Facebook Ads Library Scraper: Meta and Instagram Ad Library

This Facebook Ads Library Scraper exports the ads any advertiser runs on Facebook, Instagram and other Meta placements. Search by advertiser name, Facebook page ID, or a pasted Ad Library URL, and get structured advertising records with creative text, media links, run dates, placements, call to action and advertiser details. Each dataset row represents an ad creative variant reported by Meta. Use the dataset to review campaign messaging, compare creative formats, track public advertiser activity, or export records to your own analysis tools.

What the Facebook Ads Library Scraper does

The Meta Ad Library is public, but browsing it by hand stops working once you need more than a handful of ads. The page loads ads in small batches, there is no export button, and comparing advertisers means copying text and screenshots into a spreadsheet. This Actor resolves the advertiser, pages through its full ad inventory up to your limit, and returns one clean JSON row per ad creative. You can download the result as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML, or read it from the Apify API in your own pipeline.

Input

Choose one of three starting points. Use search when you know the advertiser's name, page_id when you already know its Facebook page ID, or url when you have copied an address from the Ad Library. The Actor resolves a name to one advertiser page; it does not return every page whose name contains the search term. Page selection considers name match, country, verification and page likes, in that order.

The country setting uses a two-letter code such as NL or US and defaults to US. active_only defaults to true, which requests active advertisements. Set it to false to include other statuses that Meta makes available. max_ads defaults to 100 and accepts values from 1 to 5000. The number delivered also depends on the advertiser's available inventory in the selected country.

An explicit page_id takes precedence over the page ID in a URL. An explicit search takes precedence over the URL's search text. A country in the URL takes precedence over the separate country setting. The URL's active-status filter applies only when active_only was not supplied; Apify fills the default value for this setting. A URL containing country=ALL does not replace the selected country. Keeping these rules consistent helps existing integrations continue to return the same kind of results.

A recorded working input is {"search":"coolblue","country":"NL","max_ads":100}. Another recorded input is {"page_id":"124955570892789","country":"US","active_only":false,"max_ads":30}. These inputs were checked against the public library on 1 October 2026. Inventories change, so an older example does not guarantee the same advertisement IDs on a later date.

Output

Rows retain ad_id, page_id, page_name, is_active, start_date, end_date, total_active_time and publisher_platform. The creative fields include display_format, title, body_text, images, videos, link_url, link_description, caption, cta_text and cta_type. Images are URL strings. Each video contains hd_url, sd_url and preview_image_url; the high-definition URL may be null.

Advertiser information includes page_profile_uri, page_profile_picture_url, page_like_count and page_categories. Disclosure fields include byline, disclaimer_label, contains_digital_created_media, contains_sensitive_content, state_media_run_label, page_is_deleted and branded_content. Other reported fields include collation_count, collation_id, categories, targeted_or_reached_countries, country_iso_code, reach_estimate, currency, spend, impressions_text, impressions_index, spend_text and spend_index.

Political and issue advertisements can include reported spending and reach bands. In the recorded Bernie Sanders response, spend included $500K-$600K, reach_estimate included >1M, and currency was USD. These are ranges published by the source. They are preserved as strings, not converted into exact spending amounts. Commercial records can have null values for these fields, and unavailable data is not estimated.

The country field records the effective requested country and resolved_page_id records the selected advertiser page. The query field preserves the search value, including when an explicit page ID determines the advertiser. Added fields include a UTC fetched_at timestamp, source, platform, advertiser_name and creative_id. Existing field names and JSON types remain available. Download the dataset through Apify's supported export formats or read it through the dataset API.

Example output row

This is an excerpt of a real row collected on 1 October 2026 with {"page_id":"124955570892789","country":"US","active_only":false,"max_ads":30}. Long media URLs (images, videos, page_profile_picture_url) and a few other fields are left out for readability; every value shown is exactly as returned.

{
  "ad_id": "3050616791773669",
  "page_id": "124955570892789",
  "page_name": "Bernie Sanders",
  "is_active": false,
  "start_date": "2025-02-20",
  "end_date": "2025-03-26",
  "publisher_platform": [
    "FACEBOOK",
    "INSTAGRAM"
  ],
  "display_format": "VIDEO",
  "title": "Donate to Bernie Sanders",
  "body_text": "I am once again asking for your financial support to help me travel coast to coast to spread the word about the dangers of Trumpism and the rising power of oligarchs like Elon Musk. Trumpism will not be defeated by politicians inside the DC beltway. It will only be defeated by millions of Americans, in every state in this country, coming together in a strong, grassroots movement. Trump MUST and CAN be defeated. So if you’re with me, please chip in whatever you can to help me reach the American people.",
  "link_description": "Donate now",
  "caption": "secure.actblue.com",
  "cta_text": "Donate now",
  "cta_type": "DONATE_NOW",
  "reach_estimate": ">1M",
  "currency": "USD",
  "spend": "$500K-$600K",
  "categories": [
    "POLITICAL"
  ],
  "byline": "Friends of Bernie Sanders",
  "disclaimer_label": "PAID_FOR_BY",
  "page_profile_uri": "https://facebook.com/berniesanders",
  "page_like_count": 6867634,
  "page_categories": [
    "Government Official"
  ],
  "impressions_text": ">1M",
  "country": "US",
  "resolved_page_id": "124955570892789",
  "advertiser_name": "Bernie Sanders",
  "fetched_at": "2026-10-01T13:01:14.430Z"
}

