How do competitor ads affect my campaign performance?

For paid search, increased competition will raise your cost-per-click. If your ad quality score is low, you'll rank lower and receive fewer clicks. The impact is smaller for paid social, as you are unlikely to bid on the exact same audience.

How to gauge a competitor's budget?

There's no way to know for sure. While you can manually calculate it using tools like SEMRush, a better alternative would be Kaya's Competitor Ad Intelligence tool.

Which ad channels can I track data from using Kaya's competitor analysis tool?

Kaya gathers data for you and your competitors' ads across Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Bing.

How to spy on competitors' ads?

"Spying" ethically involves using competitor research tools to analyze public ad data. Platforms like Kaya and Similarweb offer ad libraries, performance trends, and spending patterns. This helps you see what's working for others, avoid ad fatigue, and find gaps in messaging or channels they aren't using.

How to check competitors’ Instagram ads?

Go to the Meta Ad Library, filter by platform (Instagram), and search for your competitor's name to view all active campaigns.

How do I find competitors on Google Ads for free?

Use the Google Ads Transparency Center to search competitor brand names and see their current ad creatives, placements, and ad copy insights.

Top 5 Free Tools to See Competitor Ads on Facebook, Google and more

After helping 150+ startups scale faster through paid advertising, we’ve found one of the simplest growth levers, which is also the most overlooked: analyzing your competitors’ ads. It’s free, requires no access to proprietary data, and gives you a front-row seat to what’s actually working in your market.

Today, most major ad platforms offer public ad libraries where you can look up any brand and view their current and past campaigns. In this post, we’ll walk you through where to find these competitor ad libraries and what to pay attention to on each of the following platforms:

Google Transparency Center (Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail)
LinkedIn Ad Library
Meta Ad Library (Facebook and Instagram)
TikTok Ad Library
X Ads Repository (formerly Twitter)

Of course, manually tracking ads across all these platforms can get tedious. That’s why we’ll also show you how smarter ad intelligence tools (like Kaya’s Competitor Ad Intelligence tool) can help you monitor competitor ads more efficiently—and turn insights into strategy.

Let’s get into the details of the free tools that can help you find competitor ads.

What are competitor ads?

Competitor ads are paid promotions run by other companies targeting the same audience or market as you. These ads can show up across digital platforms like Google Search, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and more. Studying them gives you insight into your competitors' messaging, positioning, and which offers they’re pushing.

What is an example of a competitor ad?

Let’s say you run a B2B SaaS company. Your competitor might be running a LinkedIn ad that says: “Ditch spreadsheets. Automate client onboarding in minutes with [Product Name].” You can find and analyze ads like this using tools like the LinkedIn Ad Library or Google Ads Transparency Center.

How to find competitor ads?

To find competitor ads, search their brand name in free ad libraries like Meta Ads Library or Google Ads Transparency Center. These tools show you the actual ad creatives, targeting formats, and copy being used.

You can also explore platforms like Kaya’s Competitor Ad Intelligence Tool, Semrush, and SpyFu to track ads across channels, compare messaging strategies, and uncover what campaigns are live or recurring.

This helps you analyze how your competitors position themselves and what channels they prioritize, giving you strategic insights to refine your own campaigns.

What is competitor analysis in marketing?

Competitor analysis involves tracking and evaluating other businesses in your space to better understand their strengths, gaps, and go-to-market strategies. In the context of digital advertising, it means digging into their ad creatives, targeting methods, channel choices, and messaging—so you can extract insights to sharpen your own campaigns.

How often should I analyze competitor ads?

Regular analysis is crucial. Consider monthly or quarterly reviews to stay updated on competitors' strategies and market trends.

How to see competitors' Google Ads

Where: Google Ads Transparency Center

There are many Google Ads competitor analysis tools out there, but here's one for free.

At this site, you can see all ads within the Google ecosystem, including Search, Display, YouTube, and Gmail.

Search by advertiser, website; then filter by topic, time, location, and format.

Think like a Google Ads agency:

What keywords and USPs do they focus on? Google Ads have a very limited word count, so advertisers tend to focus on key selling points that convert.
When was the ad last shown? This is particularly useful for experimental ads, as you can gauge if they are working for the advertisers.
What are the ad variations?

Google Ads Transparency Center displaying Stripe ads promoting Atlas, Payment Links, and subscription payment solutions with brief descriptions and visuals. — At Google Ads Transparency Center, you can find ads from Google's ad ecosystem, including: Search, Display, YouTube, and Gmail. In this example, we've filtered for Stripe's ads in the US.

Google Ads variations for Stripe highlighting features like 'Tap to Pay on iPhone' with comparisons of different unique selling propositions across two ad versions. — Understand a company's core value proposition by examining their keyword strategy and ad copy. On the left, Stripe highlighted its support for multiple currencies.

