Facebook Ads Library Scraper & Competitor Ad Tracker

Track what your competitors are running on Facebook and Instagram. Extract ad creatives, copy, landing pages, CTAs, spend data, and video assets from Meta's public Ad Library — then get an automated competitive analysis with advertiser breakdowns and strategic insights.

Two ways to use it

Competitor Tracker mode (default) — Get an enriched competitive report. The first row of your output is a summary with advertiser profiles, ad age analysis, creative type breakdown (video vs. image vs. carousel), CTA patterns, and auto-generated insights like "Video ads outnumber image ads — competitors are investing in video creative." Every ad also gets computed fields: how many days it's been running, copy length classification, creative type, and more. Run this weekly to spot new creatives and strategy shifts.

Raw Data mode — Flat, CSV-friendly rows. One record per ad with all extracted fields. Best for bulk export, custom analysis in Google Sheets, or piping into your own dashboard.

What you get per ad

• Ad Library ID, status (active/inactive), start and end dates
• Advertiser name, page ID, profile picture
• Full ad body text, headline, link caption, link description
• Call-to-action button text (Shop Now, Learn More, Sign Up, etc.)
• Landing page URL
• Image URLs (full resolution)
• Video URLs (HD and SD)
• Carousel card data (title, body, image, link for each card)
• Publisher platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network)
• Impression estimates (lower and upper bound)
• Spend estimates (lower and upper bound with currency)
• Tracker mode adds: ad age in days, age bucket, creative type, copy style, CTA flag, landing page flag

Tracker mode summary report includes

• Total ads found, active vs. inactive count
• Number of unique advertisers
• New ads launched in last 7 days
• Creative type breakdown (video / image / carousel / text-only)
• Ad age distribution (new / recent / established / long-running)
• Top CTAs ranked by frequency
• Platform distribution (Facebook vs. Instagram vs. Messenger)
• Copy style breakdown (short / medium / long-form)
• Advertiser profiles with ad count, creative mix, landing pages, and date ranges
• Auto-generated strategic insights

Use cases

For agencies and media buyers — Monitor client competitors weekly. See when they launch new creatives, which CTAs they test, whether they're shifting to video, and which landing pages they're driving traffic to. Schedule this to run every Monday morning and review the summary.

For DTC and e-commerce brands — Spy on what's working in your niche. Find the ads that have been running 60+ days (likely profitable), study their copy and creative approach, and use the insights to inform your own ad strategy.

For affiliate marketers — Research which offers are being promoted hardest. Filter by keyword (e.g., "teeth whitening", "keto", "solar panels") to see the competitive landscape, identify winning angles, and find landing page inspiration.

For market researchers — Track advertising trends across industries. Compare creative strategies between brands, monitor ad spend patterns, and build reports on competitive positioning.

How to run it

1. Enter a brand name, competitor name, or keyword in Search Keywords
2. Optionally add specific Facebook Page URLs for targeted tracking
3. Choose your Output Mode — Tracker for insights, Raw for bulk data
4. Set the country (defaults to US)
5. Hit Start

For weekly competitive monitoring, schedule this actor to run on a recurring basis. Each run captures the current state of your competitors' ad programs so you can track changes over time.

Input examples

Monitor a specific competitor:

{
    "searchQueries": ["allbirds"],
    "outputMode": "tracker",
    "maxAds": 100,
    "country": "US"
}

Compare multiple competitors in a niche:

{
    "searchQueries": ["huel", "soylent", "ka'chava"],
    "outputMode": "tracker",
    "maxAds": 50,
    "country": "US"
}

Bulk export for spreadsheet analysis:

{
    "searchQueries": ["running shoes"],
    "outputMode": "raw",
    "maxAds": 500,
    "activeStatus": "all",
    "country": "US"
}

Track a competitor's Facebook page directly:

{
    "pageUrls": ["https://www.facebook.com/Nike"],
    "outputMode": "tracker",
    "maxAds": 200,
    "country": "US"
}

Sample Tracker output (summary row)

{
    "_type": "tracker_summary",
    "reportGeneratedAt": "2026-04-05T14:30:00Z",
    "searchQueries": ["allbirds"],
    "country": "US",
    "totalAdsFound": 47,
    "activeAds": 42,
    "inactiveAds": 5,
    "uniqueAdvertisers": 3,
    "newAdsLast7Days": 8,
    "creativeTypeBreakdown": {
        "video": 18,
        "image": 22,
        "carousel": 5,
        "text_only": 2
    },
    "adAgeBreakdown": {
        "new (0-7 days)": 8,
        "recent (8-30 days)": 15,
        "established (31-90 days)": 12,
        "long-running (90+ days)": 7,
        "unknown": 5
    },
    "insights": [
        "8 new ads launched in the last 7 days (17% of total) — this niche is actively being invested in.",
        "7 ads have been running 60+ days — likely profitable. Advertisers: Allbirds.",
        "Top advertiser 'Allbirds' has 42 ads — heavy investment in this space."
    ]
}

Technical details

• Uses Playwright to render Meta's Ad Library in a real browser
• Intercepts Facebook's GraphQL API responses for structured data extraction
• Falls back to DOM extraction if GraphQL intercept returns empty
• Residential proxies required (included with Apify subscription)
• No Facebook account or API key needed — the Ad Library is public

Pricing

• Raw mode: $0.50 per 1,000 ads extracted
• Tracker mode: $0.50 per 1,000 ads extracted (includes enrichment and summary report at no extra cost)

Both modes are billed per result. No start fee. Try it with a small search first to see the output format before scaling up.

Limitations

• Meta's Ad Library shows ads by country, so you need to run separate queries for different markets
• Impression and spend data is only available for ads about social issues, elections, or politics
• Very new ads (under 24 hours old) may not appear in the library yet
• Facebook may occasionally trigger bot detection — residential proxies minimize this