Facebook Ad Library Scraper — Meta Ads, Winners & Monitor

Scrape the Meta Ad Library (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads, Audience Network) by keyword, by advertiser name (just type "gymshark" or paste facebook.com/gymshark — no page-ID hunting), by page ID, by single ad ID, or by pasting any Ad Library URL. Every ad comes back as one flat row: ad copy, headline, CTA, landing page, images, videos, carousel cards, start date, days running, versions, rank in Meta's impressions order and a transparent winning score.

Every ad also comes with what Meta publishes under "See ad details" — included in the price: reach (EU/UK) broken down by country, age and gender, targeting (age, gender, locations), payer & beneficiary, and the advertiser's Instagram handle, followers and verification.

$0.60 per 1,000 ads, details included. Duplicates, filtered-out ads and ads you already received in monitor mode are never charged. No login, no cookies, no API key, no browser. Deep paging runs through Apify residential proxy automatically (≈ $0.035 of proxy traffic per 1,000 ads on your Apify bill — measured: 450 ads with details in 88 s for $0.016 total platform usage).

Why this one

	This Actor
Find an advertiser by name / @handle / page URL	✅ resolved to the page ID automatically (exact match first, then verified / most-liked, alternatives in RUN_SUMMARY)
Winning-ad signals	✅ daysActive, versionsCount, rankInQuery (Meta's impressions order) and a 0–100 winningScore on every row
Sort	✅ impressions (Meta's default) or newest first for monitoring
EU/UK audience data	✅ includeAdDetails (on by default, no extra charge): reach by country/age/gender, targeting, payer/beneficiary
Flat output	✅ one clean row per ad, same columns every time — opens straight in Sheets/Excel, no nested snapshot to unpack
Deep paging	✅ automatic: page 1 direct, deeper pages via residential proxy with IP rotation; parallel queries
Monitor mode	✅ onlyNewAds — pay only for ads you haven't seen
Dynamic/catalog ads	✅ {{product.name}} placeholders replaced by the real card copy
Honest empties	✅ an empty result page is re-checked with a fresh session before we report "0 ads"
Price	$0.60 / 1,000 ads, details included

Who this is for

• Media buyers & performance marketers — find the ads that are actually working: an ad that has been running for 60+ days and has several versions is being paid for because it converts. Filter with minDaysActive.
• E-commerce & dropshipping teams — see which products competitors push, with the exact landing pages (landingDomain, linkUrl) and creatives.
• Agencies — pull a prospect's full ad footprint by page ID for a pitch deck, or schedule weekly competitor reports.
• Creative strategists & copywriters — build swipe files of hooks, headlines and CTAs by niche keyword.
• AI agents (MCP) — "what ads is brand X running on Instagram right now, and which have run the longest?" is one tool call with a predictable price.

What you get per ad

Field	Example	Notes
adArchiveId, libraryUrl	925321173274919	Open the ad in Meta's library
pageName, pageId, pageUrl, pageLikes, pageCategories	Nike, 15087023444	The advertiser
isActive, startDate, endDate, lastSeenDate	true, 2026-08-03	Run window
daysActive	53	Days the ad has been running (to today, or to its end date)
isNew	false	Started within newWithinDays (default 7)
versionsCount	4	How many near-identical versions Meta grouped together — a scaling signal
platforms	facebook, instagram, threads	Where it is shown
displayFormat	video / image / carousel / dpa / dco	Creative type (dpa/dco = catalog/dynamic ads)
bodyText, title, linkDescription, caption		Ad copy (dynamic {{product.name}} placeholders are replaced by the real card copy)
ctaText, ctaType	Shop Now, SHOP_NOW	Call to action
linkUrl, landingDomain	https://www.footlocker.com/…, footlocker.com	Destination (Meta's l.facebook.com redirect is unwrapped)
primaryImageUrl, primaryVideoUrl, imageUrls, videos		Creative media (HD + SD video, preview image)
cards, cardCount		Carousel / catalog cards: title, body, link, image, video
spend, impressions, currency, disclaimer		Filled for political & issue ads (Meta publishes these only there). spend = {lower, upper, text}, e.g. {40000, 45000, "£40K-£45K"}
reachEstimate		Political & issue ads: Meta's reach bucket, e.g. >1M
containsAiGeneratedMedia	false	Meta's AI-media label
rankInQuery	3	Position in Meta's result order (impressions high → low by default)
winningScore	78	0–100: long run (≤40) + versions (≤20) + top impressions rank (≤25) + multi-placement (≤10) + still active (5)
reachTotal, reachRegion, reachByCountry, reachByAgeGender	14565, EU, {"DE":14235}	With includeAdDetails, for ads shown in the EU/UK
targetingAge, targetingGender, targetingLocations	18-65, All, Germany	With includeAdDetails
payer, beneficiary	ALLBIRDS, INC.	With includeAdDetails (EU DSA disclosure)
advertiserIgUsername, advertiserIgFollowers, advertiserVerification, advertiserAbout	allbirds, 511773, BLUE_VERIFIED	Free for advertisers inputs; for every ad with includeAdDetails
searchQuery, searchCountry, scrapedAt		Which of your inputs produced the row

