How to See Competitor Ads on LinkedIn

Spying on your competitor's LinkedIn ads isn't just about satisfying your curiosity, it's a powerful and completely free way to understand their strategy, messaging, and what's clicking with your shared audience. By looking under the hood, you can gather heaps of intel to make your own marketing smarter and more effective. This guide will walk you through exactly where to find competitor ads, how to analyze them, and what to do with the insights you discover.

Why Bother Looking at Competitor LinkedIn Ads?

Dedicating a bit of time to competitive research on LinkedIn can give you a significant strategic advantage. It’s like getting a partial blueprint of their go-to-market strategy. Before we get into the step-by-step process, let's nail down why this is such a valuable exercise for any marketer, entrepreneur, or brand builder.

Here are a few quick benefits:

• Get Real-Time Messaging Insights: See the exact pain points, benefits, and unique selling propositions (USPs) your competitors are pushing right now. Are they focusing on saving time, cutting costs, or increasing efficiency? Their ad copy tells you what they believe is the most compelling reason to buy.
• Uncover Their Funnel Strategy: The ad's call-to-action (CTA) reveals where they are trying to send traffic. Are they promoting a top-of-funnel ebook download, a middle-of-funnel webinar registration, or a bottom-of-funnel "Request a Demo" push? This tells you a ton about their sales cycle and nurturing process.
• Spark Creative Inspiration: Feeling stuck in a creative rut? Seeing what others are doing can light a fire. Analyze their use of video, static images, carousels, and GIFs. You might see a new angle for your own ad visuals or a headline format you haven't tried yet.
• Identify Market Gaps: Just as important as what they are saying is what they aren't saying. If all your competitors are hammering on one specific feature, but you know customers struggle with a different problem, that’s your opening. Their messaging focus can shine a light on underserved needs in the market.
• Benchmark Your Own Efforts: Compare their ad creatives and offers to your own. Are you in the same league? Does their messaging seem clearer? Do their offers feel more compelling? This honest assessment can help you raise the bar for your own campaigns.

The Most Direct Method: The LinkedIn Ad Library

Years ago, seeing competitor ads felt like a cloak-and-dagger operation. Today, thanks to platform transparency initiatives, a tool exists for this exact purpose: The LinkedIn Ad Library. It's an official, searchable database of every active ad on the platform.

Here’s how to use it, step-by-step.

Step 1: Go to the LinkedIn Ad Library

The easiest way to get there is by navigating directly to the URL. Just open your browser and go to: https://www.linkedin.com/ad-library.

Bookmark this page. You’ll be coming back to it often. What you'll find is a clean, simple page with a single search bar. No login is required to browse, making it incredibly accessible for quick checks.

Step 2: Search for an Advertiser

In the search bar, type the name of the competitor you want to investigate. As you type, LinkedIn will suggest advertiser pages. It's important to select the correct official Company Page to see their ads.

For example, let's say we’re in the marketing automation space and want to see what HubSpot is up to. We'd type "HubSpot" and select their official page from the dropdown menu.

Once you click on the company, you'll be taken to their dedicated page within the Ad Library, which houses all the ads they’ve run in the last 90 days. But don't just stop at one competitor, look for several brands you compete with, they might test very different angles.

Step 3: Filter and Sort the Results

Now the fun begins. By default, LinkedIn shows you everything, but you can narrow things down for a more focused analysis. You can use filters at the top of the page for:

• Country: Want to see if they're running region-specific campaigns? You can filter ads by the country they are targeting. This is perfect for understanding their localization strategy.
• Date Range: LinkedIn shows ads from the last 90 days, but you can narrow this down. Want to see what they launched for a holiday promotion or event? Adjust the timeline.

Step 4: Dig into the Ad Creative and Copy

Scroll through the results. For each ad, you'll see a card that displays:

• The exact ad creative (the image, carousel, or video).
• The headline and primary ad copy.
• The call-to-action button (e.g., “Learn More,” “Download Now,” “Sign Up”).

Pay close attention. Click "See Ad Details" for more context. Take screenshots of ads that catch your eye. Start collecting them in a file or mood board to identify patterns over time. Notice how they adapt their message for different types of creative.

Step 5: Follow the Path - Click the Ad!

