To see what ads a company is running, search for it in two free public libraries: Meta's Ad Library for Facebook and Instagram, and Google's Ads Transparency Center for Search, YouTube and Shopping. Both list the ads that are live now, and both show roughly when each one started. That date is the most useful thing on the page. An ad still running after 30 days is probably paying for itself, because nobody keeps paying for one that is not.
The whole routine takes about ten minutes a company. It is the best preparation there is for a call with a brand that spends on ads, whether you are an agency pitching them, a vendor selling to their marketing team, or a founder looking at a competitor.
Meta's Ad Library: Facebook and Instagram
- Open the Ad Library at facebook.com/ads/library. You do not need an account to search it.
- Set the country to All and the category to All ads. One country hides everything the brand runs anywhere else.
- Type the company's name and pick its Page from the suggestions instead of searching the keyword. A keyword search returns every advertiser that mentions the word.
- Filter to active ads. Inactive ones are history; the live set is the current plan.
Each ad shows the date it started running and where it runs, usually Facebook and Instagram. When one creative runs as several ads, the library groups them and tells you how many. Several copies of the same ad usually means it is being scaled, across audiences or countries.
Google's Ads Transparency Center: Search, YouTube and Shopping
- Open adstransparency.google.com and search for the company's website rather than its name. The domain finds the ads that send people there, even when the advertiser's legal name is something else.
- Set the region to Anywhere, or to the market you care about, and leave the date range open.
- Filter by format (text, image or video) and by platform. A brand with hundreds of text ads is buying search; one with mostly video is on YouTube.
- Open an ad to see the advertiser's verified name and when the ad was last shown.
Google lists verified advertisers only, and a new ad can take a day or two to appear. It does not show spend for commercial ads either. What the count and the formats do tell you is how much of the company's marketing runs through Google.
Reading what you find
Ten minutes in two libraries gives you more than a list of ads. Four things are worth writing down.
- The likely winners. Look at how long each ad has run. The ones live for 30 days or more are the closest you will get to their best performers without seeing the account.
- The offer. What do the long runners lead with: a discount, a free trial, a guarantee, a bundle? The offer that survives is usually the one that sells.
- The formats and the platforms. All video, all static, or a mix; Meta only, or Meta and Google. Where they spend tells you who they think their customer is.
- Where the clicks land. Open two or three landing pages. A brand sending every ad to its homepage has a different problem from one with a page per offer.
LinkedIn and TikTok
Two more libraries are worth a look for the right company. LinkedIn's Ad Library, at linkedin.com/ad-library, keeps a company's ads for a year after they last ran, which matters if they sell to businesses. TikTok's Commercial Content Library covers ads shown in Europe, and its Creative Center lists top performing ads by industry rather than by advertiser.
What it changes on the call
Most discovery calls open with some version of tell me about your business. Ten minutes in the ad libraries buys a better opening: you noticed their free trial ad has run for five months in four copies, and you ask what it converts at before suggesting anything new.
That is a different first five minutes. It shows the work, it starts on their numbers instead of your pitch, and it tends to reach the real problem sooner. For the rest of the preparation, what to research before a discovery call covers their site, their competitors and the questions to bring.
Doing it for every booking
The routine is simple and it does not scale. Ten minutes a booking is fine for three calls a week and impossible for thirty, which is when it gets skipped. Setupp's pre-call research runs these lookups when someone books: it reads their website, counts their live ads on Meta and Google, lists the ones that have run longest, checks up to three competitors, and puts a short brief on the booking.
If the booking came through a qualification gate, you also know they cleared your budget floor before you open it. Research is on Pro and up, and the pricing page has the numbers.