TikTok Ad Library: find competitor ads step by step

The TikTok Ad Library is TikTok's free ad transparency database at library.tiktok.com. It lists every ad shown in the EU, the rest of the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland and Turkey during the past year, with the advertiser, who paid, first and last shown dates, a reach range and the targeting used. You need no account. It does not cover ads that ran only in the US, and it shows no spend.

Its sibling, Creative Center's Top Ads, is a different tool: a hand-picked gallery of high-performing ads, with likes, a CTR percentile and a budget level, covering the US too, but only for ads their advertisers authorised. Use the Ad Library to see everything a competitor runs in Europe; use Top Ads to study creative that worked. Neither tells you whether anyone searches for the product, so the end of this page checks that for three products we found in the library.

Checked 30 September 2026, signed out, on library.tiktok.com and ads.tiktok.com. We make TokConnect, the search-demand tool used in the last part of this page; it has no ads data. What the library showed · What Top Ads showed.

TikTok Ad Library vs Top Ads: which one do you need?

From TikTok's library FAQ and the Top Ads help article (last updated May 2025), plus what both pages showed signed out on 30 September 2026. Snapshot.

What is the TikTok Ad Library?

It's the "Ad Library" tab of what TikTok calls its Commercial Content Library. It exists because the EU's Digital Services Act requires very large platforms to keep a public, searchable repository of the ads they show. TikTok's FAQ says ads that ran anywhere in the EEA are archived "for one year after they were last shown to a user", with the ad content, basic information such as start date and advertiser, and "additional transparency specific to the EEA". Ads that ran in the UK, Turkey and Switzerland get the content and basic information.

On 30 September 2026 its country list had 33 entries and no US, Canada or Asia-Pacific option. An ad's detail page shows:

• Ad summary: ad ID, first shown, last shown, advertising objective (for example "Sales") and unique users seen, which TikTok defines as "an estimate of the number of unique users who have seen the ad at least once".
• Targeting summary: reach by country, age band and gender, plus the settings the advertiser chose: language, custom audiences, interest categories, creator and video interactions, device and operating system.
• Advertiser panel: the ad video, the advertiser, who paid if different (an agency, say), registered location, ad category and a See all ads link.

Much of this is new. In May 2025 the European Commission's preliminary findings said TikTok's repository fell short of the DSA; on 5 December 2025 it accepted TikTok's commitments to show full ad content with its links, publish within 24 hours, disclose targeting with age, gender and country breakdowns, and add search filters, on deadlines of 2 to 12 months. TikTok's FAQ says the age and gender reach breakdown started in June 2026, so older ads show country only.

How do I search a competitor's ads in the TikTok Ad Library?

1. Go to library.tiktok.com/ads. No login.
2. Pick one or more countries in Ad target country. You must choose at least one.
3. Set Last shown date. It defaults to the last 30 days.
4. Type the advertiser's name or a keyword and press Search. Put the phrase in quotation marks for an exact match.
5. Narrow with Filters: ad type, active or inactive, age, gender and unique ad reach. Sort by last shown date.
6. Open any ad, then click See all ads under the advertiser to list everything that account has run.

Always use quotation marks for products. Without them, the library runs a fuzzy search across title, advertiser, "paid by" name and caption, and returns up to 5,000 results. Our unquoted UK search for skincare hit that cap, and the first page was one advertiser.

Here is what the UK library returned for five product phrases over the last 30 days:

TikTok Commercial Content Library, Ad Library tab, United Kingdom, last shown 30 August to 30 September 2026, checked signed out. Every result with its ad ID.

Most advertiser names here were TikTok account handles, not company names, so expect creators and small shops as well as brands. Reach ranges show who is spending: nearly every ad sat at 0-1K users, while one supplement company's creatine gummies ad, first shown 18 August and last shown 28 September, reached 800K-900K people, all in the UK. That's the ad to study.

Can you see US ads in the TikTok Ad Library?

No. The Ad Library only covers the 33 European countries above, so a US-only campaign never appears. If a US brand also advertises in the UK or EU, you'll see those versions. The other limits:

• No spend or results. You get a reach range and dates, not budget, clicks or sales. A long run with a big reach range is the best hint an ad works.
• No political ads. TikTok doesn't allow them, so the library has none.
• Removed ads are hidden. Ads taken down for policy breaches show only their summary and targeting.
• Short memory. Ads drop out a year after they last ran.
• Rate limits. TikTok says it sometimes blocks an IP address it suspects of misuse; its FAQ says to try again in 24 hours.

