Research Competitors' Catalogue Ads in the Meta Ad Library

Before you design catalogue ads, it’s worth seeing what’s already running in your category. The Meta Ad Library is free, public and searchable, and it’s the most direct way to see how other brands present their products in catalogue ads. This is a simple process for using it well, and for turning what you find into designs of your own rather than copies.

What the Ad Library shows

From Meta’s Transparency Centre and help centre:

Active ads across Meta’s apps, searchable by keyword or advertiser. Meta says people can “search for all active ads running across products from Meta”.
Ads delivered in the EU, which Meta keeps for one year after their last impression, with more information than other ads.
Ads about social issues, elections or politics, kept for seven years. Not relevant here, but they explain why the library exists.

What it doesn’t show, for ordinary product ads, is performance. There’s no spend, no sales and no return on ad spend. Keep that in mind throughout: the library tells you what brands are running, not what’s working.

Step 1: build a list of brands to watch

Start with 10 to 20 advertisers:

Direct competitors selling similar products at similar prices.
Category leaders, even if they’re much bigger than you. They tend to have tested more.
Brands outside your category with strong catalogue creative. A homeware brand can learn from a good beauty layout.

Search for each by name in the Ad Library, with your country selected and the filter on all ads.

Step 2: spot the catalogue ads

Not every product ad is a catalogue ad. Signs that you’re looking at one:

The same frame repeated with different products, each with its own name and price.
Carousels of product cards, each card a different product.
Prices, sale badges or discount percentages that vary from product to product in the same design.

When a brand’s ads show the same layout with many products, you’re probably looking at a branded catalogue template.

Step 3: note what you see

For each brand, write down the same things, so you can compare:

What to note	Why it matters
Format: square, portrait or story	Shows which placements they design for
Where the product sits, and how big	How product-led the design is
What text is on the image: name, price, both, neither	How much the design does vs the ad text
Sale treatment: badge, was-price, percentage, none	How they handle discounts
Branding: logo, colours, typeface	How recognisable the ad is without the name
Background: white, colour, lifestyle	How the design stands out in a feed
How long it’s been running	A hint, not proof, that it’s worth keeping

A simple spreadsheet with a row per brand and a screenshot link is enough.

Step 4: look for patterns

After 15 or so brands, patterns start to show. Things to look for:

How similar the layouts are. If most brands in your category use the same layout, that tells you what customers are used to seeing, and where you could stand out.
Which sale treatments are common, such as corner ribbons, circles, or price strips with the old price struck through.
Whether anyone designs for Stories and Reels. If everyone in your category runs square images, a well-designed story format could be an opening.
Which brands you’d recognise without their name. Colour and type usually do that work.

Our post on DPA templates describes the common layouts and when each suits a product.

Step 5: design your own version

Take patterns, not designs. For each pattern you want to use:

Name the idea, not the brand. “Product on a coloured panel with the price in a strip” rather than “do what Brand X does”.
Apply your own brand. Your colours, your typeface, your logo, your tone.
Test it on your real data. Long titles, missing colours and sale prices all change how a design looks. Check before publishing.
Run a few clearly different designs, and judge them on results, not on how they compare with a competitor’s.

In our DPA Creative Editor, the 43 starter layouts cover the patterns you’ll see most often in the library, from clean product cards to sale-led designs. The template library draws each starter with a product from your own feed, in your brand colours if you choose, and you can preview a design on nine of your products at once before publishing. Our Template Teardown posts also take one starter apart at a time, using invented brands.

A few cautions

Don’t copy. Closely copying another brand’s design can confuse customers and cause trouble with the brand concerned. Use the library to understand the category, then make something that’s clearly yours.
Don’t treat longevity as proof. An ad can run for months because nobody turned it off.
Remember what you can’t see. Targeting, budgets and results aren’t shown for ordinary product ads. Two brands with identical creative can have very different results.
Check regularly. A quarterly look at the same brands shows how their creative changes over time, especially around sale periods.

Frequently asked questions

Can I see competitors' catalogue ads in the Meta Ad Library?

The Ad Library lets anyone search active ads running across Meta's apps, by keyword or advertiser. Catalogue ads are ads like any other, so active ones can appear. Ads delivered in the EU are also kept for a year after their last impression, with more information.

Does the Ad Library show how well an ad performs?

No, not for ordinary product ads. It shows the ads themselves and, for ads delivered in the EU, extra information such as estimated reach. It doesn't show sales or return on ad spend. An ad that's been running a long time is a hint that it works, not proof.

Is it all right to copy a competitor's catalogue ad design?

Use the library for patterns, not copies. Note what layouts, badges and formats are common in your category, then design your own version with your brand's colours, type and voice. Copying another brand's design closely risks confusing customers and their rights.

How to research competitors' catalogue ads in the Meta Ad Library