# Meta Ad Library API, Google Ads Transparency Center and LinkedIn ads: what a competitor is running right now

Give your agent a competitor's Page, advertiser or company and get their live ads back as rows: creative text, link titles, start dates, platforms and the snapshot URL. Meta, Google and LinkedIn answer through one treg.to key, from $0.005 at the provider's own rate with no markup, or free on the Meta Ad Library token you set up yourself. The three libraries are not alternatives to each other; the network is the choice.

## What's the best way to ask ChatGPT?

Setup line (paste into any agent): `set up treg — https://treg.to/llms.txt`

Then ask: "Using treg, list every Facebook and Instagram ad this Page has run in the US in the last 30 days, show me the price first, then group them by landing page and tell me which creatives have been live longest."

- **Give the Page id, not the name** Many Pages share a brand name. A Page id or URL returns one advertiser; a name returns false positives.
- **Say the country** The Meta library asks which country the ad reached, and US-only can miss half of a global brand's actives. Say ALL when you mean all.
- **Read longevity, not spend** Meta publishes spend only for political ads. How long a creative has run is the signal everyone uses instead.
- **Ask for the price first** treg.to returns the cost before the call, so the agent can say what a full library pull will spend.

## Why go through treg.to

- **One key, not 9 accounts** treg.to holds the provider keys. Neither you nor the agent sees them.
- **Price before the call** The provider's own rate, $0.000 markup, from a prepaid balance.
- **No subscription, no seats** Charged per call. $1.00 free per new team, no card to start.
- **Your own keys are free** Already pay Hunter? Register it and those calls are never metered.
- **Switch by changing a word** Another provider is a different word in the prompt, not a new integration.
- **Nothing to integrate** No SDK, no OAuth dance per vendor, no seats.

## Behind the scenes: what ChatGPT sees before it calls

treg.to does not choose for you. It hands ChatGPT this comparison and it picks, or you tell it how.

### Which ad library API is cheapest?

- Cheapest per result: Apify at $0.005 (`apify.meta-ads.library.search`)
- Cheapest per call: ScrapeCreators at $0.00188 (`scrapecreators.x.v1-linkedin-ads-search`)
- Cheapest per found: SerpApi at $0.015 (`serpapi.google.ads.transparency`)

Those units are not interchangeable: one call can return many results, so compare on the unit you will actually be billed in.

### Which one is the most reliable?

- ScrapeCreators: 100% over 617 calls, 3.0s median
- ScrapeCreators: 100% over 6 calls, 4.3s median
- Apify: 100% over 34 calls, 11.5s median

Measured on treg.to traffic; not a controlled benchmark.

### How do the providers compare, per network?

#### Google Keyword Data

| Provider | Price | Accepts | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| SerpApi | $0.015 per found | engine, text, advertiser_id, region, political_ads, platform | 2026-07-28 |

#### LinkedIn

| Provider | Price | Accepts | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| ScrapeCreators | $0.00188 per call | company, keyword, companyId, countries, startDate, endDate | 2026-07-28 |

#### Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)

| Provider | Price | Accepts | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| ScrapeCreators | $0.00188 per call | query, sort_by, search_type, ad_type, country, status | unverified |
| Apify | $0.005 per result | maxItems, maxTotalChargeUsd, timeout, startUrls, resultsLimit, activeStatus | 2026-07-31 |
| Meta Ad Library | own account, free | search_terms, search_type, ad_reached_countries, fields, ad_active_status, ad_type | unverified |

Endpoints:

- `apify.meta-ads.library.search`: treg call apify.meta-ads.library.search --query maxItems=1 --query maxTotalChargeUsd=0.05 --query timeout=180 --data '{"startUrls":[{"url":"https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=active&ad_type=all&country=US&q=project%20management"}],"resultsLimit":1,"activeStatus":"active","isDetailsPerAd":false,"onlyTotal":true}'
- `meta-ad-library.meta-ads.library.search`: treg call meta-ad-library.meta-ads.library.search
- `scrapecreators.x.v1-facebook-adlibrary-search-ads`: treg call scrapecreators.x.v1-facebook-adlibrary-search-ads --query query=running
- `meta-ad-library.meta-ads.library.advertiser`: treg call meta-ad-library.meta-ads.library.advertiser
- `scrapecreators.x.v1-facebook-adlibrary-company-ads`: treg call scrapecreators.x.v1-facebook-adlibrary-company-ads --query pageId=367152833370567
- `serpapi.google.ads.transparency`: treg call serpapi.google.ads.transparency --query engine=google_ads_transparency_center --query text=coffee
- `scrapecreators.x.v1-linkedin-ads-search`: treg call scrapecreators.x.v1-linkedin-ads-search --query company=microsoft

## What people actually struggle with

Ad intelligence is a crowded shelf: about seventeen tools were pitched across the ~65 on-topic posts on Reddit and X in August 2026, including one founder posting a dozen times. These four are people who tried the official libraries first.

