How to Find Competitor Meta Ads for Your App

Meta ads are the paid ads that run on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and the apps in Meta’s ad network. For an app, they are the main paid route to installs outside the stores’ own search ads.

A competitor’s ads show what it believes gets people to install: the promise it leads with, the offer, the format and the audience it speaks to. An ad that keeps running is one the advertiser keeps paying for. Reading them before you write your own saves your first rounds of testing on ideas a rival has already tried.

1. Open the Ad Library. It is at facebook.com/ads/library and needs no ad account.
2. Choose a country and “All ads”. Results differ by country, so pick the market you sell in.
3. Search the advertiser. The advertiser is the Facebook Page that runs the ad. Apps often advertise under a company or studio name, not the app’s name, so try both.
4. Filter and open the details. Filter by platform and media type, then open an ad’s details to see when it started running and how many versions share its text.

Where it falls short:

• You have to know who your competitors are, and which Page each one advertises from.
• It shows no spend, impressions or clicks for ordinary ads. Meta publishes spend only for ads about social issues, elections or politics, and adds reach figures only for ads shown in the EU.
• It searches one advertiser at a time. Comparing a whole category means many searches and a spreadsheet.
• Not every result is the app’s own: resellers, affiliates and look-alike Pages run ads too.

Ad Search starts from a category instead of an advertiser. It finds the apps in that category that advertise, then shows their ads. You choose the platforms: Google and Apple show who is advertising, and Meta and TikTok show the ads themselves, each checked to be the app’s own.

Each Meta ad comes with how many days it has run, and its hook and angle read out for you. A Comments tab shows what people say under competitors’ ads. Matching an ad to an app is not exact, and where Appleak could not confirm a match it says so.

1. Name the category. Open Ad Search and type a category, or ask from the dashboard: “show me ads for budgeting apps”.
2. Switch on Meta. Add TikTok if you want it. Google and Apple cost nothing; Meta and TikTok show their price in credits before anything runs.
3. Read the board. It lists the apps that advertise and each app’s ads, with days live and the hook.
4. Go further. Press Find more to read the next page of each library. It counts as one more search.
5. Read the replies. Open Comments to see what people say under the ads, which often names what the ad left out.

show me ads for budgeting appswhat hooks do meditation apps use in their ads

• Days live. An ad that has run for weeks is one the advertiser keeps paying for. A fresh ad may only be a test.
• Versions of one idea. Many creatives with the same headline mean the idea is being scaled, not tested.
• The hook: the first line or the first two seconds, and what it promises.
• The angle: the reason to care. Saving time, saving money, looking better, or fear of missing out.
• The offer: a free trial, a discount, a price in the ad.
• The format: a person talking to camera, a screen recording, a still image or a carousel.

• Group the ads you find by angle, not by app. Three apps leading with the same promise tells you what the category believes works.
• Look for the angle nobody runs. It is either untested or tested and dropped; the reviews of those apps usually say which.
• Borrow the structure, not the words: the order of hook, proof and offer, not the copy or the footage.
• Test three to five angles at once, each with its own creative, and keep the ones that hold.
• Make the store listing keep the ad’s promise. The screenshots are the page the ad lands on.
• Look again every month. Market Watch tells you when an app you follow starts new ads.

Appleak’s Research Lab writes ad angles, hooks and scripts for your app from the ads and reviews it has read, as first drafts for you to edit.