For Search, you can see their keywords and ad copies using tools like Kaya's Competitor Ad Intelligence Tool, Semrush and Spyfu.

If you are running ads‍

You can see the list of competitors bidding on the same auctions from the Google Auction Insights Report.

Pay close attention to:

Search impression share: It shows how often an advertiser appears in the search results compared to how many times they could have. This metric is heavily influenced by budget. By changing the report date, you can infer changes in the competitor’s budget.
Unexpected competitors? This could be a sign that your targeting keywords are too broad.

Remember, Google Ads competitor research is all about consistency - monitoring your competitors' strategies, optimizing yours, then maximize ROAS.

With Google Ads Transparency Center, you can only see one competitor's Google Ads at a time.

How to see competitors' LinkedIn Ads

Where: LinkedIn Ad Library

LinkedIn Ad Library homepage highlighting transparency in ad collection with a search interface and an illustration of two individuals collaborating, one in a wheelchair. — At LinkedIn Ad Library, you can filter ads by company, keyword, country and date.

LinkedIn is the place to B2B.

With more than 67 million companies and high-intentioned decision makers on LinkedIn [source], you're missing out these if you haven't considered LinkedIn Ads:

80% LinkedIn members who drive business decisions
LinkedIn audiences who have 2x the buying power of the average web audience
LinkedIn audience who are 6x more likely to convert

Think like a LinkedIn Ads manager or agency:

Stripe ads displayed in LinkedIn Ad Library promoting sessions, subscription management, and revenue optimization with detailed descriptions in English, German, and French. — From this example, we learn that Stripe ran Event Ads, Document Ads and Job Ads.

Step 1. Search your competitor by company, advertiser name, or keyword. Filter another level by country and date.

LinkedIn Ad detail for Stripe promoting 'The state of subscription and billing management,' with impressions segmented by country and key targeting information. — Stripe targeted countries like the UK, Netherlands, Ireland and India, with impressions around 5k to 10k.

Step 2. Check out their targeting criteria by country, language and audience. Generally, the higher the impressions, the larger the allocated budget (subjected to other factors).

LinkedIn Ad promoting Stripe’s revenue acceleration event with details about topics covered, including payment strategies, compliance, and breakout workshops. — Discover effective methods for qualifying leads and generating interest with your target audience from competitors' LinkedIn's Conversational Ads.

Step 3: Check out the different types of LinkedIn Ads‍. View their outreach template for Conversational Ads and the “mastermind” behind:

What’s the ad coverage?

Free to view for everyone, with/without LinkedIn account
Ads created on or after June 1, 2023
Ads remain in the Ad Library for one year after their last impression on LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s ad library offers a wealth of raw data, but turning it into actionable insights requires significant effort, especially so with multiple competitors to track.

How to see competitors' Facebook Ads

Where: Facebook Ads Library (Meta)

Ad Library homepage featuring search filters and categories to find active ads by location, keywords, or advertisers, accompanied by an illustration of a woman working at a desk. — Meta Ad Library allows you to search all of the ads running across Meta technologies, including Facebook and Instagram.

With billions of people using Facebook, Instagram and other Meta technologies, the opportunity is huge - B2C or not.

Facebook ads competitor analysis is made easier with its very own Facebook Ads Library, for free.

Just like on LinkedIn, search by product keywords or special elements like Black Friday Deals to learn from your competitors.

Meta Ad Library showcasing Stripe ads launched in March 2024, emphasizing key messages like reducing cart abandonment and insights into no-code tools for startups. — Stripe's ads in Meta Ad Library

Meta ad summary for a Nike campaign titled 'You Have a Reason. We Have the Race.' The ad, running on Facebook and Instagram, showcases multiple creative versions and highlights Nike’s large follower count across social platforms. — Click on an ad to learn more about the advertised platforms, ad versions and follower distribution.

What’s the ad coverage?

Free to view for everyone, with/without Facebook account
Active ads that are still running on Meta technologies
Ads about social issues, elections or politics that have run in the past seven years

How to see competitors' TikTok Ads

Where: TikTok Ad Library

TikTok houses the world’s most engaged audiences, where large and small businesses, agencies and creators can achieve big results.

Like other ad libraries, you can filter by country, ad type, date and keywords.

TikTok Ad Library search results displaying Chipotle and Hollieevelyn1 ads, including dates shown, unique users reached, and visual previews featuring food items. — At TikTok Ads Library, learn about the content and creators that have worked well for your competitiors.

Click on an ad to view audience breakdown, including size, interest and location. These insights give you an idea what type of content and TikTok creator for you to consider next.

