery, not on the start date: an ad that started before minDate can still show up if it was still running inside your range.
• Impressions and spend are only published by Meta for political and social-issue ads. For commercial ads those fields come back empty, whatever scraper you use.
• Meta changes its internal API from time to time. If searches start failing, the Actor's GraphQL document IDs need updating — open an issue and it gets fixed.

Your feedback

We're always working on improving this Actor. If you have technical feedback or found a bug, please create an issue on the Actor's Issues tab in Apify Console.