Every field is always present — null when Meta does not publish it, never a made-up value.

A free RUN_SUMMARY record (key-value store) adds per query: Meta's reported total, ads delivered, pages fetched, why a query stopped; and per advertiser: ads, active ads, new ads, format mix, platforms, top landing domains, oldest start date and longest-running ad.

Input

Field	Default	What it does
searchTerms	["nike"]	Keywords / brands searched in all ad copy. Ad Library URLs pasted here work too
advertisers	[]	Every ad of an advertiser by name, @handle, facebook.com/… or instagram.com/… URL
pageIds	[]	Same, by numeric page ID (view_all_page_id=…) — pins the exact page
adIds	[]	Specific ads by Ad Library ID or ?id= link
adLibraryUrls	[]	Paste a search URL from facebook.com/ads/library — all its filters are applied
country	ALL	ISO-2 country (US, GB, DE, BR, ID…) or ALL
activeStatus	active	active, inactive or all
adType	all	or political_and_issue_ads, housing_ads, employment_ads, financial_products_and_services_ads
mediaType	all	image, video, meme, image_and_meme, none
platforms	all	any of facebook, instagram, messenger, audience_network, threads, whatsapp
languages	all	ad language codes, e.g. ["en","es"]
exactPhrase	false	match the search term as an exact phrase
sortBy	impressions	impressions (high → low, Meta's default) or newest
includeAdDetails	true	EU/UK reach by country/age/gender, targeting, payer/beneficiary, advertiser Instagram (included in the price)
useResidentialForPaging	true	Page past the first 30 ads per query through Apify residential proxy (≈ $0.035 / 1,000 ads proxy traffic)
activeFrom / activeTo	—	Meta's date filter: ads shown in this window (they may have started earlier)
startedAfter	—	only ads launched on/after this date (new campaigns) — filtered ads are free
maxAdsPerQuery	100	cap per search / page / URL
minDaysActive	0	only ads running at least N days (winning ads) — filtered ads are free
newWithinDays	7	window for the isNew flag
onlyNewAds	false	monitor mode — see below
proxyConfiguration	Apify Proxy	see "Depth & proxies"

Example — winning ads in a niche

{ "searchTerms": ["protein powder"], "country": "US", "minDaysActive": 30, "maxAdsPerQuery": 200 }

Example — everything two competitors run, with EU audience data

{ "advertisers": ["gymshark", "https://www.instagram.com/allbirds/"], "country": "DE", "includeAdDetails": true }

Example — newest ads in a niche (daily monitor)

{ "searchTerms": ["ai note taker"], "country": "US", "sortBy": "newest", "onlyNewAds": true }

Schedule it: competitor monitor

Turn on onlyNewAds and schedule the Actor daily or weekly (Console → Schedules). The Actor remembers every ad ID it has seen per query (in a named key-value store in your account) and delivers — and charges — only ads that are new since the last run. Connect the dataset to Slack, email, Google Sheets or a webhook and you have a free-running "competitor launched a new ad" alert.