Use cases

• Competitor ad research. See which creatives a competitor runs right now, which formats they favour (video, carousel, catalogue ads) and which calls to action they test.
• Creative inspiration and swipe files. Collect ad copy, headlines and media links from the leading brands in your market and keep them in your own library.
• Campaign monitoring. Schedule the Actor daily or weekly for a list of advertisers and compare start_date, end_date and is_active to see when campaigns launch and stop.
• Political and issue ad transparency. Track reported spend and reach bands, the "paid for by" line and the disclaimer label for political advertisers, for journalism and research.
• Agency reporting and lead generation. Find which brands actively advertise in a country and on which Meta platforms, and use the page details for outreach or market sizing.

Facebook Ads Library Scraper compared with the alternatives

Browsing the Ad Library by hand is free but slow: there is no export, and every advertiser and country is a new search. This Actor turns the same public information into a dataset in one run.

Meta's official Ad Library API requires a developer account with identity verification and an access token, and it focuses on political and issue ads plus ads delivered in the EU. Commercial ads elsewhere are hard to reach through it. This Actor needs only an Apify account and returns commercial and political ads alike.

Other Apify Store scrapers cover the same library. This one keeps a stable output schema with stable field names, returns spend and reach ranges where Meta publishes them, follows pagination to up to 5000 ads per run, and charges only for delivered ads.

Pagination and completeness

The Actor follows available pages until it reaches your requested number of ads, the inventory ends, or the run's time budget prevents further collection. Large requests continue automatically. Results are deduplicated by advertisement ID. Where Meta returns several variants within a group, each distinct variant can become its own row. The order follows the source's total-impressions sorting.

Check the OUTPUT or summary record when completeness matters. It includes itemCount, partial, warnings and charging information. A partial result can simply mean that your requested maximum is smaller than the advertiser's available inventory. It can also indicate that collection was interrupted. If you need more data, increase max_ads and allow sufficient run time. Availability can differ by country, ad status and the date of collection.

Pricing

The existing Apify price model remains in effect. On 1 October 2026, the scraped event costs $0.001 per delivered advertisement. The already announced schedule beginning 2 October 2026 at 06:47:06 UTC sets tier-based prices and a run_start event of $0.0004 per run. The listed tier prices per ad are $0.0007 for FREE, $0.000609385 for BRONZE, $0.000530501 for SILVER and $0.000461828 for GOLD, PLATINUM and DIAMOND. The Actor's Pricing tab is the authoritative current schedule.

Only delivered rows count toward the scraped event. An empty result has no per-ad charge; a run-start fee applies when that event is active. Users without a paid Apify plan receive at most ten rows per run, preserving the existing free-plan limit. Paying users can request up to 5000 rows. Repeated collection of the same advertiser at different times is a separate run and may retrieve changed inventory.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape the Facebook Ads Library?

The Ad Library is a public transparency tool published by Meta, and this Actor only collects what the library shows to any visitor. You remain responsible for how you use the data; check the rules that apply to your use case, especially for personal data in political ads.

Does this cover Instagram ads?

The Meta library includes placements reported for Facebook, Instagram and other Meta surfaces. Read publisher_platform on each record to see the reported placements. A single advertisement can list more than one platform.

Why are spending or reach fields empty?

The source does not publish the same information for every advertisement. Spending and reach bands are commonly available for political or issue ads, while commercial records may have null fields. An empty field is preserved rather than filled with an estimate.

Can I look up a page without searching its name?

Yes. Supply a numeric page_id, or paste an Ad Library URL containing view_all_page_id. This avoids ambiguity between similarly named advertiser pages. Select the country and active-status setting that match the inventory you want to inspect.

What happens when no advertisements are found?

The run succeeds with an empty dataset for a genuine empty search or an unavailable upstream response. The error or summary record explains the outcome. There is no per-ad charge for an empty dataset; the applicable run-start event still follows the current price model.

How many ads can one run return?

Up to 5000, set with max_ads. Users without a paid Apify plan receive at most ten rows per run. The real number also depends on how many ads the advertiser has in the selected country and status.

Can I run it on a schedule or through the API?

Yes. Use Apify schedules to collect the same advertisers every day or week, or start runs through the Apify API and read the dataset when the run finishes. Integrations such as webhooks, Make and Zapier work the same way as for any other Actor.