Competitor ad tracking means a tool collects every ad a named competitor runs, keeps the history, and tells you when a new ad starts. The Meta Ad Library does the collecting for free, but it follows no brand for you and sends no alert. Paid trackers add the list: Atria follows 50 brands from $129 a month, Panoramata tracks 20 from $99, Foreplay tracks 15 from $175, and TrendTrack tracks 2 on its Starter plan. A tracker tells you that an ad exists and how long it runs. It does not tell you what happens inside the ad, which is the job of an ad reader.
Key takeaways
- The Meta Ad Library is free and shows every active ad, but it follows no brand and sends no alert. That is what a paid tracker adds.
- On the entry plan that tracks brands, Atria follows 50, Panoramata 20, Foreplay 15 and TrendTrack 2. Hawky prints no number and no price.
- A tracker tells you that a competitor runs 4 ads. It does not tell you that 2 of the 4 end on the same line: "642 pouches left in this batch".
- Track 3 to 5 competitors who sell to your buyer. Read the ads that run longest first, because a brand seldom pays for an ad that loses.
What is on this page and on no other
Most pages on this subject repeat the same advice and the same figures. These are the facts this one produced itself, and how each one was made.
On the cheapest plan that tracks brands, Atria follows 50 for $129 a month, Panoramata tracks 20 for $99, Foreplay tracks 15 for $175 and TrendTrack tracks 2. 1 of the 5 paid trackers, Hawky, prints neither a number nor a price.
4 ads of one advertiser, Resilia, read second by second: all 4 work with the sound off, all 4 leave out a dollar price, 3 of 4 offer 70% off, and 3 of 4 open on a "what happens after a few weeks" timeline.
2 of the same 4 Resilia ads, for two different products, end on the same scarcity line: "642 pouches left in this batch". The 4 ads run from 28.8 to 164.9 seconds and hold from 4 to 91 cuts.
Panoramata's pricing page prints 2 prices for the same plans: $179 and €149 a month for Professional, and $399 and €379 a month for Advanced.
How we chose these tools
- A tool is on this list when its own site says it collects or tracks the ads of competitors, or when it reads those ads once you have them.
- Every price is the lowest plan that tracks competitors, read off the vendor's own page on 9 October 2026. Where a vendor prints no price, the entry says so.
- Every entry says how many brands it tracks on that plan and what it tells you about one ad.
- Every entry names at least one limit, ours as well. Playhead is sixth, because it tracks no brand at all: it reads the ads a tracker finds.
The shortlist
Every price is the lowest published tier, read off the vendor's own pricing page. The date it was read is at the foot of this page.
| Tool | From | Best for | Watches the video |
|---|---|---|---|
Meta Ad Library
Meta's free public record of the ads that run on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network, WhatsApp and Threads. Most paid trackers read from it.
- What it costs
- Best for
- Rated
What it actually sees in the ad
What it does
- Search by advertiser or keyword, in any country
- Filters for language, platform, media type, active status and date
- The start date of every active ad
- Reach, advertiser and payer for an ad that reached the EU
Stronger at
- Complete for active ads on Meta, and the source the paid trackers build on
- Costs 0 dollars and needs no account
Where it stops
- It follows no brand for you and sends no alert. You search again every time.
- Outside the EU, a commercial ad leaves the library when it stops running. Only political and issue ads stay for 7 years.
Foreplay
A swipe file and ad search engine with Spyder, a tracker that records every ad a competitor launches on Meta, around the clock.
- What it costs
- Best for
- Rated
What it actually sees in the ad
What it does
- Spyder: 24/7 tracking of competitor ads on Meta
- Discovery, a search over more than 200 million saved ads
- Swipe File and a Chrome extension for the Meta Ad Library
- Briefs built from saved ads
- Free automatic transcripts, and MCP from Workflow
Stronger at
- Unlimited tracked brands on the annual rate, where every other capped plan here stops at a number
- Tracking, saving and briefing in one product
Where it stops
- The tracked channel on the plan table is Meta. The page names no TikTok or Google tracking.
- The plan card says 10+ brands and the plan table says 15. Ask before you count on the higher number.
Atria
Ad research, account analytics and ad generation in one product. You follow brands and Atria sends their latest ads every week.
