The ad spy tool for brands and agencies. Watch the competitors that matter.
Most ad spy tools hand you a giant database of other people's ads. Rival Ads starts with the competitors you name and watches every ad they run across six ad libraries, so you see their launches, their winners and what they quietly kill.
Checking the same competitors every week? Let Rival Ads track them for you, free for 30 days.
What an ad spy tool actually does
An ad spy tool collects other advertisers' ads so you can study them. The raw material is the same everywhere: the public ad libraries Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn and others publish. What differs is what the tool does with it, and that decides whether it is worth paying for.
Some tools pile millions of ads into one searchable database. Others follow a short list of competitors and tell you what they change. Both get called ad spy tools, and they answer different questions.
Two kinds of ad spy tool, for two different jobs
A database tool is a search engine for ads. You arrive with a question, a product, an angle or a niche, and search everyone who ran something similar. That suits dropshippers hunting a winning product and media buyers looking for creative ideas across thousands of advertisers. AdSpy, BigSpy, Minea and PiPiADS all work this way.
A competitor tracker starts from the brands you already compete with. It collects every ad they run on every platform, keeps each one after it leaves the library, compares their account week to week and alerts you when they launch. It answers "what are my competitors doing right now, and what changed?" Rival Ads is built for that job, for brands, in-house marketers and agencies reporting to clients.
What to look for in an ad spy tool
Whichever kind you choose, check these before you pay:
- Platforms. Meta alone misses the competitors who spend on Google, YouTube, TikTok or LinkedIn. Check every channel your market uses is covered.
- History. Meta drops most ads from its library the day they stop. A tool that keeps them is the only way to see what a competitor tested and killed.
- Change detection. A feed of ads is not insight. Look for started, stopped and still-running ads, compared over time.
- Alerts. If you have to log in to notice a launch, you will notice it late.
- Honest numbers. Libraries publish no spend for ordinary ads. Treat any tool quoting a competitor's exact budget with suspicion.
- Reporting. If clients or a team need to see it, check for shared access, PDFs and share links.
Rival Ads: the ad spy tool for tracking named competitors
Paste a competitor's website and Rival Ads finds their Facebook Page, Google, TikTok and LinkedIn presence. From then on it collects every ad they run across Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft Ads and Pinterest, transcribes the videos, pulls out each hook and angle, captures the landing pages and writes a strategy read on what changed.
- Every ad archived with its real creative and exact copy, kept after it stops
- Started, stopped and continued ads with run time, so proven winners stand out
- Alerts by email, Slack, Teams or Discord when they launch, prove an ad or pull a winner
- Video transcripts, hooks and angles, searchable across every competitor
- Unlimited team members, branded PDFs and full whitelabel for agencies
- Plans from $29 a month, every one with a 30-day free trial
Ad spy tools compared
Each comparison uses the vendor's own published pricing and features.
| Tool | Kind | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Rival Ads | Competitor tracker | Brands and agencies following named competitors across six platforms, with history, alerts and client reports. |
| AdSpy | Searchable ad archives | Affiliates and media buyers who need to search a very large archive by comment text, affiliate network or offer ID. |
| BigSpy | Searchable ad archives | Anyone who needs breadth across ten platforms, or wants to browse ad creative without paying anything at all. |
| Minea | Dropshipping product research | Dropshippers hunting a winning product, especially anyone who wants influencer placements alongside paid ads. |
| PiPiADS | Dropshipping product research | TikTok dropshippers and product researchers who want TikTok Shop data next to the ad that sold it. |
| MagicBrief | Creative analytics and ad ops | Teams who wanted creative performance tied to their own ad accounts, which is now Canva Grow's job. |
Read every comparison or see how to find a competitor's ads on each platform.
Spy on the competitors you actually compete with
Name them once. Rival Ads collects every ad they run on six platforms, keeps it after it stops and tells you what changed.
Rival Ads tracks competitors on Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft Ads and Pinterest. Microsoft Ads coverage is limited to EU/EEA impressions. Pinterest covers the countries offered by its repository, including the EU, Brazil, Norway and Türkiye. Plans start at $29/month.
Ad spy tools: common questions
What is the best ad spy tool?+
It depends on the job. For searching millions of ads to find a winning product or creative idea, a database such as AdSpy or BigSpy fits. For following specific competitors across Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft Ads and Pinterest, with history, change alerts and client reports, a competitor tracker such as Rival Ads fits better.
Is there a free ad spy tool?+
The platforms' own ad libraries are free: the Meta Ad Library, the Google Ads Transparency Center and the TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Pinterest libraries. You can search all six from this page. They show what is live today; tools add history, alerts and analysis on top.
Can an ad spy tool show a competitor's ad spend?+
Not accurately for ordinary commercial ads, because the libraries do not publish it. Meta publishes reach for ads shown in the EU and UK, LinkedIn publishes impression ranges and Pinterest publishes reach bands. Rival Ads shows those published numbers and does not invent spend.
Is using an ad spy tool legal?+
Yes. The ad libraries are published so anyone can see the ads running on each platform. Studying them is market research. Copying a competitor's creative or trademarks outright is not, so use what you learn to make your own work better.
Does the competitor know I am tracking their ads?+
No. Rival Ads reads the public libraries. It never connects to, or logs in to, a competitor's ad accounts, and the libraries do not notify advertisers about who searched them.