Use case
Ad library data via API
For teams that already search the ad libraries and want the data programmatically: what the official APIs actually expose, and the real options for the rest.
Updated
The short answer
An ad library API returns the ads a platform archives as structured data your own software can consume. The official surfaces are narrow: Meta’s Ad Library API is scoped mainly to political and issue ads, Google’s Ads Transparency Center ships no public API at all, TikTok’s is EU-scoped, and LinkedIn’s archive stops at a search box. Everything programmatic beyond that comes from third parties, and the options split into cross-platform intelligence APIs, scraper platforms you operate yourself, and single-purpose transparency wrappers.
Ways to get ad library data programmatically, ranked
- Waldo: cross-platform: one API and MCP surface over the Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and TikTok libraries, daily scans stored permanently, every ad traceable to the native archive; credit-metered.
- Meta Ad Library API (official): authoritative and free, but scoped mainly to political and issue ads; commercial creative is excluded outside the EU’s DSA disclosures.
- Scraper platforms (Apify, Bright Data): flexible if you run the scrapers yourself; you own the breakage, the normalization, and the storage, and history starts when you do.
- Transparency wrappers (SerpApi-style): per-request access to Google’s transparency surface without an official API; single-platform, recent-window only, no stored history.
- Swipe-file tools: built for browsing and saving reference creative, not for programmatic pulls; exports exist, real APIs mostly do not.
The official archives are free and authoritative for what they cover; every programmatic option exists because the archives are platform-siloed and forget commercial ads once they stop running.
The job to be done
The teams searching this phrase have outgrown the search boxes. They are wiring competitor creative into a dashboard, an agent workflow, or a creative-testing loop, and checking archives by hand does not scale past a couple of brands. What they need is what the native archives do not offer: one query surface across platforms, stored history that survives after an ad stops running, and per-ad traceability back to the source archive.
The evaluation traps are consistent. Official APIs look authoritative but exclude commercial ads in most regions. Scrapers return whatever the page happened to show and break when it changes. And any vendor that cannot link a stored ad back to the native library’s own record is asking to be trusted rather than audited. Ask every option the same three questions: which platforms and regions, how is history kept, and can every ad be opened in the source archive.
How Waldo does it
Track the advertisers
Add your brands and competitors; Waldo scans the Meta and Google ad libraries daily for every tracked brand and stores what it finds permanently.
Pull ads programmatically
Ads endpoints return the creative, copy, run dates, and placements as structured data, filterable by platform and status; one pull recently returned 5,184 active Meta ads for a single brand.
Search across libraries
discover_ads runs one search across the Meta, Google, and LinkedIn libraries, with TikTok through its own endpoint; every result keeps the native library’s own ID and deep link.
Hand it to an agent
The same tools ship over the MCP server, so a Claude or MCP-compatible agent queries the libraries mid-task without custom glue.
The endpoints
/v1/brands/{id}/adsA tracked brand’s stored ads with creative, copy, run dates, and native library IDs; history survives after ads leave the public archive.MCP: discover_adsOne search across the Meta, Google, and LinkedIn ad libraries; TikTok via its own search tool.MCP: per-platform ad library toolsDirect advertiser-filtered pulls from each library when one platform is the question.Questions teams ask
Is there an official Meta Ad Library API for commercial ads?
Mostly no. Meta’s Ad Library API covers political and issue ads, plus EU-targeted ads under the Digital Services Act. Ordinary commercial creative in most regions is visible in the web archive but not exposed through the official API, which is why third-party coverage exists.
Does the Google Ads Transparency Center have an API?
No public one. Google’s transparency surface is a website. Programmatic access comes from third-party wrappers that query it per-request, or intelligence layers that scan and store it continuously.
Can I get ads that are no longer running?
Not from the native archives: a standard commercial ad disappears from the public record once it stops running. Stored history only exists where a tool captured the ad while it was live, which is the core argument for continuous scanning over on-demand lookups.
What does an MCP server add over a REST API here?
A REST API needs your code; an MCP server lets an AI agent search the libraries as tools mid-task, schema negotiated automatically. Creative and research agents skip the glue code; traditional dashboards still want REST. The serious options now ship both.
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