Find competitors' ads in five short stops
Three free ad libraries, three small paid finders, and one check to see which advertisers also hold your searches.
By ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom · Editorial team
· 3 min read
Want to find competitors' ads, and through them, competitors you did not know you had? Anyone paying to reach your buyers is in your market, whether or not they rank in Google. Here are five stops, each short.
1. Google's ads transparency hub
Google's public hub lists ads from verified advertisers. Search by advertiser and you can see each ad's format, the regions it ran in and when it last showed. Type category words as well as brand names. Unknown advertisers on your terms are new rivals.
Good for: spotting who runs search, display and video ads in your space. Limit: no keywords, no spend.
2. Meta Ad Library
Meta's library covers active ads across its products, including Facebook and Instagram. Search a page name or a keyword. Spend and reach appear only for social issue, election and political ads, so for most brands you see the creative and the dates, not the budget.
Good for: consumer brands, apps and anything sold with a short video. Limit: outside political and social issue ads, only ads that are running now.
3. LinkedIn Ad Library
Search by company, payer, keyword, country or date. It shows ads that ran after June 1, 2023, and keeps each one for a year after its last impression. Spend is not listed.
Good for: B2B software and services. Limit: a one-year window per ad.
4. seogeoaeo.ai's ad finders, when you need it organised
The libraries are free but loose. If you would rather have a tidy report, seogeoaeo.ai has three small tools that read from them:
| Tool | Credits | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Competitor Google Ads | 15 | Up to 100 recent Google ads for a domain, days running, copy of up to 10 text ads |
| Meta Ad Finder | 5 | Up to 30 recent active ads by page or keyword, with wording, button and landing page |
| LinkedIn Ad Finder | 5 | Ad types, headlines, start and stop dates, impressions range |
A keyword search in the Meta Ad Finder also lists the pages behind the ads, which is a quick way to find advertisers you had never heard of. The longest-running ads come first, since an ad someone keeps paying for is likely one that works. None of the tools show spend.
Good for: turning a library search into a list you can act on. Limit: a sample of recent ads, not the full history.
5. Check who they are in search
An advertiser is a business rival. To see whether it is also a search rival, run its domain, or yours, through Competitor Finder. For 38 credits it lists the 30 sites that share the most Google keywords with the domain in one country, with estimated visits and average rank, and marks those where at least 5% of their keywords overlap as close competitors.
A company on both lists, paying for ads and ranking for your terms, is the one taking your customers today.
A quick routine
Once a month, try this:
- Search three category words in each free library.
- Note any advertiser you have not seen before.
- Run the new names through the matching ad finder to read their wording.
- Check the most persistent ones in a keyword-overlap lookup.
Fifteen minutes, a few credits, and you will rarely be surprised by a new rival again.
The short version
Free libraries first. Paid finders when you want the results sorted. A keyword-overlap check last, to see who you meet in both places. Ads will not reveal rivals that never advertise, so ask your customers what else they tried, too. More detail is in this guide to finding competitors.