- What it costs
- Best for
- Rated
What it actually sees in the ad
What it does
- Follow 50 brands, with weekly email updates on their new ads
- Top creatives, headlines, copy and landing pages of followed brands
- Active and inactive status, and a sort by the longest running ads
- Extract the script of a video ad
- MCP with 600 calls a month on Core
Stronger at
- The most followed brands on an entry plan here: 50 for $129
- Shows the landing pages of followed brands beside their ads
Where it stops
- The updates on the pricing page are weekly emails. The page names no alert when a single new ad starts.
- AI-tagged hooks, angles and personas of followed brands start on Plus at $479.
Panoramata
A tracker for the whole funnel behind an ad: competitor ads, newsletters, email flows, SMS, landing pages and website changes, on one dashboard.
- What it costs
- Best for
- Rated
What it actually sees in the ad
What it does
- Ads on Meta, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google Display
- Emails, flows, SMS and landing pages of the same competitors
- Website change tracking
- Summaries, alerts and reports from Professional
- MCP on every plan
Stronger at
- The widest list of ad channels on this page: 6
- Sees the email and the page that follow an ad, which no ad-only tracker does
Where it stops
- Alerts start on Professional at $179. Startup keeps only 6 months of history.
- The page prints 2 prices for the same plans: $179 and €149 for Professional, $399 and €379 for Advanced.
TrendTrack
Ecommerce intelligence: shops, ads, advertisers and emails, with BrandTracker for the competitor shops you follow in real time.
- What it costs
- Best for
- Rated
What it actually sees in the ad
What it does
- BrandTracker: real-time tracking across ads, emails, traffic and products
- An ads library with search by image, from Pro
- A free finder that compares a shop's Meta, TikTok and Google ads
- MCP for Claude and ChatGPT, from Pro
Stronger at
- Tracks the shop behind the ads: traffic, products and emails
- The lowest entry price on this page for a paid tracker
Where it stops
- Starter tracks 2 brands and has no ads library. The ads start on Pro.
- The prices draw in the browser. A script that reads the page gets no figure.
Playhead
OursPlayhead tracks no brand. It reads the ads a tracker finds, second by second: the hook, every beat, every claim, the proof, the offer and the ask.
- What it costs
- Best for
- Rated
What it actually sees in the ad
What it does
- Any ad by link: Meta Ad Library, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and X, or a file
- Up to 10 ads at once, with the same fields, so they stack into one table
- The cuts, the second the product appears, and what the ad leaves out
- A public teardown page for each ad you choose to share
- An MCP server, so a tracker's ads can go to Claude and come back read
Stronger at
- Names the second of every beat, claim and offer, which no tracker on this page does
- Finds what a competitor's ads share, such as one scarcity line in 2 ads for 2 products
Where it stops
- No tracking, no alerts and no history. You bring the ad from the Meta Ad Library or a tracker.
- No spend, reach or CTR. It says what an ad does, never how much it sold.
Hawky
Creative and performance dashboards with always-on competitor tracking on every tier, and agents that manage bids and budgets.
- What it costs
- Best for
- Rated
What it actually sees in the ad
What it does
- Always-on competitor tracking on every tier
- Alerts when a competitor launches a new campaign, says Hawky's own article
- Element-level tagging of hook, frame and CTA
- Creative and performance dashboards
- Agents that build counter creative, on Auto-pilot
Stronger at
- Tracking, tagging and your own account in one product
- Unlimited users on every tier
Where it stops
- No price and no number of tracked brands on the pricing page.
- Hawky's own article says its competitor tracking covers Meta and Google, and names TikTok Creative Center for TikTok.
What does a competitor ad tracker do?
It keeps a list of brands, collects what they run, and tells you when something changes.
A competitor ad tracker does three things that the free Meta Ad Library does not. It keeps a list of the brands you follow, so you do not search again every week. It keeps the history, so an ad that stopped is still there. And it tells you when a new ad starts.