**Meta's identity check is the first wall, and it does not always answer**

> "I've sent my id however 4 days passed and there is no answer. It is still "in progress"." (r/FacebookAds: https://www.reddit.com/r/FacebookAds/comments/1vr13ds/)

What this page can do about it: The official API waits on that check; the scraper rows do not. Start on a per-call provider today, and register your own Meta token when the verification lands so the official calls run free.

**There is no spend number, so people watch launch velocity instead**

> "Meta doesn't expose dollar spend for non-political ads, so "velocity" = ad-launch volume not actual budget" (r/FacebookAds: https://www.reddit.com/r/FacebookAds/comments/1t045tp/)

What this page can do about it: True, and no provider here changes it. What the rows do carry is start date, stop date and platform per ad, which is enough for an agent to count new creatives a week and flag the ones that have survived a month.

**Google only lets you look at one advertiser at a time**

> "Google only lets you look up one advertiser at a time. There's no way to answer "who is running ads on roof repair right now?"" (r/marketingagency: https://www.reddit.com/r/marketingagency/comments/1ve8pke/)

What this page can do about it: Still the case through the API, because it is the Center's own shape. The honest workaround is a list: give the agent the advertisers you already know and let it loop, at a flat rate per lookup.

**The library gives you data, not intelligence**

> "The Ad Library gives you data, but not much intelligence. You end up opening hundreds of ads manually" (r/FacebookAds: https://www.reddit.com/r/FacebookAds/comments/1vi52qj/)

What this page can do about it: The rows come back as JSON with the creative text, so grouping by landing page, clustering hooks and ranking by run length is the agent's job on top, and it is the part that used to be a weekend of tabs.


## What actually differs

- The official Meta route is free and it is yours to set up: a one-time government-ID verification at Facebook, then a Meta app and an access token, which you register with treg.to as your own key. The forum wait for verification runs from days to never. The two scraper providers on the Meta row need none of that and bill per call or per ad, which is why most people start there and register a token later, if ever.
- Spend is not on the page for ordinary ads. Meta publishes spend and impression ranges for political and issue ads only, and richer fields for ads reaching the EU under the DSA, so a European pull carries more than a US one. For everything else the working signals are how long a creative has run and how many variants a Page is testing.
- Google is a lookup, not a search. The Transparency Center lists what one advertiser runs, by advertiser or domain, and that is what the SerpApi engine here returns, with region, format and date filters. There is no keyword search across every advertiser, which is a limit of the Center, and the copy of a search ad comes back as text only where Google renders it as text.

## What is the Meta Ad Library API?

The Meta Ad Library is the public record of every ad running on Facebook and Instagram, and the Ad Library API is its official query interface: search by keyword or by Page, filter by country, date and status, and get the creative, the delivery dates and the platforms back as data. Google's equivalent is the Ads Transparency Center, which has no official API and lists ads per advertiser; LinkedIn's is its ad library. The providers here answer all three, either through the official API on your own token or by reading the public library pages.

## Questions

**Do I need Meta Ad Library API access?** Not to start. ScrapeCreators and Apify read the public library without any Meta app, billed per call or per ad. If you have completed Meta's identity verification and hold a token, register it and the official calls run free on your own key, never metered.

**Can I see how much a competitor is spending?** Only for political and issue ads, where Meta publishes ranges. For everything else no provider has the number, and this page will not invent one. Run length, variant count and the platforms an ad reaches are what the data does carry.

**Does this cover Google Ads?** Yes, per advertiser, through the Ads Transparency Center engine at SerpApi's flat per-search rate. You look up an advertiser or a domain; searching every advertiser for a keyword is not something the Center offers.

**Which provider should my agent use?** The network decides the shelf; on Meta, the cheapest verified row or your own token. treg.to shows the rows side by side with the rate and measured success; it compares, it does not route or fail over for you.

HTML version: https://treg.to/use-cases/ads-a-competitor-is-running-now