Supported channels
Rival Ads tracks six public advertising sources. A competitor selected on multiple channels becomes one monitor per channel.
Channel summary
| Channel label in Track a competitor | What you enter | Connection needed |
|---|---|---|
| Meta · Facebook & Instagram | Facebook page URL or Meta Ad Library URL | No |
| Google · Search, Display & YouTube | Competitor website domain | No |
| TikTok · Commercial Content Library | Advertiser or brand name | No |
| LinkedIn · Ad Library | Company or advertiser name | One workspace LinkedIn connection |
| Exact advertiser name or a Pinterest Ads Repository ad link | No | |
| Microsoft Ads | Microsoft Ad Library advertiser URL or numeric ID | No |
The competitor is not notified. Rival Ads reads public transparency sources rather than connecting to the competitor’s advertising account.
Meta · Facebook & Instagram
Enter a Facebook page URL or Meta Ad Library URL. A direct Ad Library link that identifies the advertiser is the most reliable choice. A normal Facebook page URL also works and is resolved during a source check.
Meta can publish image, video and carousel ads, copy, headlines, calls to action, dates, destinations and variant information. Availability varies by ad.
Meta shows some creatives only to signed-in, age-verified viewers, usually ads in age-restricted categories. Those cards say "Age-restricted creative". Their copy, dates and destinations are still tracked, and their hooks and angles are still read from the copy. Very long video ads are kept as their opening (up to three minutes), and the player says so.
Example: paste https://www.facebook.com/examplebrand, select Meta, and choose the countries you want to query.
Google · Search, Display & YouTube
Enter the competitor’s root domain, such as example.com, without a page path. Rival Ads searches the Google Ads Transparency Center for advertisers associated with that domain.
Google results can include text, image and video formats. Some entries have rich artwork; others provide a representative preview or limited metadata.
Artwork can arrive after the ad first appears while Rival Ads saves the image or captures its preview. Some creatives remain unavailable in Google’s own archive and display a placeholder. If many cards stay blank after processing, contact support with the monitor link so we can investigate; a large blank board should not simply be assumed normal.
Example: use notion.so, not notion.so/product.
TikTok · Commercial Content Library
Enter the public advertiser or brand name, such as Gymshark. Rival Ads matches the name to an advertiser in TikTok’s library.
TikTok’s public commercial archive is limited to the UK and EEA. If a selected location is not supported, Track a competitor asks you to change Locations to monitor before continuing.
Because advertiser names are not always unique, check the first results. If they belong to the wrong advertiser, open Edit and correct the source.
LinkedIn · Ad Library
Enter the company or advertiser name, such as Notion. LinkedIn requires one member account to authenticate access to its public Ad Library data.
The workspace owner connects it under Settings → Integrations. One connection covers every LinkedIn monitor in the workspace, across all projects. Any normal LinkedIn member account can be used; it does not grant Rival Ads access to that member’s advertising account.
LinkedIn access lasts about 60 days. Use Reconnect when the interface warns that it is expiring or expired. See Connect LinkedIn.
Microsoft Ads
Search for the advertiser by name or paste their Microsoft Ad Library URL, for example https://adlibrary.ads.microsoft.com/advertiser/4295406264. The numeric advertiser ID also works in the Microsoft source field.
Microsoft's public Ad Library API provides ad copy, destination links, first/last shown dates and available creative assets. No Microsoft login is required. Text ads retain their copy even when they have no image.
Coverage is limited to ads shown in EU/EEA countries, even when the advertiser is based elsewhere. Choose one of those countries to monitor. Microsoft may publish impressions 1–3 days later. Rival Ads checks a seven-day activity window in each monitored country. Microsoft’s ad detail dates describe impressions across the EU/EEA, not a country-specific delivery guarantee.
Search by advertiser name in Research, or paste a link such as https://ads.pinterest.com/ads-repository/4596134618318058624/ into Track a competitor. Choose the exact advertiser identity returned by Pinterest. Rival Ads checks the name with Pinterest when you save, so a name the repository does not list is refused before it uses a monitor slot. Normal organic Pin URLs do not identify a paid advertiser.
The repository offers EU countries, Brazil, Norway and Türkiye. The US and UK are not supported. No Pinterest account connection is needed. Collection shares request pacing across searches and workers. Throttled reads respect the source cooldown and resume automatically from cached progress. After a read completes, the next sync requests fresh source data. Rival Ads checks a 30-day roster and a separate seven-day activity window per country, with up to 500 distinct ads per read. Partial reads keep unseen ads open and keep importing until a complete baseline is available.
Available images, carousel cards, videos, exact copy and destination links are archived. The ad detail dialog also shows source targeting (ages, genders, locations, interests, devices and keyword flags), unique-user reach bands, commercial-communication flags and review reasons when Pinterest supplies them. A missing field remains blank. Reach is not impressions, spend, clicks or conversions.
Pinterest publishes one first and last shown date per ad, across all of its countries. Rival Ads uses those dates to place an ad when it first finds it, so a new board shows real ad ages and an ad that had already stopped is dated when it stopped, not on the day you added the competitor. A country board can therefore show an ad as older than its run in that country when it reached that country later. Starts and stops Rival Ads detects after that are dated when it observes them. If a country comes back with no ads at all, Rival Ads re-checks within a couple of hours and only marks ads stopped there when the empty answer repeats. Disapproved source observations are treated as inactive; partial reads retain uncertain activity. Pinterest uses the same plan slots, alerts, library, strategy reads, REST API and MCP as the other channels. Automated landing-page screenshots are not collected for this channel.
Locations and source differences
Each monitor supports up to five locations, with the first as its default filter. The six sources do not expose an identical set of fields or language filters. Rival Ads preserves available source evidence and leaves unavailable fields blank rather than estimating them.
See Ad activity & data for the shared view and Troubleshoot a sync if the wrong advertiser or no ads appear.
For country-scoped Microsoft monitors, run histories begin when Rival Ads observes the ad in the country. Microsoft’s EU/EEA-wide source dates remain in the original archive record.