Competitor ad tracking for Google and Meta ad libraries
See which ads your competitors launch, which ones they pause and where each one sends traffic, without opening two ad libraries for every rival each week.
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What competitor ad monitoring covers
Competitors reads the public Google and Meta ad libraries for every competitor you track and records each ad it finds as its own entry with a first seen date and a last seen date.
- New search, display and video ads in the Google ads library
- New Facebook and Instagram ads in the Meta ad library
- Ads that stop running, recorded as paused with the date they were last seen
- Headline, body copy and call to action of each ad
- The landing page each ad points to, with a link to its current version
- The number of active ads per competitor, week over week
Ad tracking sits next to the other four signals on each competitor: prices, website changes, reviews and rankings. When a rival launches a new offer, you usually see the ad, the landing page and the pricing change together. That is the point of tracking the whole competitor rather than one channel.
How ad library tracking works in Competitors
You add a competitor by its domain. Competitors matches the domain to the advertiser in each public ad library and shows you what it found, so you can confirm the right advertiser before tracking starts.
From then on, every check compares the current list of ads with the last one. A new ad becomes a "new ad detected" change. An ad that disappears becomes "ad paused". An ad whose copy changes becomes a new entry, because in ad libraries a rewritten ad is a new creative.
Noise filtering applies here too. Duplicate creatives that differ only in image size or placement are grouped, so ten versions of one message count as one message in your digest.
When an ad points to a landing page you do not track yet, Competitors offers to add it, and from then on website change monitoring records every rewrite of that page.
What an ad change looks like in your feed
Scroll sideways to see the full table
| Competitor | Library | Change | Ad copy | Landing page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| rival-one.example | New search ad detected | "Switch in one day, we move your data" | rival-one.example/migrate | |
| rival-two.example | Meta | New ad detected | "Team plan now includes 10 seats" | rival-two.example/pricing |
| rival-two.example | Meta | Ad paused after 41 days | "Start with Pro" | rival-two.example/pro |
| rival-three.example | Active ads went from 6 to 14 | Three new messages about finance teams | rival-three.example/finance |
Each row links to the ad as it appears in the library and to the landing page snapshot taken on the same day.
Who uses competitor ad intelligence
- Performance marketers who want to know which messages rivals keep running, because an ad that runs for months is usually an ad that works.
- Product marketing teams who watch positioning shifts, like a competitor moving from "easy" to "for finance teams" across all its ads at once.
- Founders who want to know when a rival starts spending on a channel they rely on.
- Agencies that report on paid activity for several clients, see competitor monitoring for agencies.
Ads rarely tell the full story on their own. A new migration ad next to a price increase on the pricing page says something different from the same ad next to a price cut. For that reason ad changes and competitor price monitoring share one feed.
Ad alerts and the Monday digest
Every Monday, the digest lists ad changes per competitor with the copy, the landing page and a short note on why it matters. Instant alerts go out by email, or to Slack, for the change types you pick.
- Alert when a competitor launches ads for the first time
- Alert when a competitor's active ad count doubles
- Alert on any new ad that mentions your brand name or a keyword you choose
- Weekly summary only for everything else
Custom alert rules like these are part of Growth and above. History keeps every ad Competitors has seen, so you can look back at what a rival ran last spring before its last launch.
Ad tracking is on Growth and above
Ad tracking and review monitoring start on Growth. Starter covers price and website change tracking only.
Compare every limit of the competitor monitoring software plans.
Competitor ad tracking questions
Where does ad data come from?
From the public Google and Meta ad libraries, which show ads that advertisers are running. Competitors reads what is public there and records changes over time.
Can I see how much a competitor spends on ads?
No. Public ad libraries do not show spend for most commercial ads, so Competitors does not estimate it. You see what runs, for how long and where it points, which is the part you can act on.
How often are ads checked?
With the page frequency of your plan: every 6 hours on Growth and hourly on Scale. Enterprise sets a custom frequency.
Does ad tracking count as extra competitors?
No. Ads, reviews, rankings and pages for one domain all count as one tracked competitor.
Can I track ads for a competitor with several brands?
Yes. Add each brand as its own competitor, or add several advertisers to one competitor if they are the same company.
Start tracking your competitors' ads
Add a competitor by domain and see its current ads in your first digest next Monday.