Paid creator partnerships sit in a separate tab, Other commercial content (EEA, UK and Switzerland). Search it by creator username to see which brands a creator promotes. For bulk data, TikTok offers a Commercial Content API.

What does Creative Center Top Ads show?

Top Ads lives in TikTok's Creative Center and calls itself a showcase of "high-performing auction ads". TikTok's help article says every featured ad was "authorized by advertisers inside TikTok Ads Manager", and the page itself warns that the selection "may not reflect all top-performing auction ads".

On 30 September 2026 you could filter by country, industry, objective, period (last 7, 30 or 180 days), language, format and likes, and sort by reach, CTR, 2-second or 6-second view rate, conversion rate or likes. Each card shows the objective, industry, likes, a CTR percentile such as "Top 30%" and a budget level of Low, Medium or High. See analytics opens what TikTok describes as a second-by-second graph of where viewers engaged.

Signed out, the US view showed four ads, then "Log in to access all Top Ads and more." "creatine gummies" and "face mask" both returned "No search results found" for the US over 30 days; "shoes" returned one ad. Good for browsing your industry's winners; poor for checking one product or competitor. Our Creative Center vs Creator Search Insights page covers the rest of Creative Center, and Creative Center alternatives compares paid ad spy tools.

Are people actually searching for what's being advertised?

For all three products we took from the Ad Library, yes. But each one is searched in a different way, and that should change the ad. We pulled TikTok's own search counts (searches in the last 7 days, worldwide) and the top organic videos for heatless curls, creatine gummies and LED face masks.

Searches: TikTok Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, global, pulled 30 September 2026. Ad counts: TikTok Ad Library, UK. TikTok's UK-only series for these topics came back empty on almost every day, so the searches are worldwide. TikTok's own topic labels in the millions, such as "creatine gummies and supplement forms" at 4,669,198, are left out. Searches snapshot · Videos snapshot.

Heatless curls: people want the result, and the method is free

The biggest typed search is "heatless curler results", and "5 heatless curls" has 286,571 searches with zero matched videos, a clear content gap. But 10 of the 11 top organic videos are tutorials for the free sock method, led by one with 42,698,632 plays and 634,941 saves. An ad for a curler competes with a free alternative, so it has to show the finished curls in the first seconds and say why it beats a sock.

Creatine gummies: a crowded, seller-heavy feed

The typed searches are narrower: "creatine gummies women" at 210,821 and "how to make creatine gummies" at 64,593. At least 6 of the 19 top videos carry TikTok Shop, partner or listing wording, so organic results are already full of sellers. The gap is audience-specific angles (women, beginners) and taste, not another "best gummies ever" clip.

LED face masks: comparison shoppers

Searches are about choosing: "Best led mask" (147,555), "led mask before and after" (117,541), and "Red led mask" (87,773) with zero videos. The two most-played results are a how-to-use video and a creator comparing masks for the price. Ads that show a before-and-after or a head-to-head fit what people are typing. See content gaps for how to use zero-video searches.

Do this in TokConnect

The Ad Library tells you what a competitor is paying to show. The next question is whether anyone is looking for it, and what they call it. Ask in plain words at chat.tokconnect.com:

When we ran that check for heatless curls on 30 September 2026, it returned the typed searches in the chart above (from 295,552 searches for "heatless curler results" down), one with no videos, TikTok's generated topic labels in the millions alongside them, and the top 11 videos with plays and saves. The Free plan has 50 credits, and a question like this uses 1 to 4.

What to do next: write your ad and organic hooks around the searches people type ("results", "before and after", "for women"), put the exact wording in on-screen text and the caption, and film the zero-video searches first. For a fuller process, see TikTok competitor analysis and product research with search demand. TokConnect doesn't show ads, spend or sales; keep the Ad Library open for that.

How we got these numbers

On 30 September 2026, signed out, we searched the UK Ad Library for five exact product phrases over 30 days and saved each total and first page of results, plus two ad detail pages and TikTok's FAQ text. We opened Top Ads for the US and UK and ran three searches. For demand we made 11 TokConnect calls: five topic searches, three 30-day popularity series and three video searches. Searches are TikTok's 7-day figures, not monthly. Creator handles are removed from the saved files; ad IDs are kept so you can look the ads up.