How to Use the Facebook Ad Library to Get Awesome Ad Examples (FREE)

It’s EASY to sit in front of your computer screen and wonder what images, videos or ad copy to use for your next Facebook campaign.

When this happens or if you just need a little inspiration, spying on other businesses Facebook ads can be VERY helpful to get you kick started.

When you spy on Facebook ads you want to look at things like:

• Ad imagery
• Headlines
• Copy
• Formatting
• Landing pages

You do this by using a FREE tool called the Facebook Ads Library.

How to Use The Facebook Ads Library

You can find the Facebook Ads Library here:

https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/

Just click on that link and you’ll be taken to it.

Note: Facebook used to have a section called info and ads that was on the left hand side of a business page. You could click on it and see all the ads that were currently running from that page. The Facebook Ads Library has replaced the info and ads section.

The first thing you need to know is that you can filter by country. This isn’t the country that the business is based in, it’s where the ads are running.

So if you want to see ads running in the UK, select United Kingdom. If you want the United States, select that.

There are all kinds of countries that are in the list. You just need to choose the one that is most relevant to what you want to look at.

The next thing you do is enter the advertiser you want to look at. You do this by entering their Facebook page name.

Let’s say you were another Facebook Ads agency and you knew about my agency and you wanted to see what we were doing.

You could select the UK and enter the name Ben Heath and it will let them look at the ads I currently have running.

Before I get into how to look at the ads, I want to point out that Facebook provides some interesting information here. They show when the page was created, how many times the page name was changed, and the primary country and region the page advertises to.

You’ll see here that on my results that we changed our name 2 times because we went to Lead Guru – the company name – and then back to Ben Heath.

Now, lets get into the ads!

In this interface when you scroll down a bit you will see all the ads a page is CURRENTLY running.

TIP: This tool won’t show you past ads, but it will let you spy on any ads that are currently running on ANY page on Facebook.

It’s not so much the ads that we are running at any given time that are important, what is important is the process of HOW to look at other businesses ads.

Breaking Ads Down Into Their Component Parts

When you are looking at other people’s ads, the last thing you want to do is copy them outright. It’s not a good business practice to do that and it won’t help you develop your own brand.

Instead you want to look at each ad closely and break it down into it’s component parts to try and work out what works and why it works.

One of the first things that people notice is the copy, but the FIRST thing I want you to take note of is the ad format that your competitors are using.

Different industries work well with different kinds of ads and it’s good to look at several competitors to see if there is a theme.

Ad formats can include:

• Video ads
• Slide show ads
• Carousel ads
• Static image ads

After you have a general sense of the ad format, it’s time to dig into the details. You want to ask questions like:

• What kind of image or video?
• What sort of headline are they using?
• What kind of copy do they have running?
• What are their call to action buttons (if any)?

Insider Tip: Be sure to check out when the ad was first launched. Facebook tells you this information and it is VALUABLE. If you see ads from months or years ago that are still running, there is a very good chance that those ads are performing very, very well.

You want to give more weight to the ads that have been running for weeks or months. Those are better ads to model your ads on.

Let’s take a look at another example. We’ll look at Digital Marketer. They are the gold standard in the digital marketing space and a great company to model ads from.

Reminder: I had to change my country from the United Kingdom to the United States because Digital Marketer primarily advertises in the US.

You’ll see here that right now Digital Marketer has 53 active ads running.

A lot of these at the top of the page are new. So you won’t have a good idea of whether they are working well or not.

But if you scroll down toward the bottom of their ads you’ll see ones that have been running for a month or more.

At this writing, this ad has been running for over two months – so it’s a good one to pay attention to.

Once you find an ad that you want to look at more closely, click on the “See Ad Details” link and it will take you to the full version of that ad.

It’s really neat. Because from here even the buttons and videos work.

You can watch the video or click through to their landing page.

This gives you a HUGE advantage. Because when you are running some sort of online funnel, the ad is part of the process. But the landing page is at least as important.

The landing page is what people are taken to after the ad and can make the ad successful… or not.

The ad above goes to a page offering a free info session:

It’s a good idea to go through your competitors funnels and take screenshots and notes. This will help you set up successful funnels of your own.

More FREE Facebook Ads Resources

There is nothing I like better than to see business owners increase their ROI with Facebook Ads. In order to help business owners succeed with Facebook ads I’ve created a FREE webinar training that you can register for here.

When you attend this webinar you’ll learn:

• 3 different Facebook ad strategies that we use every day. These strategies have generated millions of dollars in revenue and are tried and proven to work.
• How to customize the Facebook ads strategy to your particular business. There is no such thing as a one size fits all approach to Facebook ads.
• How Facebook and Instagram have changed and how to adjust your ad strategy to what works in 2021.

Facebook Ad Library Training Video

Here’s a video where I go over how to use the Facebook Ad Library to funnel hack your competitors. It’s a really powerful tool.

The Bottom Line on Using the Facebook Ads Library

The Facebook Ads Library is a free tool that you can use to spy on any of your competitors ads that are currently running and the landing pages connected to those ads.

Pay special attention to ads that have been running for a month or more. These are usually solid and profitable.

Also think about WHERE the prospect is in the funnel with a specific ad. Most good Facebook advertisers set up their ads in stages to lead people through a buying process.

The Facebook Ads Library is a powerful tool that any advertiser can use to help them create better ads over time.