How to scrape Facebook Ad Library Search Ads with Java

Search This tutorial gets it with a short Java program and the Facebook Ad Library Search Ads API. Each successful call costs 1 credit; errors and not-found answers are free.

1. Get an API key

Sign in to get a key and 100 free credits, no card. Then put the key in an environment variable so it stays out of your code:

export SCRAPEIO_API_KEY="your_key_here"

2. Set up Java

Java 11 or newer; HttpClient is built in

3. Write the code

Save this as Scrape.java.

import java.net.URI;
import java.net.URLEncoder;
import java.net.http.HttpClient;
import java.net.http.HttpRequest;
import java.net.http.HttpResponse;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;

public class Scrape {
    static String enc(String s) {
        return URLEncoder.encode(s, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        String query = "query=" + enc("coffee");
        HttpRequest req = HttpRequest.newBuilder()
            .uri(URI.create("https://scrapeio.com/v1/facebook/adLibrary/search/ads?" + query))
            .header("x-api-key", System.getenv("SCRAPEIO_API_KEY"))
            .build();
        HttpResponse<String> res = HttpClient.newHttpClient().send(req, HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofString());
        if (res.statusCode() != 200) throw new RuntimeException("HTTP " + res.statusCode());
        System.out.println(res.body());
    }
}

This prints the first page. To get the next one, send the value of data.cursor as the cursor parameter and call again until data.has_more is false.

4. Run it

java Scrape.java

The response has the same envelope on every endpoint: success, cached, credits_used, credits_remaining and data. Shared fields such as handle, followers, plays, likes and created_at have the same names on every platform.

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
`query` (required)	string	Keyword to search for
`sort_by`	total_impressions, relevancy_monthly_grouped	Sort by impressions (high to low), or Most Recent (relevancymonthlygrouped).
`search_type`	keyword_unordered, keyword_exact_phrase	If you want to search by exact phrase or not
`ad_type`	all, political_and_issue_ads	Search for all ads or only political and issue ads
`country`	string	This can only be one country.
`language`	string	Language to filter ads on.
`status`	ALL, ACTIVE, INACTIVE	Status of the ad.
`media_type`	ALL, IMAGE, VIDEO, MEME, IMAGE_AND_MEME, NONE	Media type of the ad.
`start_date`	string	Impressions start date.
`end_date`	string	Impressions end date.
`trim`	boolean	Set to true for a trimmed down version of the response
`cursor`	string	Cursor to paginate through results

Errors and what you pay

Status	Meaning	Charged
`200`	Success	Yes, unless cached
`400`	A parameter is missing or wrong	No
`401`	The key is missing or invalid	No
`402`	Not enough credits	No
`403`	The account or post is private	No
`404`	Not found on the platform	No
`429`	More than 300 requests a minute	No
`502`	Every source is down; retry shortly	No

Same endpoint in other languages

Python · Node.js · JavaScript · TypeScript · Go · Rust · C# · PHP · Ruby · Kotlin · Swift · R

Prefer no code?

Connect the MCP server to Claude Code, Cursor or Codex and ask in plain English. The agent uses call_endpoint with path /v1/facebook/adLibrary/search/ads for you.

100 free credits, no card. Credits never expire.

Get API key