With sortBy: "newest" (recommended for monitoring) the Actor stops each query as soon as it reaches the ads it already delivered last time — so a quiet day costs almost nothing, and older ads that the previous run simply did not reach are never sold to you as "new".

Tip: with the default impressions sort, set maxAdsPerQuery at least as high as the number of ads you want to watch (e.g. an advertiser's full active count), so every run covers the whole set.

For AI agents & MCP

• Minimal input: {"advertisers": ["<brand name>"]} or {"searchTerms": ["<keyword>"]}. Everything else has a sensible default.
• Output: one row per ad, flat JSON, stable field names (table above). daysActive + versionsCount answer "which ads work"; landingDomain answers "where does the traffic go".
• Price is predictable: $0.0006 per ad delivered, details included. Cap spend with maxAdsPerQuery or the run's max charge.
• Empty is not an error: a keyword with no ads ends SUCCEEDED with 0 rows and a clear status message. Short hiccups are retried inside the run (fresh sessions after 20 s and 45 s); only a Meta outage that survives every retry ends FAILED so your pipeline can alert. Short run timeouts end SUCCEEDED with whatever was collected.

Depth & proxies (honest limits)

Meta serves the first page of every search (up to 30 ads) to anyone, but rate-limits deeper paging from datacenter IPs. The Actor handles this for you: page 1 and ad details go direct (free), deeper pages go through Apify residential proxy with automatic IP rotation when an exit IP gets limited. That traffic is small (≈ 0.4 MB per 100 ads) and appears on your Apify bill as residential proxy usage (≈ $0.035 per 1,000 ads). If your plan has no residential proxy, you still get the first page of every query and the status message says so. You can also plug in your own proxy in Proxy configuration.

Other limits: Meta shows spend/impressions only for political & issue ads, and reach/targeting data only for ads delivered in the EU or UK. Deleted ads and ads Meta hides from the library cannot be returned.

FAQ

Is this legal? The Actor reads only the public Ad Library that Meta publishes for transparency, without logging in. You are responsible for how you use the data (e.g. GDPR if you process personal data of EU persons).

Why is bodyText empty on a few ads? Some image-only or dynamic ads have no copy text. Their cards (cards) usually still carry title and link.

Why do I get fewer ads than Meta's reported total? maxAdsPerQuery, filters (minDaysActive, startedAfter) and datacenter paging limits all reduce the count; RUN_SUMMARY.queries[].limitedBy tells you which one applied.

Related Actors

• Brand Ads Spy — Google + LinkedIn (tactful_anvil/brand-ads-cross-network-spy) — the same brand across Google and LinkedIn ad libraries.
• Ad Budget Signals (tactful_anvil/ad-budget-signals) — does a list of domains run ads at all? One row per domain.
• Google Ads Transparency Scraper (tactful_anvil/google-ads-transparency-scraper).

Changelog

• 0.2.1 (2026-09-28) — hardening from a 24-case cloud test matrix: runs with short timeouts now deliver (reserves scale with the run), 256 MB runs no longer run out of memory, one ad-details session per route (much less proxy traffic), one ad without details no longer switches details off for the rest of the run, monitor mode stops at last run's ads (newest sort), political spend and reachEstimate filled again (Meta switched them to text), dead targetedCountries column removed, patient retries before any failure, watchdog finishes the run before a platform timeout.

• 0.2.0 (2026-09-25) — advertiser name/URL lookup, single ads by ID, sortBy newest, rankInQuery + winningScore, ad details included (EU/UK reach, targeting, payer/beneficiary, advertiser Instagram), automatic residential paging with IP rotation, 3 queries in parallel, empty-page re-checks.

• 0.1.0 (2026-09-25) — first release: keyword / page / URL search, SSR + GraphQL paging with automatic route fallback, dynamic-ad placeholder fix, winning-ad filter, startedAfter, monitor mode, per-advertiser summary.