There's a website where every ad your competitor runs is published — the creative, the copy, the exact day it launched. It's free, it's public, and Meta maintains it. It's called the Meta Ad Library, and it covers every active ad on Facebook and Instagram for any business page you look up. (Google runs a similar transparency center for its network — the weekly sweep covers both.)

Almost nobody checks it weekly. Not because the intel isn't valuable — because the tool is a library, not an alarm. Nothing in it says 'this is new.' You'd have to remember last week's shelf to notice what changed, and nobody running an agency has that kind of memory or time. That gap between published and noticed is the arbitrage.

Manual checking vs. weekly diffing

The manual version looks like this: once a quarter, someone on your team opens the Ad Library, scrolls a competitor's active ads, screenshots a few, and forgets about it until the next panic. It's better than nothing the way checking your own reviews once a quarter is better than nothing — which is to say, mostly it isn't.

The automated version is a weekly sweep that diffs each competitor's active ads against the previous week: new ads get flagged 'NEW this week,' ads that stopped get marked inactive. You stop browsing and start getting told. The signal isn't the existence of the library — it's the change in the library.

What one week of alerts actually tells you

Say you run marketing for a local dealer group. Monday's digest mentions the rival across town launched two new ads — a trade-in offer and a 0% financing creative. That tells you their quarter is about moving used inventory and chasing payment shoppers. Two weeks later the financing ad goes inactive and a lease special appears: the first message didn't land, or the promotion calendar turned over. None of this required a mole, a media-spend subscription, or an hour of scrolling — just the library, checked on a schedule, with the changes underlined.

Three agency plays this unlocks

  • Account-management intel. Your client's competitor launches a sale campaign on Monday; by the weekly report you already know, and you're in the client's inbox with a counter: 'Santa Fe Ford launched 3 new Facebook ads this week — want us to answer?' That's the kind of email that renews contracts.
  • The new-business weapon. Walk into a pitch already knowing which of the prospect's competitors are actively advertising, what their creative says, and who went quiet last month. You're not pitching 'we do social listening' — you're showing them their market. It's hard to lose to an agency that brought homework.
  • Churn early-warning. When a competitor stops advertising entirely, something shifted — budget cuts, a pivot, a sale, a closure. Seeing the quiet week arrive in a report beats hearing about it from the client six weeks later.

How it works in PigPR

Per client workspace, you list up to five competitors by name in the client's settings. PigPR sweeps the Meta Ad Library and Google's Ad Transparency Center weekly — Google matching works by advertiser domain, which PigPR auto-detects (you can also type it in yourself) — diffs against last week, and surfaces the result where you already work: a 'Competitor ads' section in the client's Reports, and one line in the weekly email digest — 'Santa Fe Ford launched 3 new Facebook ads this week.' No new dashboard to remember to open; it rides the same weekly digest and alerting flow your clients already read.

And the price point matters here. Ad-intelligence tooling has traditionally lived in the enterprise suite — the kind of contract we break down in PigPR vs Meltwater — or doesn't exist at all at the listening tier (see PigPR vs Brand24). Weekly competitor ad alerts are live now on PigPR plans from free to $299/mo Agency: add your competitors in client settings and the next sweep starts watching.

The week, not the quarter

Reputation work is mostly about knowing things a week earlier than the other guy — what's being said beyond Google, what the AIs repeat, and now what's being advertised. The Ad Library was always public. The trick was showing up every week. Start free — no card needed, put a client on the radar, and add their five competitors the next time you're in settings.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Meta Ad Library really free?

Yes — it's a public transparency tool Meta runs, and it shows every ad currently active on Facebook and Instagram for any business page, with the creative and the date it started running. No login, no cost — and Google's Ad Transparency Center does the same for ads across its network. The catch is that both are manual tools: nothing tells you when something changes. Competitor ad alerts exist to close that gap, sweeping both libraries weekly.

How many competitors can I track per client?

Up to five per client workspace. You list them by name in the client's settings, and the weekly sweep diffs each one's active ads on Meta and Google against the previous week — new ads get flagged, ads that stopped get marked inactive. Five covers the realistic competitive set for most local and mid-market clients without turning the report into noise.

Do the alerts show ad spend or targeting?

No — and be suspicious of any tool that claims otherwise at this price. Ad libraries show the creative, the copy, and the start date of active ads. Spend, impressions, and audience targeting are only published for political and issue ads, not commercial ones. What you get is the launch signal: what they said, when they started saying it, and when they stopped.

Is competitor ad tracking included in my PigPR plan?

Yes — it's live in PigPR plans at no extra cost, no add-on pricing. It appears as a Competitor ads section in your client reports and as a line in the weekly email digest. If you're on the free plan watching one name, that name can be your own business — your competitors' ads count as intel about you.