Snapchat Ad Library: What You Can (and Can't) See

Snapchat has two public ad libraries: the Political and Advocacy Ads Library at snap.com/political-ads, which covers political and issue ads with downloadable yearly data files, and the Snap Ads Gallery at adsgallery.snap.com, which covers commercial ads shown in the European Union. If you want to see a competitor's ordinary commercial Snapchat ads in the US, India or anywhere else outside the EU, there is no official library for that.

That gap trips people up because they expect something like the Meta Ad Library. I run competitor audits across platforms for clients, and Snapchat is the one where I spend the most time explaining what isn't available. Here's what each library does, where it falls short, and how I research Snapchat ads anyway.

What is the Snapchat Political Ads Library?

Snap launched its Political and Advocacy Ads Library in 2019, and the data goes back to 2018. It covers political, issue and advocacy ads that ran on Snapchat, and it's unusually open compared with other platforms.

Instead of only offering a search box, Snap publishes the data as downloadable archives, one per year. You download a ZIP for the year you want, and inside is a spreadsheet of every political ad that ran. Based on Snap's published field descriptions and how researchers use the files, the data includes things like:

• An ad ID and a link to the creative
• The organisation responsible for the ad, and who paid for it
• Spend (in the ad account's currency) and impressions
• Start and end dates
• Targeting details such as location, age range and other criteria applied

Spend and impressions are the part that matters. For commercial advertisers, no major platform publishes those numbers, but for political ads Snap does. Check the current page for the exact columns, since Snap has updated the format over the years.

For most brand marketers, this library is only useful if you work in politics, advocacy or a cause-based nonprofit. If that's you, it's one of the better data sources out there, and it pairs well with Meta's equivalent, covered in our guide to political ads in the Meta Ad Library.

What is the Snap Ads Gallery?

The Ads Gallery is Snap's answer to the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires very large platforms to keep a public, searchable archive of the ads they show in the EU. Snap announced it in August 2023 as part of its DSA compliance work.

According to Snap's developer documentation, the gallery covers ads that delivered in the EU in the last 12 months. Snap's announcement said the library would show who paid for each ad, a visual of the creative, how long the campaign ran, impressions broken down by EU country, and information about the targeting applied.

In practice, you search by advertiser name, pick the EU country or countries you care about, and browse the ads that come back. Snap also offers an Ads Gallery API for programmatic access, documented on developers.snap.com.

Two limits matter:

1. It's EU only. An ad that ran only in the US, UK or Middle East won't appear. (The UK is outside the EU, so don't assume UK campaigns show up.)
2. It's a 12-month window. Older campaigns roll off.

If your competitor advertises in Europe, this is the most useful Snapchat research tool you have. Search them, sort through their recent creatives, and note how long each campaign ran.

Can I see my competitors' Snapchat ads outside the EU?

Not through an official library. Snap doesn't publish commercial ads served outside the EU, so a brand that only advertises in the US has nothing public for you to search.

This is the same situation as X, whose Ads Repository is also EU only (we cover that in our Twitter (X) Ads Library guide). Meta remains the outlier: its Ad Library shows every active ad worldwide, for any advertiser, without a login.

There is one trick worth trying first. Many brands that run Snapchat ads in the US also advertise in at least one EU market. Search them in the Ads Gallery anyway. Even if the EU campaigns aren't identical to the US ones, they often share creative, hooks and offers, because creative teams rarely build everything twice.

What are other ways to research Snapchat ads?

When the libraries don't cover what I need, these are the methods I use, roughly in order of usefulness.

Run a research account. Snapchat ads appear between Stories, in Discover and Spotlight, and in other placements. Set up a separate account, follow and engage with the brand and others in its category, and use the app daily for a week or two. You'll start to see ads from the category. Screen-record each one as it appears, because there's no way to find it again later.

Check the brand's Public Profile. Many brands on Snapchat have a Public Profile with saved Stories, Spotlight posts and Lenses. These are organic, not ads, but brands often repurpose their best-performing organic content as paid ads. It's a decent preview of their creative style.

