How to Spy on Shopify Competitors' Meta Ads

You spy on a Shopify competitor's Meta ads through the free Meta Ad Library at facebook.com/ads/library. Search their store name or paste their Facebook Page, and every ad they're currently running shows up, no account required.

That gets you the ads. Figuring out which ones are actually working, and pulling them somewhere you can study them, takes a few more steps.

How do you find a Shopify competitor's ads on Meta?

Start with the store's name. Type it into the Ad Library search bar and set the country to wherever they sell.

If the name search comes up empty, find their Facebook Page instead. Most Shopify stores link it in their site footer or Instagram bio. Paste that Page into the Ad Library and every active ad tied to it appears, including ones running only on Instagram.

This works for any Shopify brand, dropshipper or established DTC label, because the Ad Library covers every advertiser on Meta, not just political or EU accounts. That's the whole point of doing competitor research on Facebook ads instead of guessing: you're looking at their actual current creative, not old screenshots someone posted in a Facebook group.

What can you actually see in the Meta Ad Library?

You can see the creative, the copy, the platforms it runs on, and the date it started. You cannot see spend, clicks, or results, because Meta doesn't expose that for ordinary commercial ads.

• Visible: every active ad, its start date, the creative itself, and which placements it runs on.
• Hidden: budget, clicks, CTR, ROAS, and (outside the EU) any ad that's already been paused.

For a deeper walkthrough of the library's filters and search quirks, our Meta Ad Library guide covers it end to end. There's one regional wrinkle worth knowing here too. In the EU, the library also shows ended ads and rough reach ranges, because of the DSA's transparency rules. Outside the EU, an ad disappears from the library the moment the advertiser pauses it.

How do you spy on Shopify competitors' ads in bulk?

Right-click and "save video" works for a single ad, but it breaks down fast when a competitor is running twenty ads and half of them are carousels. That's the actual bottleneck for anyone doing serious Shopify competitor research: not finding the ads, but collecting them without losing an afternoon to it.

A bulk workflow fixes that. Search the brand once, then pull the whole result set in one pass instead of opening each ad individually.

1. 1
   Search the brand in the Ad LibraryType the store name or paste its Page
2. 2
   Click Find all adsScrolls the search and collects every running ad
3. 3
   Pick a formatVideos, images, or everything
4. 4
   Download the ZIPSwipe board, CSV, and files named by date

We built our free Chrome extension, the Meta Ad Library Downloader, around exactly this. It adds a download button to every ad inside the Ad Library, pulls videos in original HD with no watermark, grabs full carousels card by card, and its bulk mode packs an entire competitor search into one ZIP. Every export comes with a searchable swipe board and a CSV, and it's 100% free with no account. It's not affiliated with Meta, and it runs on your own connection, nothing routes through our servers. If you only need to grab individual videos rather than a whole competitor's account, our guide on downloading Facebook Ad Library videos covers that narrower case.

How do you tell which of their ads are actually working?

When you spy on a Shopify competitor's ads, you can't see spend or conversions, so ad longevity is your best public signal. Every ad card shows "Started running on," and an advertiser only keeps paying for ads that are working.

An ad that's been live for six weeks beat a hundred that got killed after two days. That's not a guess, it's how ad budgets behave: nobody keeps a losing ad running on purpose. If a Shopify competitor has three ads that have run since spring, those are very likely the backbone of their current creative strategy, and worth studying closely.

This applies just as much if you're trying to spy on dropshipping ads specifically. Dropshippers iterate fast and kill losers within days, so anything that survives more than two or three weeks in their account is a real signal, not noise.

Are dedicated ad-spy tools worth paying for?

If you're checking a handful of competitors a few times a month, the free Ad Library plus a bulk downloader covers it. Dedicated spy tools earn their price when you're tracking dozens of brands, want saved alerts, or need filters the native search doesn't have.

Worth noting: MagicBrief, a tool that used to show up on a lot of these lists, was acquired by Canva and shut down on July 31, 2026. Its features are folding into Canva Grow instead. If you find an old roundup recommending it, it's out of date. For a fuller rundown of what each tool actually does well, see our comparison of the best ad spy tools.

Is it legal to download and study a Shopify competitor's ads?

When you spy on Shopify competitors' ads and download what's already public in the Ad Library for your own research, that's standard practice. Plenty of media buyers build a swipe file this way as a normal part of the job.

The line is in what you do next. Study the hook, the angle, the offer structure, and the format, then build your own version in your own brand's voice. Don't lift someone's exact video or image and run it as your own ad.

This isn't legal advice, just how the industry generally treats it. If you're unsure where a specific use case lands, a lawyer familiar with IP and advertising can give you a real answer.

FAQ

Can I find a Shopify store's Facebook ads for free?

Yes. The Meta Ad Library at facebook.com/ads/library is free and shows every active ad from any advertiser's Facebook Page, including Shopify stores. You just search the brand name or paste their Page URL, no account needed.

How do I find a Shopify brand's ads if I don't know their Facebook Page?

Check the store's website footer or their Instagram bio, most link out to their Facebook Page there. You can also search the brand name directly in the Ad Library, since most stores' Page name matches their store name closely.

Can I see how much a Shopify competitor is spending on ads?

No. The Ad Library doesn't show spend or budget for ordinary commercial advertisers, only for political and social-issue ads in specific regions. The closest public signal you get is how long an ad has been running.

Why can't I find an ad I saw yesterday in the Ad Library?

Outside the EU, an ad disappears from the library as soon as the advertiser pauses it. If you spotted something worth saving, download it right away instead of planning to come back later.

Is there a tool that automatically pulls competitor ads through an API?

The official Ad Library API only returns political and social-issue ads, plus EU ads covered by the DSA. It doesn't return normal ecommerce or dropshipping ads, so bulk collection has to go through the public search interface instead.

What's the difference between the Meta Ad Library and a paid ad-spy tool?

The Ad Library is Meta's own free, real-time search. Paid tools like AdSpy, Foreplay, or Minea build a searchable database on top of similar public data, adding filters, saved boards, and alerts that the native library doesn't offer.