How to find winning Facebook ads by niche and format

What a winning Facebook ad means from outside

A winning ad is one its brand kept running on Meta. Brands rarely keep paying for an ad that loses, so a long run is the clearest public signal there is. It is a signal, not a result: nobody outside the ad account sees spend, return on ad spend or sales.

That changes the question. You cannot find "the ads that made money". You can find the ads a brand kept paying for, then study why. The ads worth your time are the ones that show more than one signal at once, from a brand in your niche, in a format you can make.

The four signals you can see

1. Days running. The date an ad started, set against today. An ad live for weeks has outlasted the tests launched next to it. A brand's newest ads are mostly tests, so a start date a month or more back is where to look first.
2. Number of variations. The same creative copied into several ads, or one hook cut into several edits. A brand that makes the effort to remake an idea is usually stretching something it wants more of.
3. Relaunches. The same creative with a newer start date, or an old hook back with fresh footage. A brand may bring back what it remembers working, so a hook that returns after a gap is worth noting.
4. The same hook across formats. One opening line as a selfie video, then as a static image, then as a text-only post. When a brand tries an angle in three formats, the angle is what it is betting on, not the format.

One signal alone is weak. Two or three together, from a brand with a record in your niche, is a short list worth studying.

How to read those signals in the Meta Ad Library

The Meta Ad Library is free, needs no login and shows every ad running now on Facebook, Instagram and Meta's other apps. The layout changes from time to time, so treat the labels below as what we saw on the day we checked and look for the nearest equivalent.

1. Open facebook.com/ads/library. Set the country where your customers are first: the library shows the ads that ran in the country you pick.
2. Choose the ad category "All ads". The other categories cover political, housing, employment and financial ads. Product ads live under All ads.
3. Search a word a customer would type, then switch to a brand. A keyword search shows who advertises in your category. When a name keeps coming up, search it and pick its Page from the advertisers list to see everything that Page runs.
4. Keep the status on active and use the filters for dates. Open Filters and look for the date options. Ads that were already delivering a month ago and still run today are the ones that lasted.
5. Read the card. "Started running on" gives the start date: subtract it from today for days running. A line such as "2 ads use this creative and text" counts separate ads built from the same creative, which is your variations signal. The platform icons show where it runs, and the button and link show the landing page.
6. Open the summary details of a multi-ad creative to see each copy side by side with its own start date. Two copies that started on the same day are one launch. Two that started months apart are a relaunch.
7. Save the Library ID. The ID on each card lets you rebuild the link, and Meta shows every ad while it runs. Once an ad stops, only social issue, election and political ads (kept 7 years) and ads delivered in the EU (kept a year after their last impression) stay in the library. Save the creative itself, not just the link (how to save ads from the Facebook Ad Library).

Meta's "multiple versions" label is a different thing: it means the brand gave Meta several images or lines of text inside one ad, and Meta mixes them for each viewer. Count separate ads, not that label.

Why none of these signals proves profit

Read every signal with these limits in mind:

• A brand can afford a loser. A large advertiser may leave a weak ad on for months because it costs little against its budget, or because nobody switched it off.
• Some ads run for another reason. Retargeting, brand awareness and always-on offers run for long on purpose and say little about a first-touch hook.
• Spend is hidden. Spend and reach ranges for political ads; reach and targeting detail for EU ads; a separate Ad Targeting dataset for approved researchers. For ordinary product ads there is no spend, reach or sales figure to check against.
• The ad is only part of the result. A landing page, a price or an email flow can carry an ad that looks plain.
• Old does not mean current. An ad running for a year may have been strong in its first month and tired since.

Use run time to choose what to study, then judge the ad on how it is built: the hook, the angle, the format and the offer. Never repeat a claim that one ad beat another unless a brand told you so.

How to sort what you find by niche and format

The Ad Library has no niche or format filter, so you sort by hand. One sheet is enough. Give each saved ad a row and four columns that matter here:

• Niche. Use a short fixed list so rows compare: for example Beauty, Fashion, Fitness and wellness, Food and drink, Pets, Home and garden, Apps and software, Jewelry and watches.
• Format. What the creative looks like: a selfie video, a review, a before and after, a product image with text. The library tags use the standard visual format names, so borrowing them keeps your sheet in line with UGC selfie, Review, Before and after, Product image, Unboxing, Listicle, Text overlay, Us vs them.
• Hook. The first line of copy or the first seconds of video, written out word for word.
• Signals. Days running, number of ads sharing the creative, and whether you saw it relaunched.

Filter the sheet by niche, then by format, and sort by days running. Patterns show up quickly: the same hook in several of a niche's best-kept ads, or a format that one competitor leans on and the others skip. Keep the list to what you will use. Fifty rows nobody opens is a worse swipe file than ten that someone briefs from (how to build an ad swipe file).

Libraries that file ads by niche and format

If you do not want to build the sheet yourself, some libraries do the filing. The ones below file Facebook and Instagram ads in ways their own sites describe. Prices and free plans are from each tool's own site, checked on 24 October 2026.

