How to Use AdSpy: A Practical Walkthrough for Meta Ads
To use AdSpy well, search it like a search engine for ad copy: type the words your buyers and competitors use, narrow the results with filters for platform, date, country and ad type, then sort for ads that have run longest and drawn the most engagement. Save every ad you shortlist outside the tool the same day, and only pay the $149 a month if you will search this way most weeks.
That is the short version. The rest of this post is the routine I actually run, plus the moments where I close AdSpy and use the free Meta Ad Library instead.
Full disclosure before we start: AdSpy is a partner of ours. I will tell you where it is strong and where it is a waste of money, the same as I would if it weren't.
What is AdSpy, and what are you paying for?
AdSpy is a paid ad spy tool focused on Facebook and Instagram. Its core is a large searchable archive of ads it has collected over years, including ads that have since stopped running.
That archive is the whole product. The Meta Ad Library at facebook.com/ads/library is free and shows every active ad from any advertiser, but when an advertiser pauses an ad, it disappears from public view. AdSpy keeps it. It also lets you search inside ad text and comments, which the official library handles poorly because its search is exact-match and clunky.
It costs $149 a month and there is no free trial. Our AdSpy pricing post covers the bill in detail, and is AdSpy worth it covers whether that bill makes sense for you. This post assumes you have either bought it or are about to, and want to get your money's worth.
How do you search AdSpy by ad text?
Ad text search is where I start almost every session, because it is the thing the free tools do worst.
The mistake beginners make is typing their product category and scrolling. "Skincare" returns a wall of unrelated ads. Instead, search the language people use when they are close to buying:
- Promise words. The outcome your category sells, phrased the way a customer would say it.
- Objection words. The doubts a buyer has, like price, side effects, sizing or "does it actually work".
- Offer words. Bundle, free shipping, trial, subscribe and save, guarantee.
- Hook phrases. Openers you have seen work, to find every brand testing a version of them.
Each of these returns a different slice of the market. Objection searches are my favourite, because ads that answer an objection head-on tend to be written by advertisers who have already tested the softer versions and moved on.
AdSpy also lets you search the comments on ads. This is underused. Searching comments for a complaint or question tells you what real people say under ads in your niche, which is free copy research you won't find in any brief.
How do you search by advertiser or URL?
Advertiser search is the second mode. Type a brand's Page name and you see what AdSpy has collected for them, including ads that are no longer live.
That history is the reason to use AdSpy for a brand search at all. If you only need what a competitor is running today, the Meta Ad Library shows that for free, straight from Meta. Use AdSpy for questions like "what did this brand run before Black Friday last year" or "which concept did they test and drop".
URL and domain search is the third mode, and the one I find most revealing. Searching a landing page domain shows ads pointing to that site, which can surface:
- Pages and accounts you didn't know the brand ran, such as creator or partner pages sending traffic to the same store.
- Different offers or landing pages being tested for the same product.
- Affiliates and resellers promoting the product under their own names.
If you are researching a product rather than a brand, searching the store's domain is often faster than guessing the advertiser's Page name.
Which AdSpy filters matter most?
AdSpy has a lot of filters. Exact labels change as the interface is updated, so I'll describe them by what they do rather than by the button name. Three or four do most of the work.
Platform and placement. Facebook, Instagram, or both. Filter to where you actually run ads.
Date range. When the ad was first or last seen. A narrow recent window shows what is being tested now. A wide window shows what has survived over time.
Country and language. Set this to the markets you sell in. An ad that works in one market can flop in another, and costs differ.
Ad type or media. Video, image or carousel. Filter to formats you can realistically produce, or you will fill your swipe file with references you can't use.
Beyond those, there are filters for things like engagement levels, ecommerce platform and demographics. They are useful once you know what you are looking for. Early on, too many filters at once just hides good ads.
How do you judge which ads are winners?
No spy tool can see another advertiser's spend or ROAS. Nobody outside the account has that data. So you judge winners from the signals you can see, and I rank them in this order.
1. Longevity. How long the ad has been running. Advertisers keep paying only for ads that work, so an ad that has run for weeks or months is usually a winner. This is the single most reliable signal, and it is the same one the free Ad Library gives you with its "Started running on" date. Our post on Facebook ad longevity explains the reasoning in detail.
2. Engagement, where shown. AdSpy shows likes, comments and shares the tool can see on the post. Use them to shortlist, not to decide. Engagement can be inflated by giveaways, bait questions or plain controversy, and some of the best direct response ads get few likes because people click instead of reacting.