What it does not do is read the ad. A tracker can tell you that a competitor launched four new videos on Monday and that one of them has run for 60 days. It cannot tell you what that one says in its first 3 seconds, or which offer it closes on. Hawky's list of 12 tools splits trackers into an archive and a monitoring system, and both stop at the same point: the ad, unread.
| Tool | Tracked brands | Alerts | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta Ad Library | None, you search | No | Free |
| Foreplay | 15, unlimited on annual | 24/7 tracking on Meta | $175/mo |
| Atria | 50 | Weekly email | $129/mo |
| Panoramata | 20 | From $179 | $99/mo |
| TrendTrack | 2 | Real-time BrandTracker | €34/mo yearly |
| Playhead | None, it reads the ads | No | Free |
| Hawky | Not published | New campaign alerts | On request |
What 4 ads of one competitor show when you read them
A tracker finds the 4 ads. Reading them finds what they share.
Resilia sells supplements. Its 4 ads on our public teardown shelf look different: one is an animated explainer of 2 minutes 44 seconds, one is a 28.8 second clip of hands holding a pouch. A tracker lists them as 4 ads with 4 start dates.
Read second by second, they share a plan. All 4 work with the sound off, because every word is also on screen. None of the 4 says a price in dollars. 3 of the 4 offer 70% off. 3 of the 4 open on the same story: what happens to somebody who takes the product for a few weeks. And 2 of the 4, for two different products, end on the same line: "642 pouches left in this batch".
That is the brief a competitor ad tracker cannot write for you. The ads are different. The structure is one structure, used four times.
4 Resilia ads, read second by second
How to track competitor ads in 4 steps
Choose 3 to 5 competitors
Choose brands that sell to the same buyer as you, not only the brands you think of as peers. More than 5 is a list nobody reads every week.
Collect their ads in one place
Start in the Meta Ad Library for free. When the weekly search takes longer than an hour, a tracker with a brand list saves it: Atria follows 50 brands from $129.
Read the longest runners first
Sort by the start date. An ad that has run for 60 days is an ad the brand keeps paying for. Read it second by second: the hook, the offer, the proof and the call to action.
Write down what repeats
Put the ads side by side and look for the line, the offer or the opening that comes back. One ad is an idea. The same line in 2 ads is a decision the brand made.
For the free half of this, read how to use the Facebook Ad Library. For a tracker against a reader in detail, read Playhead vs Foreplay or Playhead vs Atria. For the tools that read your own account, read ad analysis tools.
The verdict
Start competitor ad tracking for free in the Meta Ad Library, and pay for a tracker when the weekly search takes longer than it saves. Atria follows the most brands for the money, 50 for $129 a month. Panoramata is the choice when you also want the emails and landing pages behind each ad, from $99. Foreplay fits a team that writes briefs from what it saves, from $175. Then read what you collected: in 4 ads of one competitor, 2 ended on the same line, and no tracker on this page would have told you.
Common questions
What is competitor ad tracking?
Competitor ad tracking means a tool keeps a list of competitor brands, collects every ad they run, keeps the history, and tells you when a new ad starts. The Meta Ad Library collects the ads for free. Paid trackers such as Atria, Panoramata and Foreplay add the brand list, the history and the alerts.
Can I track competitor ads for free?
Yes, by hand. The Meta Ad Library is free, needs no account, and shows every active ad on Facebook and Instagram with its start date. You search again each time, because it follows no brand and sends no alert. Outside the EU, a commercial ad leaves the library when it stops.
How many competitors should I track?
Track 3 to 5 competitors who sell to your buyer. Every paid plan on this page holds more than that: Atria follows 50 brands on Core, Panoramata 20 on Startup, Foreplay 15 on Workflow. TrendTrack's Starter plan tracks 2, which is enough for one main competitor and one more.
Which competitor ad tracker covers TikTok?
Panoramata lists Meta, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google Display on its pricing page. TrendTrack's free ads finder compares Meta, TikTok and Google. Foreplay's tracker is named for Meta, and Hawky's own article says its tracking covers Meta and Google.
Can a tracker show how much a competitor spends?
Not the real figure. Spend lives in the competitor's own ad account. The Meta Ad Library shows reach for ads that reached the EU, and some tools publish estimates. The steadier signals are how long an ad runs and how many versions of one idea a brand keeps live.
What do I do with the ads once I track them?
Read the longest runners second by second and write down what repeats. In 4 Resilia ads we read, all 4 left out a dollar price, 3 offered 70% off, and 2 ended on the same scarcity line. Copy the structure, never the face, the product or the words.