TikTok ad summary showcasing targeting details such as gender, age, interests, and location, alongside a video preview of a Chipotle ad and performance metrics like CTR and unique users reached. — TikTok Ads Library gives a detailed audience breakdown.

Here's a treasure not many know about: TikTok Creative Center: Top Ads Library— a collection of the most successful ads.

Search for top ads by country, industry, objective, period, language, ad format, top N% likes
Find out the secret sauce for creatives too What is a good CTR for TikTok Ads?
Click on an ad to view a detailed video analysis and interactive time analysis of ads for metrics like CTR, Conversion Rate, Clicks, and Conversions

Chipotle job recruitment TikTok ad showing a female team member in uniform with overlay text reading “TEXT ‘CHIPJOBS’ TO ‘97211’” and a message about bonuses. Graph on the right highlights interactive time analysis with CTR performance peaking at 1, 7, and 12 seconds. — TikTok Creative Center: Ad viewer analytics reveal key engagement spikes and top CTR moments.

Detailed TikTok ad performance dashboard for Chipotle’s recruitment campaign including traffic objective, high budget, and Top 9% CTR. Includes script analysis featuring a personal success story and product features highlighting six-figure income and stock bonuses. — TikTok Creative Center: Detailed performance insights and script analysis highlight.

Fun fact: Engagement rate on TikTok Ads was found to be 835% higher than Meta [source]

What’s the ad coverage?

Free to view for everyone, with/without TikTok account
For TikTok Ad Library, all ads that are running on TikTok including ads that are not active presently or paused by the advertisers, targeted to users within the EEA, Switzerland, or the UK
Ads published on or after on October 1, 2022 and on, with at least 1 impression
For Top Ads, ads limited to those that have been authorized by advertisers and may not reflect all top-performing auction ads, including US

How to see competitors' X (formerly Twitter) Ads

Where: Twitter Ads Library / X Ads Repository

Just like what you'd expect from X, their ad library operates differently from other platforms, requiring manual searches and downloading of CSV files.

As an alternative, you can manually scroll through the feed and capture relevant ad screenshots to track your competitors' tweets.

Given the time and effort, you may want to explore social listening tools such as Sprout Social. Social listening tools work by scanning social media conversations for trends and competitor mentions.

Trends report for Sprout Coffee Co. showing topics and hashtags frequently mentioned on Twitter, including 'weekend', 'coffee', and '#thanks', with detailed engagement metrics displayed in a clean dashboard format. — Sprout Social

Prefer to see all your competitors ads in one place, without the manual work?

We've shared the top 5 free tools to spy on your competitors' ads. While they are good starting points, navigating through these platforms can be very manual and time consuming. This is why we built the Competitor Ad Intelligence tool to automate this process.

Interface of Kaya competitor ad intelligence tool showcasing ad platforms like Google, Meta, and LinkedIn, along with competitor ad examples and analytics for ad spend trends. — Kaya's Competitor Ad Intelligence Tool saves you time and effort from competitive analysis. Get all your competitors' ads and insights you need, in one place.

With the Competitor Ad Intelligence Tool, you can easily:

View all your competitors' ads across platforms
Gain insights about their ad spend, ICP and messaging
Get actionable recommendations on budget allocation and marketing angles your ICP loves

FAQ

How do competitor ads affect my campaign performance?: For paid search, increased competition will raise your cost-per-click. If your ad quality score is low, you'll rank lower and receive fewer clicks.

The impact is smaller for paid social, as you are unlikely to bid on the exact same audience.
How to gauge a competitor's budget?: There's no way to know for sure. While you can manually calculate it using tools like SEMRush, a better alternative would be Kaya's Competitor Ad Intelligence tool.
Which ad channels can I track data from using Kaya's competitor analysis tool?: Kaya gathers data for you and your competitors' ads across Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Bing.
How to spy on competitors' ads?: “Spying” ethically involves using competitor research tools to analyze public ad data. Platforms like Kaya and Similarweb offer ad libraries, performance trends, and spending patterns. This helps you see what’s working for others, avoid ad fatigue, and find gaps in messaging or channels they aren’t using.
How to check competitors’ Instagram ads?: Go to the Meta Ad Library, filter by platform (Instagram), and search for your competitor’s name to view all active campaigns.
How do I find competitors on Google Ads for free?: Use the Google Ads Transparency Center to search competitor brand names and see their current ad creatives, placements, and ad copy insights.

Conclusion

We've just uncovered the top 5 tools to spy on your competitor's ads (legally, of course!), from paid socials like LinkedIn, Meta (Facebook & Instagram), TikTok, X (Twitter) to paid search ads like Google.

10x your learning from peeking at your competitors’ strategies and outcomes, then fine-tune your marketing strategies.