3. Repetition. If a brand runs five variations of the same concept, started on different dates, that concept is being scaled. One long-running ad could be a fluke. A cluster of them is a decision.
| Signal | What it tells you | How much to trust it |
|---|---|---|
| Longevity | The advertiser keeps paying for it | High |
| Variations of one concept | The concept is being scaled | High |
| Engagement counts | People reacted to it | Medium, check for giveaways |
| Comments content | What buyers actually think | High for copy research |
| Spend estimates (any tool) | A guess | Low |
Longevity first, engagement second, never engagement alone. That one rule saves more wasted creative tests than any filter.
How do you save what you find?
This is the habit that decides whether AdSpy pays off.
Anything that lives only inside a subscription disappears from your hands when you cancel. So every ad I shortlist goes into my own swipe file the same day, with a note on why I saved it: the hook, the offer, the angle, and the signal that made it a winner.
A simple structure works. One folder or board per angle, not per brand, so that when you brief a new ad you can pull every "price objection" reference in one place. Our guide to organising a swipe file walks through a setup that holds up as it grows.
When is the free Meta Ad Library enough instead?
More often than AdSpy's buyers like to admit.
If you already know your six to ten competitors, the Meta Ad Library shows every ad each of them is running right now, worldwide, with a start date on every card. That covers most of what a brand-side media buyer needs week to week. You don't need a paid archive to see what is working this month in your category.
The library's real gaps are that it has no download button and no permanent saving. You can close both for free. Here is how I do it: I search a competitor in the Ad Library, sort out the long-runners by their start dates, and save them with our free extension, the Meta Ad Library downloader. It adds a Download button to every ad, saves videos in original HD and full carousels, and can bulk-export a whole search into one ZIP with a searchable swipe board and a CSV. The manual methods are in our guide to downloading Facebook Ad Library videos.
So the split is simple:
- Free Ad Library: you know your competitors and care about what is live now.
- AdSpy: you are exploring a niche you don't know, mining copy across thousands of advertisers, or need ads that have already been paused.
If you are still deciding between tools rather than learning this one, our AdSpy alternatives post lines up the options, and how to use an ad spy tool covers the general workflow that works in any of them.
What does a good weekly AdSpy routine look like?
Mine takes about forty minutes once the search terms are set up.
- Rerun my saved copy searches with the date range set to the last couple of weeks. New ads using my category's promise and objection language show up here first.
- Check two or three competitor domains for new landing pages or new advertisers sending traffic to them.
- Widen the date range on one theme to see which older concepts kept running. These are the angles worth testing.
- Search comments for one recurring question in the niche, and note the exact phrasing for copy.
- Shortlist five to ten ads, save them outside the tool, and write one line on why each one matters.
- Turn the best two into briefs for our own versions, with our product and proof.
If you find yourself skipping this routine for a month, that is your answer on whether to keep paying.
FAQ
How do you use AdSpy?
Search by ad text, advertiser name or landing page URL, then narrow results with filters for platform, date range, country and ad type. Sort for long-running ads, check engagement as a secondary signal, and save your shortlist to your own swipe file outside the tool.
What should I search for in AdSpy?
Search the language buyers use, not just your category name: promise words, objection words, offer terms and hook phrases. Searching comments for common questions or complaints is also a strong source of copy ideas.
Which AdSpy filters matter most?
Platform, date range, country and ad type do most of the work. Add engagement, ecommerce platform or demographic filters only once you know what you are looking for, because stacking too many at once hides good ads.
How do you know if an ad in AdSpy is a winner?
Look at how long it has run first, because advertisers only keep paying for ads that work. Use engagement counts and repeated variations of the same concept as supporting signals, and treat any spend figure as an estimate.
Is the Meta Ad Library enough instead of AdSpy?
For many brands, yes. If you follow a fixed list of known competitors and care about what is live now, the free Ad Library shows every active ad with start dates. AdSpy is worth its $149 a month mainly for broad copy search and for ads that have already stopped running.
The Klipio extension adds a download button to every ad in the Meta Ad Library: one click per ad, or bulk-save a whole search as a ZIP with a searchable swipe file inside. Free, no sign-up.
Get the free Ad Library downloaderKlipio reads a competitor's live Meta ads, ranks them by how long they have been running — the honest signal that an ad is profitable — and turns the winning angle into on-brand creative for your own brand. 3-day free trial.
Start free — 3-day trial →