• Gethookd is a Meta ad library with AI tools, tracking active Facebook and Instagram ads across ecommerce categories.
• Adspo is an ad inspiration and creative intelligence tool for Facebook and Instagram ads: it groups ads by creative, tracks brands, and shows each brand's formats, hooks, landing pages and target countries.
• Spytrend is a Facebook, Meta and TikTok ad spy for media buyers and affiliates: it groups ads by the webmaster behind them, linking pixels, landing domains and Page IDs into one competitor profile, sorted into 33 AI verticals, with an MCP server.
• Motion's public library: Inspo in the app, plus a Creative Strategy Library (now at runneth.com/library): 1,350 brand ad strategy pages, 113 visual ad formats, 96 audience personas and 33 hook tactics, by its counts.

Check the filters on each site before you pay: what "category", "niche" or "format" means differs from tool to tool. For the full field, see the best ad swipe file tools and the best ad spy tools.

Find winning Facebook ads on AdSwipeFile

AdSwipeFile is an ad library of 63,244+ Facebook and Instagram ads that brands kept running, filed by brand, niche and format. It does the filing and the sorting from the sections above, and keeps the creative after Meta takes the ad down.

• Sort by longest running. Brand pages open on their longest-running ads. Niche, visual format and hook pages offer "Longest running" in the sort menu. Ads tracked on Meta show the days live, the dates and the brand's median run.
• Browse by niche and format. Start from Beauty, Fashion, Fitness and wellness, Food and drink, Pets, Home and garden, Apps and software, Jewelry and watches, then narrow with a format such as UGC selfie, Review, Before and after, Product image, Unboxing, Listicle, Text overlay, Us vs them. Every ad is tagged by imported format, and the ads read so far also carry a visual format and a hook tactic.
• See how an ad is built. Each tagged ad has a note on the mechanism of its hook, format and offer. It describes how the ad is built to work, never its results.
• Free to start. Signed out, every list shows its newest 20 ads. A free account, with no card, sees the first 50 ads of every list with their copy, and adds saves and 50 MCP/API calls for the life of the account. Pro ($39 a month) opens every ad, with unlimited boards and 10,000 MCP/API calls a month, after a 7-day trial.

Its limits: Facebook and Instagram only, no Chrome extension, no spend or performance data, and a smaller library than the biggest paid ones. A long run is why an ad is in the list to study, not proof that it paid. What a Facebook ads research tool should cover, and how AdSwipeFile compares with the Meta Ad Library and Motion, has its own page.

Ask your AI agent for winning ads

Connect AdSwipeFile to Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor and your AI agent does the research. It lists ads with sort: "longest_running", filters by niche, visual format and hook, then reads the ads you point at and writes what they share. Try:

• "Show me the longest-running UGC ads in pet food and tell me the hooks they share."
• "Find testimonial ads in skincare that have run for more than a month. Group them by angle."
• "What does Glossier keep running? Link every ad."
• "Read the five oldest ads in fitness and write three hooks for my product in their patterns."

The assistant links each ad so you can check the creative. It reads the library, not Meta's, so ask it what the library holds, not what is running right now. Setup for each assistant is in the MCP docs, and AdSwipeFile for Meta ads shows what an agent can ask.

Try AdSwipeFile with your assistant

Copy the setup prompt and paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor. It connects the library and asks for recent ads from your niche. Free: 50 MCP/API calls for the life of the account and the first 50 ads of every list, no card.

Copy setup promptCopied

Continue with Google

Setup steps for each assistant

FAQ

Where can I find a library of winning Facebook ad examples?

Start with the Meta Ad Library, which is free and shows every ad running now, one advertiser at a time. For a library that files ads by niche and format and keeps them after they stop, use AdSwipeFile or one of the paid tools in the table above.

How do I find winning Facebook ads for my niche?

Search the Meta Ad Library for a word your customer uses, open the Pages that keep appearing and keep the ads that have run a month or more with several copies. Or open a niche page on AdSwipeFile and sort by longest running.

How can I tell if a Facebook ad is winning?

From outside you can't be sure. Days running, the number of ads sharing a creative and relaunches are signals that a brand kept paying for it. Spend and sales are not public for product ads, so treat it as a lead to study.

Can I see how much a competitor spends on an ad?

Not for ordinary product ads. Spend and reach ranges for political ads; reach and targeting detail for EU ads; a separate Ad Targeting dataset for approved researchers.

Is there a searchable library of Meta ads sorted by niche and format?

Yes. AdSwipeFile files 63,244+ Facebook and Instagram ads by brand, niche and format, with a longest running sort. Gethookd, Adspo and Spytrend also describe category, format or vertical filing on their own sites.

Can ChatGPT or Claude find winning Facebook ads?

Yes, with a connected library. With the AdSwipeFile MCP server, your AI agent lists the longest-running ads in a niche or format, reads their copy and links each one. It does not read Meta's own library.

Sources

Checked on 6 November 2026 and 12 November 2026 on each tool's own site. Prices are in US dollars as listed, and change: check the source before you buy. AdSwipeFile's facts come from its pricing page.

1. Meta Ad Library
2. Meta Ad Library API
3. Meta Ad Library tools
4. Graph API ads_archive reference
5. Gethookd pricing and FAQ
6. Gethookd home page
7. Adspo pricing
8. Adspo home page
9. Adspo llms.txt
10. Adspo: best ad spy tools
11. Spytrend pricing
12. Spytrend home page and FAQ
13. Spytrend MCP
14. Motion pricing
15. Motion home page
16. Runneth llm-info
17. Motion help: MCP
18. Motion Creative Strategy Library
19. Foreplay pricing
20. Foreplay MCP
21. Foreplay API
22. Foreplay home page
23. Foreplay mobile app