How to Find Sponsored Posts on Facebook

Scrolling through Facebook to find out what ads your competitors are running is an exercise in hope, not strategy. Instead of waiting for their sponsored posts to appear, you can actively find and analyze them to fuel your own marketing efforts. This guide breaks down the most effective methods for finding any sponsored post on Facebook, from using Meta's powerful official tools to training your own feed to show you exactly what you need to see.

Why Bother Looking for Competitor Ads?

Dedicating time to researching sponsored posts isn't about stealing ideas. It's about conducting smart market research that informs your strategy and helps you create better content. Think of it as free access to the results of your competitors' A/B tests. They've spent money figuring out what works, and you can learn from both their wins and their misses.

Here's what you get out of it:

• Competitive Insight: Understand the exact messaging, offers, and pain points your competitors are highlighting. Are they pushing a discount, promoting a new feature, or building brand awareness? This tells you where they believe the market opportunity is.
• Creative Inspiration: Break free from your creative bubble. See what ad formats (video, carousel, static images), visual styles (user-generated content vs. polished studio shots), and copywriting techniques are being used in your industry. You might discover a new angle for a product you've been struggling to market.
• Audience & Positioning Clues: While you can't see their exact targeting settings, the language and visuals of an ad are massive clues. An ad featuring college students signals a different target audience than one featuring C-suite executives. This helps you understand how others are positioning themselves and where you might fit in.
• Spot Emerging Trends: When you see multiple competitors suddenly running ads around the same theme or feature, it's a strong signal of an emerging market trend. This research lets you respond quickly instead of being caught off-guard.

Your Goldmine: The Meta Ad Library

Forget guesswork and random scrolling - the single best way to find sponsored posts is by using the Meta Ad Library. This is Meta's own public, searchable database of every single active ad running across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and their Audience Network. It was created to increase advertising transparency, but for marketers, it's a powerful competitive intelligence tool.

What is the Meta Ad Library?

The Meta Ad Library is a comprehensive repository of advertisements. You don't need a Facebook account to access a majority of its features, and you can search for ads by an advertiser's name, brand, or even by keywords used in the ad copy. For any given company, you can see all the different creatives they are currently running, the platforms they're on, and when each ad launched. It's the most direct and reliable way to see a competitor's entire advertising playbook at a glance.

Step-by-Step: How to Use the Ad Library

Navigating the library is simple once you know what to look for. Follow these steps to find exactly what you're looking for.

1. Go to the Ad Library: You can access it directly by going to an easy-to-remember URL: facebook.com/ads/library. Bookmark this page, you'll be coming back to it often.
2. Set Your Search Area and Category: First, choose the country you want to search ads in. For most brands, this will be their primary market. Next, for the Ad Category, you should almost always select "All Ads" unless you are specifically researching political or social issue ads.
3. Search by Advertiser: In the main search bar, type in the name of the competitor's Pages. As you type, a dropdown menu will appear with matching Facebook Pages. Select the correct one. This is the most effective way to analyze a single competitor's strategy.
4. Analyze the Results: Once you search, the library will show you a grid of every ad that brand is currently running. This page is filled with valuable data. Look for:
   • The Ad Creative: You'll see the exact image, video, or carousel they are using. Pay attention to the format. Is it a short, snappy Reel-style video? A candid-looking photo? A polished graphic?
   • The Ad Copy: Read the primary text, headline, and description to understand their messaging. What benefits are they highlighting? What is their tone of voice?
   • The Call-to-Action (CTA): Notice which button they're using. "Shop Now," "Learn More," "Sign Up," and "Download" all signal different campaign goals (e.g., e-commerce sales vs. lead generation).
   • Launch Date: Each ad shows when it "Started running." This piece of information is critical. Ads that have been running for weeks or months are almost certainly profitable and performing well. It's a sign of a winning ad.
   • Platforms: Underneath the advertiser's name, you can see the icons for Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, and Messenger, indicating where that specific ad is being served.

