You can see every active Facebook and Instagram ad of any competitor for free in Meta Ad Library: pick the country, search by Page name or keyword, and open each ad's details. In 2025–2026 Meta made Advantage+ the default setup for Sales, App and Leads campaigns and stated that the main lever has moved from niche targeting to creative diversification. For 2027 that means the competitor with more distinct creatives and cleaner conversion data gives Meta's systems more to work with. Below: what changed, how to read a competitor's ads, and the order of fixes.
What changed in Meta advertising before 2027
Meta changed how it picks ads, how campaigns are set up and which data it uses for personalisation. All percentages below are Meta's own figures, published without independent verification.
| Date | Change | What it means against a competitor |
|---|---|---|
| 2 Dec 2024 | Andromeda, Meta's ad retrieval engine: +8% ads quality on selected segments, built for a fast-growing number of creatives | More of your creatives can reach the ranking stage |
| 22 Apr 2025 | Meta on creative diversification: the focus has shifted from niche targeting to creative diversification as the best lever to find relevant audiences | Audience settings explain less of the difference between you and a competitor |
| 2025 | Advantage+ on by default for Sales, App and Leads objectives; Advantage+ leads campaigns with 14% lower cost per lead and 10% lower cost per qualified lead per Meta | Most accounts now run on the same automation; inputs decide the result |
| 16 Dec 2025 | Interactions with Meta AI used to personalise content and ads in most regions; sensitive topics excluded | Meta has more signals about each person's interests |
| 18 Feb – 19 May 2026 | Marketing API v25.0: legacy Advantage+ shopping and app campaigns can no longer be created or updated, across all API versions from 19 May 2026 | Accounts on legacy campaign types have moved to the unified Advantage+ setup |
| 28 Oct 2026 | Next-generation Andromeda: since 2025 a 2.4% increase in conversions on Facebook; generative tools let advertisers create hundreds of millions of new ads | The pool of competing creatives keeps growing |
Meta's January 2026 results note adds two items for planning: a new ranking model that lifted Facebook ad clicks by 3.5% in Q4 2025, and incremental attribution that counted 24% more incremental conversions than the standard attribution model. Our conclusion from these changes: in 2027 two advertisers with the same budget and the same Advantage+ settings will get different results mainly because of how distinct their creatives are and how accurate their conversion data is.
How to read a competitor in Meta Ad Library
Per Meta's transparency centre, anyone can search all active ads running across Meta's products. Choose the country where you compete, select "All ads", search the competitor's Page name and filter by platform to separate Facebook from Instagram. Each ad shows its creative, text, call-to-action button, start date and the platforms it runs on.
Two details matter for Europe. Ads delivered in the EU stay in the library for one year after their last impression, and Meta shows more information for them, so for a competitor in Germany or France you can also study ads they stopped running this year. Meta publishes spend, reach and funding entities only for social issue, electoral and political ads; budgets of commercial advertisers stay private.
| What to compare | Where you see it | Gap that needs action |
|---|---|---|
| Active ads and distinct concepts (different idea, format or visual) | Ad Library, the competitor's Page | They run three or more times as many distinct concepts as you |
| Their longest-running ads | Start date in Ad Library | An ad running for months is one they keep paying for: its offer and format are the ones to answer first |
| Formats and placements | Platform filter, ad previews | They have vertical video for Reels and Stories and you have only static images |
| Lead path | Call-to-action button and destination of each ad | They offer an instant form, a message or a booking and you send every click to the home page |
| Offer | Ad text and landing page | They state a price range, a guarantee or a response time and you state none |
| Your conversion signal | Events Manager: Event Match Quality, a score out of 10, and deduplication status | Below 6 on Lead or Purchase events, or duplicated events (our working threshold) |
| Your lead quality | CRM: share of ad leads that become qualified | Cost per qualified lead rising for three months while cost per lead stays flat |
What to do to overtake them, in order of priority
1. Fix the conversion signal
Meta's Conversions API best practices say to use the Conversions API in addition to the Meta Pixel, share the same events through both, and include event_id (or external_id with fbp) for deduplication. Additional customer information parameters can raise Event Match Quality, and events sent when they happen give campaigns better results. For lead businesses the next step is the conversion leads performance goal with your CRM connected through the Conversions API: Meta reports about 15% lower cost per quality lead and a 44% higher rate of leads turning into quality leads compared with the standard leads goal. Our Meta ads team sets this up before any change to creatives or budgets.
2. Build distinct creatives, using the competitor's library as a map
Meta's guide on differentiated creative warns that creative that is too similar may not be recognised as different, and lists formats that differ in structure: product demos, Q&A, "types of" breakdowns, listicles, point-of-view videos. It also says the differences in text should be significant. In practice:
- List the concepts the competitor runs and mark the buyer questions none of their ads answer. Build your first new concepts around those questions.
- Give each concept its own visual and its own opening line. Colour and headline variants of one concept count as iteration.
- Add vertical video for Reels and Stories where the competitor has it and you do not.
- Retire concepts by cost per qualified lead from your CRM, so the decision rests on sales data.
The plan for the competitor's organic channels is in social media competitor analysis for 2027, and format choice by network is in our social media advertising guide.
3. Run Advantage+ with your data as suggestions
With Advantage+ on, Meta enables Advantage+ audience, placements and campaign budget together. Customer lists and lookalike audiences stay useful as audience suggestions. Keep one Advantage+ leads or sales campaign per offer with enough budget to exit learning, and add new creatives to it in batches. Manual campaigns stay where the business has a reason for them, such as a separate city or a separate service with its own price.
4. Choose the lead path: Instant Form, website or both
Meta reports that website form campaigns run alongside Instant Form campaigns gave 60% lower cost per lead and 125% more leads than website forms alone. Instant Forms optimise for volume by default; the Higher intent form type adds a review step where people confirm their details. Our practice: run Higher intent forms for services with a call-back, send form leads to the CRM within minutes, and keep a website path with a dedicated page for buyers who want to compare before they call. We build those pages as landing pages for paid traffic; the full site comparison is in how to build a website better than your competitor's.
5. Re-check the competitor every month
Save the competitor's Ad Library search and review it monthly: new concepts, new offers, ads that stopped. Compare your cost per qualified lead with the month before. If the same competitor also buys Google search traffic, use Google Ads competitor analysis for 2027 for the search side.
Why to hand this to a contracted team
- Account safety. Meta restricts ad accounts for policy violations, and a disabled account stops every campaign at once. A team that works in Meta Business Manager every week keeps ads, Pages and payment settings within the rules.
- Data accuracy. A Conversions API setup without deduplication counts each lead twice, and Advantage+ then optimises toward the wrong signal. Consent rules for EU visitors add another layer to check.
- Creative volume. Distinct concepts every month need a production process: scripts, filming, editing, testing and reporting by concept.
- Responsibility in writing. Marketing MIX has run advertising since 2012 from 208 Booth Street, Ottawa, for clients in Canada, Ukraine, Germany and France. Scope, access and reporting are fixed in a contract before work starts.
The full 2027 plan across all channels is in what to bring into 2027: marketing, growth and investment.