How the Ad Library Works

https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/

• It helps makes advertising transparent by giving people more information about the ads they see.

• Available to everyone. Anyone is able to view and search for ads in the Ad Library.

  • However, if ads include certain types of content, such as alcohol or gambling, Facebook won't show the ad creative to people who are underage or aren't logged into Facebook.
  • When possible, Facebook relies on people's self-reported age to set these restrictions.

• Searchable in principle.

  • For ads about social issues, elections or politics:
    • Keyword search and Page name search.
    • When someone searches in the Ad Library, any ads that include the searched term may appear as well as ads run by Pages that include the term.
  • For ads that are not about social issues, elections or politics:
    • Page name search only. Will not surface in keyword searches.

  Examples of Search Results

• Facebook archives these ads for seven years.

• All active ads:

  • You can search for an advertiser to view the active ads running from the advertiser's Page. When viewing a Page's active ads, ad creative and copy will be displayed. Clicking "See Ad Details" will show additional information, such as from the Page's "About" section, or more information about the lead form for a lead generation ad format. You will also be able to view the ads from a specific country using the country selector.
  • Reporting social/issue/political ads: You can report active ads that you believe should have a political or social issue "Paid for by" disclaimer and don't, or for breaching other advertising policies. You can report an ad as political only in certain countries.

• Ads about social issues, elections or politics:

  • You can search by Page name or keyword, and then filter by: Country, Page name, Status (active and/or inactive)
  • For full list of information available: click here.

• Implications:

  • All ads older than seven years from the date of first impression are not available
  • Inactive non-"social issues, elections or politics" ads are not available

Notes:

1. Not exactly the best UI. Filtering mechanisms barebones.
   • Easy to search for something you saw if you know the "keyword" and it is a political ad.
   • Hard to simply browse; ordering by most recent campaign makes it hard to find an ad that was run some time ago.
2. What about other ad formats?

[a lot more to be analyzed about design of Ad Library...]

Facebook Ad Library Report

https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/report/

• Focuses on providing transparency on ads about social issues, elections or politics

• See overall spending totals, spending by specific advertisers and spending data by geographic location.