Pro Tips for Ad Library Research

Getting the basic results is easy, but here's how to extract deeper insights:

• Filter by Platform: Use the "Platforms" filter to see only ads running on Instagram, for example. This is useful for understanding if their strategy changes between Facebook and Instagram.
• Look for Patterns: Don't just look at one ad. Scan all of their active ads. Do you see them testing multiple headlines with the same image? Or are they testing different images with the same copy? This reveals their A/B testing strategy.
• Check the Landing Page: Click on the ad's CTA to visit the landing page. Is it a product page, a blog post, a squeeze page for an ebook? The destination tells you about their funnel and the ultimate goal of the campaign.
• Don't Forget About Keywords: While searching by advertiser is pointed, you can also search by keyword to see how different companies are talking about a specific topic. For example, a search for "vegan leather" would show you ads from all brands competing in that space.

Let the Ads Come to You: Engineering Your Facebook Feed

The Ad Library is surgical, but there's still value in seeing how ads appear naturally in your feed. To do this, you need to convince Meta's algorithm that you are your competitor's ideal customer. By mimicking the online behavior of their target audience, you can coax their ads into showing up for you.

Becoming Your Ideal Customer

The ads you see are a reflection of your data profile. To change the ads you see, you need to change your behavior. Here's a checklist to get started:

• Interact with Their Brand: Follow your competitors on Facebook and Instagram. Like and comment on a few of their organic posts to show interest.
• Visit Their Website: Go to their website from your computer. Click on several products or services, and maybe even sign up for their newsletter.
• Abandon a Cart: The ultimate buying-intent signal. Go to their e-commerce store, add a product to your cart, go through the checkout process, and then close the tab right before you pay. It's highly likely you'll start seeing retargeting ads within a day.
• Google Them: Search for your competitor’s brand name and related keywords on Google. The tracking pixels across the web will connect your search behavior to your social profiles.

Using the "Why Am I Seeing This Ad?" Feature

When a competitor's ad finally hits your feed, don't just admire it - investigate it. Facebook gives you a peek behind the curtain.

1. Navigate to the sponsored post in your feed.
2. Click the three dots (...) in the top-right corner of the ad.
3. From the dropdown menu, select "Why am I seeing this ad?"

Facebook will give you a brief, non-specific summary of why you were targeted. It won't reveal their entire strategy, but you'll get valuable clues like, "This advertiser is trying to reach people who Facebook thinks are interested in [Social Media Marketing]" or "people who visited their website." These tidbits help you slowly piece together their audience strategy.

Beyond the Basics: Other Smart Tactics

If you need even more ways to dig up ads and organize your swipe file, a couple of built-in Facebook features can speed up the process.

Check a Page's "Page Transparency" Section

Here's another quick path into the Ad Library for a specific brand that doesn't even require leaving their page:

• Go directly to the Facebook Page of a competitor you want to research.
• On the left-hand menu, find the box labeled "Page Transparency" and click "See All."
• In the pop-up window, scroll down to the section that says "Ads from this Page." You'll see a confirmation of whether the page is currently running ads.
• Click the button that says "Go to Ad Library." This link will take you directly to the Ad Library results for that specific page, saving you the step of searching for it manually.

Build an Ad Swipe File with "Saved" Posts

When you discover a great ad in your feed - one with compelling copy, a clever video, or a unique offer - don't let it disappear into the algorithmic ether. Save it.

Click the three dots (...) on the ad and select "Save Post." You can create custom collections within your Facebook Saved folder. Make one called "Ad Inspiration" or "Competitor Ads." Over time, you'll build a personal library of top-tier examples that you can reference anytime you need a creative spark, preventing that dreaded feeling of starting with a blank canvas.

Final Thoughts

Finding sponsored posts stops being a guessing game once you know where to look. By mastering the Meta Ad Library and training your own feed, you can turn Facebook into a powerful source of competitive intelligence. This research process helps you understand market trends, refine your messaging, and inspire endless content ideas based on what's already proven to work.

After you've done your research and feel inspired to create, the next step is turning those ideas into a robust, organized content strategy. To help with that, we built a modern, visual planning calendar directly into Postbase. You can map out your content, schedule your posts - especially video formats like Reels and Shorts - across all platforms with rock-solid reliability, and then use our clean analytics to see what's working. Moving from research to execution should be seamless, and having a tool designed for today's social media keeps your momentum going.