This is a step many people miss. Don't just look at the ad itself, understand the entire user journey. Click on the call-to-action button to visit the landing page they are sending traffic to. Once you're there, analyze the experience:

• Is the headline on the landing page consistent with the ad's message?
• What are they asking for? Just an email address? A full name, company, and phone number?
• What trust signals are they using? Testimonials, company logos, case studies?
• Is it a gated PDF, a webinar registration, a product page, or a demo request form?

The ad gets the click, but the landing page does the conversion. Analyzing both gives you a complete picture of their full-funnel strategy, allowing you to better understand what to build for your own efforts.

Alternative Path: From a Competitor’s Company Page

If you're already browsing LinkedIn and land on a competitor's page, you don't have to navigate away to the Ad Library. You can get there directly from their profile.

1. Search for your competitor and go to their official LinkedIn Company Page.
2. On their page, click the “About” tab in the navigation menu.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the "About" section. You'll see a box called “Page transparency.”
4. Inside this box, you'll see information about when the page was created and its history. But the most valuable piece here is one large button: Click “Go to Ad Library.”

This will drop you right into the same exact view of their Ad Library that we accessed previously. It's just a different way to get to the same fantastic source of information, perfect for when you are going on a quick investigation.

A Practical Checklist for Analyzing Competitor Ads

So you’ve found the ads. Now what? Just scrolling through them isn’t enough. You need a systematic approach to extract meaning and actionable insights. Use this checklist to guide your analysis.

The Four Core Components to Examine:

• 1. The Offer: What is the core value exchange? Are they offering...
  • A detailed guide or whitepaper?
  • A hands-on worksheet or template?
  • A spot in an upcoming live or on-demand webinar?
  • A free trial of their software?
  • A consultation or demo?
  The offer tells you who they're trying to attract and at what stage of the buyer's journey.
• 2. Ad Creative &, Format: What kind of visuals are they using?
  • Single Image: Is it a product screenshot, a stock photo of a person, or a custom graphic? What's the main focus?
  • Carousel Ad: Are they telling a story across multiple slides? Or showcasing different product features?
  • Video Ad: How long is it? Is it an animation, a talking-head video, or a screen recording? Are captions included for sound-off viewing?
  Look for patterns. Are all their videos animated? Do they prefer illustrations over photos? This signals what their brand believes will stop the scroll for their community of potential buyers.
• 3. Copywriting &, Messaging: How are they framing their solution?
  • The Hook: How does the first line of the ad text grab attention? Is it a question, a surprising statistic, or a direct statement of a pain point?
  • Pain vs. Gain: Do they focus more on the problem they solve (e.g., "Stop wasting time on X") or the benefit they deliver (e.g., "Get 10 hours back every week")?
  • Tone of Voice: Is it formal and corporate, or casual and friendly? Is it aspirational or straightforward and tactical?
• 4. Call-to-Action (CTA): What exact action do they want the user to take?
  • Are they using clear, direct command verbs like "Download," "Watch," "Register," or "Try"?
  • Does the CTA on the ad's button match the copy in the text? For example, is the copy asking people to *read* the guide, while the button says *download* it? These small details have an impact on conversion. Look for best practices everywhere.

By breaking down their ads into these four parts, you’ll move from simply looking at ads to truly understanding the strategy behind them. Repeat this process for three or four competitors to get a broad view of your industry's advertising landscape, and you'll find the gaps for building something truly outstanding that'll help you scale your business faster.

Final Thoughts

Using LinkedIn’s Ad Library is a straightforward and massively underrated way to get a pulse on your competitors’ marketing playbook. Setting aside a little time each quarter to review their ads will help you refine your messaging, generate fresh ideas, and ultimately create more impactful campaigns for your own brand.

Of course, keeping tabs on competitors is just one part of the picture, executing your own strategy smoothly is what drives growth. We know firsthand how chaotic it can feel to juggle content creation, scheduling, and community management across platforms like LinkedIn. That’s why we built Postbase to bring planning and publishing into one clean, modern workflow. From our visual calendar that helps you spot gaps to a rock-solid scheduler that ensures your posts - especially video - always go live, Postbase is designed for how social media actually works today, so you can move from great idea to published post without the common snags and reliability issues of older tools.