Meta Ads Library Scraper for Competitor Research

What this pipeline does

Competitor ad research is useful when it stays tied to the creative and the source. A screenshot without metadata is hard to compare. A row with ad ID, page name, creative text, active status, countries, spend range, impression range, and source URL is much easier to sort, filter, and summarize.

Meta Ads Library Scraper uses the official Meta Ads Library API when you provide a valid Facebook access token. It returns Facebook and Instagram ad records for competitor research, brand safety checks, political transparency, creative analysis, and monitoring workflows.

Best first run

Use a small advertiser or search term first. Provide a valid Graph API token through the actor input or secure Apify secret handling.

{
  "searchTerms": ["example brand"],
  "country": "US",
  "maxAds": 50,
  "facebookAccessToken": "use-a-secure-secret",
  "enableAiAnalysis": false
}

The first run should prove that ad_id, page_name, creative, spend_range, impressions, active, and source URLs are coming through cleanly.

Ad row shape

{
  "ad_id": "1234567890",
  "page_name": "Example Brand",
  "creative": "Limited-time offer for new customers",
  "spend_range": "$100-$499",
  "impressions": "10K-50K",
  "active": true
}

Keep active and inactive ads in the same table, but filter them separately in dashboards. Active ads show current positioning; inactive ads show testing history and repeated themes.

Research views

Useful paid-social views are usually simple:

• New active ads by competitor
• Creative hooks repeated across several ads
• Country coverage by advertiser
• Spend and impression ranges by campaign theme
• Calls to action used most often

Those views help marketers decide what to test, what to ignore, and which competitor claims are gaining pressure in the market.

Token and API notes

This actor is strongest with an official Meta access token. If a run returns diagnostics about a missing token, treat that as setup work rather than a data-quality result. Keep credentials out of prompts, source control, and screenshots.

Deployment notes

Run named competitors weekly and priority advertisers daily during campaign windows. Store ad_snapshot_url or source URLs with every row so a reviewer can open the original library entry before making creative decisions.