Every Platform's Ad Library Compared: Meta, TikTok, Google and LinkedIn, and What Each One Hides

The Meta Ads Library covers Meta. A competitor who also runs on Google, LinkedIn and TikTok has to be looked up three more times, and each tool answers a different question. This is the map.

1. The four libraries side by side

Checked 2026-09-13 by opening each tool logged out:

	Meta Ads Library	Google Ads Transparency Center	LinkedIn Ad Library	TikTok Creative Center
Type	Full search	Full search of verified advertisers	Full search	Leaderboard
Search by	Page, keyword	Advertiser name, website	Company, payer, keyword	Keyword, industry, region
Coverage	Every Page's ads	Ads from advertisers who passed verification	Ads since 1 June 2023	Ads the advertiser authorized for display
Surfaces	FB, IG, Messenger, Audience Network	Search, YouTube, Display, Shopping	LinkedIn feed and messaging formats	TikTok in-feed auction ads
Retention	1 year commercial, 7 years political	1 year from last shown, 7 years election	1 year after last impression	7 / 30 / 180 days
Start date	Yes	Date range shown	First-impression date	No; period bucket
Versions	Yes	No	No	No
Spend	Political only	Election only	No	No
Targeting	EU only	No	EU only	No
Performance	No	No	EU impression ranges	CTR percentile, likes, retention curve
Login	No	No	No (sign-in offered)	Yes for full content

Read the table by row, not by column, and one pattern falls out: anything that reveals money or audience appears only where a law demands it. Political ads (Meta and Google, by their own commitments since 2018) and EU-delivered ads (every platform, by the Digital Services Act since 2023). Commercial ads outside the EU show creative, dates and surfaces, never spend, never targeting, on all four.

2. Google Ads Transparency Center

The unit is the advertiser, not the ad. Search a company name or a website; the result is that advertiser's verified identity and every ad they have shown in the last year, filterable by region and format (text, image, video).

Two things that trip people up, seen on 2026-09-13: the region selector defaults to where you are (it showed Japan for us), and an advertiser who never completed Google's verification simply is not there. Google requires verification for most advertisers now, but small accounts that predate it and never triggered a check are invisible. "Not in the Transparency Center" therefore means unverified at least as often as it means not advertising.

What it will not tell you: keywords, spend, and the landing page beyond the display URL. Election ads are the exception, with spend ranges and a seven-year archive.

3. LinkedIn Ad Library

The newest of the four, live since June 2023, and the most literal: it shows the ad preview, the format, the advertiser and the payer, and keeps each ad for a year after its last impression. Ads appear "shortly after the ad receives its first impression", which makes the first-impression date a reliable start date.

The EU rows are where LinkedIn is unusually generous: for ads targeted at EU members it shows impression ranges and the targeting parameters, and lets you search by them. That is more than Meta's web version exposes; Meta puts the equivalent data behind the API.

The gap: ads restricted by law (regulated products, some regions) show no preview, no advertiser name and no payer. You see that an ad existed and nothing else.

4. TikTok: two tools, one of them EU-only

TikTok's worldwide tool is the Creative Center, covered in its own guide: a leaderboard of high-performing ads that the advertiser agreed to show, sortable by likes and CTR, with a retention curve per ad. It cannot list one advertiser's ads.

The full library exists, but only for the EU: TikTok's Commercial Content Library, published because the DSA requires it, covers ads and paid partnerships delivered to EU users, with reach and targeting. If your competitor runs in Germany, you can see their TikTok ads properly; if they run in Taiwan or the US, you get the leaderboard and nothing else. The same asymmetry applies to X and Snapchat, whose ad repositories exist only for the EU.

5. How to run one competitor through all four

The order that wastes the least time, from our own competitor checks:

1. Meta first, Page search. It has the most structure (start dates, versions, landing pages) and the four-step reading method applies. Twenty minutes.
2. Google second, by website. Search their domain rather than their name; brands often verify under a holding company name you would not guess. Note whether they run Search text ads at all; many Meta-heavy brands do not.
3. LinkedIn only if they sell to businesses. Consumer brands rarely appear. For B2B, the payer name reveals whether an agency runs it.
4. TikTok last, and read the absence correctly. Not on the Creative Center leaderboard means not authorized or not ranking, not absent from TikTok.

Then write down, per platform, the longest-running creative and its landing page. Four platforms, four lines. That page is the competitor's actual media plan, and it took under an hour with free tools.

6. What this means for your own ads

Everything above is symmetrical: what you can see of them, they can see of you. Your Meta ads are in the library from the first impression, with start dates and versions; your Google ads are under your verified name; your LinkedIn ads carry your payer name. The one thing you can keep private, outside the EU, is spend and targeting. Plan creative tests knowing the competitor will read your start dates the same way this guide reads theirs.

Running on any of these needs the account layer first: the account map for Meta, and TikTok Business Center for TikTok.

After all 4 platforms, one thing usually stands out: the competitor's longest-running Meta ad and their Google Search ad copy push the same offer. That offer is the homework for your first ad. Before making it, confirm the account layer is in place; the catalog carries all 4 layers and the first-run bundle has them assembled.

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Sources, checked 2026-09-13

• Meta Ads Library: facebook.com/ads/library
• Google Ads Transparency Center: adstransparency.google.com
• LinkedIn Ad Library and its help article: linkedin.com/ad-library, linkedin.com/help
• TikTok Creative Center: ads.tiktok.com/business/creativecenter
• The Digital Services Act: European Commission: digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu