How to research competitors' TikTok ads with the Ad Library

November 8, 2026

TikTok has two public windows into ads. One is a transparency library of ads shown in Europe. The other is a gallery of high-performing ads in Creative Center. Neither shows everything, but together they cover a lot. Here is what each one holds and a method for using them.

Source 1: the Commercial Content Library and API

TikTok's Commercial Content API serves ads, ad and advertiser metadata and targeting information, with searches by advertiser name or keyword. For paid ads it includes the published date, last-seen date, targeting information and how many people saw the ad. Data stays available until one year after the ad was last shown source. The public web version is the library at library.tiktok.com.

The catch: coverage is European. TikTok lists 32 supported countries, the 27 EU members plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and the UK source. An ad that only ran in the US will not be there. The API is open to the public and researchers through an application, and TikTok says to expect an answer within 2 working days source.

Good at: seeing which ads a specific advertiser ran, when, and to whom. Weak at: ads outside Europe.

Source 2: Creative Center Top Ads

A gallery of high-performing auction ads. You can filter by region, objective, ad language, ad format and likes, and sort by reach or CTR source. It is built for creative inspiration across an industry, not for auditing one competitor.

Good at: learning what strong ads in your category look like. Weak at: finding every ad from one brand.

A method: the ad log

Keep one row per ad. After 30 to 50 rows, patterns show up.

What to look for

• Survivors. Sort by days live. An ad that ran for 90 days earned its budget.
• Variants. Many near-copies with different hooks means the brand is testing hooks. Note which one ran longest.
• Creator versus brand. Count how many ads use creators' faces. That tells you whether they buy creator content.
• Organic crossover. Check whether their best organic videos later appear as ads. Many brands promote what already worked.

Script: pull an advertiser's ads

import requests
KEY = "YOUR_KEY"
r = requests.get("https://scrapeio.com/v1/tiktok/ad-library/search",
                 params={"advertiser_name": "Gymshark"},
                 headers={"x-api-key": KEY}, timeout=60).json()
print(r["data"])   # inspect the ads, then fetch details per ad id

Limits to state in your report

• European ads only in the library. Say so if your market is elsewhere.
• Top Ads is curated by performance. It is not a full list.
• Neither source gives you the advertiser's spend or results per ad.

Turn the log into a brief

After you have logged a competitor's ads, write one page for your creative team. List the three hooks that ran longest, the formats they used most, and the offers they repeated. Add two or three ads from Creative Center Top Ads in your category that do something your competitors do not. Then write the test plan: which hook and format you will try first, and what result would make you keep it. A log nobody turns into a brief is wasted work.

How to do it with ScrapeIO

tiktok ad library search API searches by keyword, advertiser name or advertiser business id. tiktok ad library ad API takes a library ad id or detail URL, or a Creative Center Top Ads id or URL, and returns that ad. Each call is 1 credit. For Meta, Google and LinkedIn ads, the ad-library-research skill in our agent skills covers those libraries too.

Sources

Checked on 8 November 2026 from each vendor's own pages. Prices and limits change; follow the links before you decide.

• https://developers.tiktok.com/products/commercial-content-api
• https://developers.tiktok.com/docs/en/commercial-content-api-supported-countries
• https://ads.tiktok.com/business/creativecenter/inspiration/topads/pc/en