Use Snap's inspiration pages. Snapchat for Business publishes case studies and ad examples at forbusiness.snapchat.com/inspiration, filterable by objective and ad product. These are curated success stories, not a full library, so they show you what Snap wants to showcase. Still, when you need Snapchat ad examples for a format you haven't run (AR Lenses, Collection ads, Story ads), it's a good starting point.

Look at the brand's other platforms. Vertical, full-screen video made for Snapchat usually also runs on TikTok, Instagram Reels and Stories. If a competitor's creative is in the Meta Ad Library under Stories or Reels placements, there's a reasonable chance a version also ran on Snapchat. Our TikTok ad spy tools roundup covers the TikTok side.

Third-party scrapers. Some tools and Apify scrapers pull data from the Ads Gallery or Political Ads Library. They're useful for bulk analysis, but they can only see what Snap publishes, so the EU-only limit still applies.

How does Snapchat's ad library compare with the Meta Ad Library?

Here's how they stack up at the time of writing.

On political transparency, Snap is genuinely strong; the yearly files are easy to work with. For commercial competitor research, Meta is much broader because it covers every country and every live ad. That's why most of my creative research still starts on Meta, then checks Snapchat, LinkedIn and X for the slices they show. If you're mapping a B2B competitor, add the LinkedIn Ad Library to that list.

How do I turn Snapchat ad research into a swipe file?

I keep everything in one place, whatever the source. For Snapchat that means screen recordings or screenshots from the research account, plus notes from the Ads Gallery: the advertiser, the hook in the first second, the format, the call to action, the landing page and the campaign dates.

Campaign duration is the closest thing to a performance signal you'll get. Advertisers keep paying for ads that work, so a creative that stays live for months is usually a winner. Our post on Facebook ad longevity explains how I read that signal on Meta, and the same logic applies to Snap's EU gallery dates.

For the Meta side of the swipe file, I save the actual creative files. I use our free extension, the Klipio Meta Ad Library Downloader, which adds a Download button to each ad in the Meta Ad Library and can save a whole search as one ZIP with a searchable index page and a CSV. It only works on Meta's library, not on Snapchat. The full process is in our guide on how to download Facebook Ad Library videos, and the broader method for checking rivals is in how to see competitors' Facebook ads.

A note on using what you find: study the angle, structure and offer, and make your own version. Copy the angle, not the asset. This isn't legal advice, but running someone else's creative as your own is a fast way to get an ad rejected or a complaint filed.

Is Snapchat ad research worth it for my brand?

It depends on who you sell to. Snapchat skews young, so for beauty, fashion, gaming, food delivery, entertainment and apps aimed at teens and people in their twenties, it's often a meaningful channel and worth watching. For B2B or older audiences, I'd spend that time on Meta, Google or LinkedIn instead.

If you sell in Europe, the Ads Gallery makes Snapchat research fairly easy. If you only sell in the US, expect more manual work: a research account, a few weeks of screen recordings, and cross-checking against what the same brand runs on Meta and TikTok.

FAQ

Does Snapchat have an ad library?

Yes, two. The Political and Advocacy Ads Library covers political and issue ads with downloadable yearly data, and the Snap Ads Gallery covers commercial ads shown in the EU over the last 12 months.

Can I see my competitors' Snapchat ads in the US?

Not through an official tool, because Snap doesn't publish commercial ads served outside the EU. You can check whether the brand also advertises in the EU, run a research account, or look at its Public Profile and other platforms.

Can I download data from the Snapchat Political Ads Library?

Yes. Snap publishes the data as yearly downloadable archives going back to 2018, with fields such as spend, impressions, dates, the organisation behind the ad and targeting details. Check the current page for the exact columns.

What is the Snap Ads Gallery?

It's Snap's public archive of ads delivered in the EU, created to comply with the Digital Services Act. You can search by advertiser and see the creative, campaign dates and EU reach details, and there's an API for programmatic access.

Where can I find Snapchat ad examples?

Snapchat for Business publishes curated examples and case studies on its inspiration page, filterable by objective and ad format. For a specific competitor, the Ads Gallery (EU) or a research account is more useful.