How to spy on your competitors' Facebook and Instagram ads

Updated 23/09/2026 · a guide by the Kairós Sonar team

The ads your competitors pay for are the best market research there is: they show the product, the promise, the price and the audience. The key is knowing what to look for and not getting lost among hundreds of ads.

What you can see

• All of a page's active ads, with copy, image or video and button.
• Each ad's start date — and therefore how many days it has been running.
• Which platforms it runs on (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger…).
• In the EU, each ad's reach, broken down by age and gender, and who paid for it.

The signal worth more than all the rest

Sustained spending. Whoever keeps an ad running week after week, and multiplies it, is telling you it pays off: it's the most reliable indicator that the product sells.

A 4-step method

1. Search by product, not by brand: you'll find everyone selling it.
2. Sort by days running and by position: the ones at the top are the ones that last.
3. Open the advertiser scaling the most and look at all their ads: you'll understand which angles they tested and which they kept.
4. Look at reach by age and gender to know who to sell to.

Warning signs

• Lots of new ads with only a few days: that's a store testing, not winning.
• Ads that lead to a form: they're collecting leads, not selling directly.
• Prices far below the market: check delivery times and the supplier before concluding the product “sells”.

With Kairós Sonar

Instead of going through ads one by one, Sonar gathers the ads from your search, works out how many days they've been running, counts versions and active ads per advertiser, shows where each one leads and brings the real EU reach in one click. The “Spy” button pulls in all of an advertiser's ads at once.

Frequently asked questions