You cannot see a competitor's actual advertising budget for ordinary commercial ads: Meta and Google publish spend only for political and issue ads, TikTok and LinkedIn publish none because they do not accept political ads, and nobody else has the numbers. What you can monitor are the proxies that move when a budget moves, namely how many ads are active, how fast new ones launch, how long the same creative keeps running, and which new placements, formats and countries appear. Tracked weekly in a simple sheet, those proxies tell you when a competitor is scaling up, pulling back or testing a new market, usually within a week of it happening.
Why can't you see a competitor's real ad spend?
Because the platforms do not publish it. The ad libraries exist for transparency, and the transparency rules that forced them into existence mostly cover political advertising. For a normal brand selling skincare or software, the libraries show the creative and when it ran, and for spend they show nothing.
There is one partial exception worth knowing. For ads delivered in the EU, rules under the Digital Services Act mean some libraries show more, such as reach estimates or impression ranges and targeting parameters for individual ads. Meta and LinkedIn both expose some of this for EU-delivered ads. It is still not spend, and it only covers ads shown in the EU, but for a competitor active there it is the closest thing to a volume figure you will get for free.
Anyone who tells you exactly what a competitor spent last month is either looking at a political advertiser or showing you an estimate.
Which proxies move when a budget moves?
| Proxy | What to count | Where to find it | What a change usually means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active ad count | Ads currently running, per platform | Meta Ad Library, LinkedIn ad library, Google Ads Transparency Center | A sharp rise usually means more budget or a big test; a sharp fall means a pullback or a consolidation onto fewer ads |
| Launch velocity | New ads started this week | Meta Ad Library start dates; TikTok Creative Center for top ads | Rising velocity means more creative testing, which needs budget behind it |
| Creative longevity | How long the oldest active ads have run | Start dates in the Meta Ad Library | Long-running ads are usually the ones paying back; a cull of old winners can signal a strategy change |
| Variant count per concept | Versions of the same idea running at once | Meta Ad Library, grouped by creative | Many variants of one concept means they found something and are scaling it |
| New placements and formats | First appearance on a platform or format | Google Ads Transparency Center (search, YouTube, display), LinkedIn library, TikTok | Expansion into a new channel almost always comes with new budget |
| New countries or languages | Ads targeting a new market | Meta Ad Library country filter, Google transparency region filter | Market entry or a test of one |
| Offer changes | Discounts, free trials, new pricing in ads | Read the creative itself | Pressure on conversion, or a seasonal push |
| Landing pages | New URLs in the ads | Click through from the library | A new product, audience or funnel being tested |
None of these converts cleanly into a currency figure. Thirty active ads can be a modest budget split thinly or a large one, so read the trend for the same competitor over time, not the level against another competitor. The direction of change is the signal.
Which free sources should you use?
Four libraries cover most of what a mid-sized advertiser does.
Meta Ad Library. The deepest of the four for creative: every active ad on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and the Audience Network, searchable by advertiser, with start dates and the number of versions in rotation. Start dates are the key field, because longevity is the only performance signal you get. Our guide to using the Meta Ad Library without fooling yourself covers how to read it, and the Facebook Ad Library tool page shows how to search it inside Genyad and turn what you find into a brief.
TikTok Creative Center. Shows top-performing ads by region, industry and objective, rather than a full list of one advertiser's ads, so it is better for spotting creative trends than for tracking a single competitor. For ads delivered in the EU, TikTok also keeps a commercial content library that is searchable by advertiser.
Google Ads Transparency Center. Lists ads by verified advertiser across search, YouTube and display, with the regions they ran in and the date last shown. Useful for spotting a competitor moving into YouTube or a new country, and for seeing how many search ads they rotate.
LinkedIn ad library. Lists ads a company has run on LinkedIn, searchable by company name. For B2B competitors this is often the most informative of the four, because LinkedIn spend tends to be deliberate and campaign-shaped, so new campaigns show up as clear bursts of new ads.
What about paid ad intelligence tools?
They exist, and they are estimates. Panel and model-based tools estimate a competitor's spend from observed impressions, panels of users, or modelled search click volumes, and for search advertising, SEO suites estimate paid keyword spend from the keywords they see a domain bidding on. They are useful for relative comparisons across many competitors and for categories where you need a number for a board deck. Treat the absolute figures with suspicion: the methods are not public in detail, and two tools will often disagree substantially on the same advertiser.
There is a separate category of tools for creative research rather than spend: swipe files, saved ad boards and brief builders. Foreplay is one of these; our comparison with Foreplay explains where it is the better choice (pre-launch research and swipe files across a team) and where Genyad fits instead (making the variations once you know what to make). Neither tells you spend.
A weekly tracking routine in under 30 minutes
Pick three to five direct competitors and one adjacent brand you learn from. Keep a sheet with one row per competitor per week and these columns: active ads on Meta, new ads this week, oldest active ad start date, active ads on LinkedIn or Google, new placements or countries, offer in market, notes.
- Meta Ad Library, 10 minutes. For each competitor, note the active count, count ads started in the last seven days, and record the start date of the oldest active ad. Screenshot any new concept with several variants.
- Google Ads Transparency Center, 5 minutes. Check for new formats (YouTube appearing for the first time is the big one) and new regions.
- LinkedIn ad library, 5 minutes. For B2B competitors only. Note new campaigns and their message.
- TikTok Creative Center, 5 minutes. Scan top ads in your category and region for formats and hooks you have not seen before.
- Read the deltas, 5 minutes. Compare with last week's row. Flag anything that moved by a lot: active count doubling, a launch spike, an old winner switched off, a new country.
The Meta Ad Library search docs list what Genyad's search returns (creative, first seen date, active variants) and confirm what it does not: spend and performance are not available for commercial advertisers. Searching costs no credits.
What should you do with what you find?
Respond to sustained changes, not single weeks. A competitor whose active ads and launch velocity both rise for three weeks running is scaling, and you should expect auction pressure on shared audiences: watch your CPMs and frequency, and make sure you have fresh creative in rotation rather than a single ad absorbing the pressure. A competitor that switches off long-running ads and launches a burst of new ones with a different offer is changing strategy, and their new offer is worth testing against yours.
The most useful output of the routine is usually not a budget estimate at all. It is the list of concepts that a competitor has kept running for months, because longevity in a library is the nearest public evidence that an ad pays back.
Frequently asked questions
Can you see how much a competitor spends on ads?
Not for ordinary commercial ads. Meta and Google publish spend only for political and issue advertising, TikTok and LinkedIn publish no spend at all, and for EU-delivered ads some libraries add reach or impression ranges, which still is not spend. Paid intelligence tools estimate spend from panels and models, and their figures should be treated as estimates.
How do you know if a competitor increased their ad budget?
Watch proxies over several weeks: a rising count of active ads, more new ads launched per week, many variants of one concept, and first appearances on new platforms, formats or countries. A sustained rise across several of these is a strong sign of more budget, even without a spend figure.
What free tools show competitor ads?
The Meta Ad Library, the TikTok Creative Center, the Google Ads Transparency Center and the LinkedIn ad library are all free. Between them they cover active ads on Facebook and Instagram, top TikTok ads by category, Google search, YouTube and display ads, and LinkedIn campaigns.
How often should you check competitors' ads?
Weekly is enough for most advertisers, and a fixed 30 minute routine across the four free libraries keeps it sustainable. Act on changes that persist for two or three weeks rather than on a single week's movement.