Ads are one of the most integral parts of a brand’s marketing success. Researched and well-crafted ads effectively influence audiences and entice them to take action on your CTA.
But coming up with unique creatives which bring results is tricky.
This is because there’s already massive competition in every industry. But following a researched-based approach, you can easily build winning ads.
This is where you can use the Facebook Ad Library which shows you all ads running on all its partnered platforms, including itself. You can search for your competitor’s ads and analyze them and follow a similar or better approach to create yours.
This also allows you to create ad swipe files, which come handy whenever you need inspiration for a new campaign or need to analyze what successful brands in your niche are doing.
In this article, we’ll discuss 3 ways to download ads from Facebook Ad Library and how to create high-quality swipe files to beat your competitors.
Let’s get started…
What is a swipe file?
Consider a swipe file as a library of well-researched ideas, samples, and inspiration for all your marketing needs. Just like in a library, you can easily find books and reference materials on specific topics. A swipe file is simply an organized collection of proven marketing ideas accumulated over time.
You can create swipe files for unique marketing areas. For instance, you can have one for advertising, content creation, SEO, and more.
So, what can you add in a swipe file?
As long as the elements are relevant to the purpose of the swipe file, you can add anything to reference later. Let’s understand this with an example.
Say, you are building a swipe file for your advertising campaigns. You can add screenshots of ads from your direct competitors, blocks of inspiring ad copies, links, images, videos, landing page screenshots, side notes, etc.
You can create separate folders and subfolders for each of the elements and organize them in a way that helps you reference them when you need.
Why do you need a swipe file?
A well-crafted swipe file is an infinite source of inspiration. With a plethora of reference materials at your disposal, you’ll never run out of ideas of content creation.
If you want to run a campaign for summer sale for example, your swipe file would give 100s if not 1000s of unique, proven creative ideas to get started.
Imagine having the same or more reference materials for all your marketing needs. This’ll save you time, implement quick actions and experiment to stay ahead of your competitors.
How to create a swipe file?
Creating swipe files is simple and complicated. Only creating folders containing reference materials won’t do you any good. The goal is to organize the elements properly, so you can easily access, find, filter, and share anything you want.
You need your swipe file to help you whenever you need. To achieve this, keep a few pointers in mind while creating one.
Your swipe should be:
1. Widely accessible: Having the ability to access your swipe files regardless of devices, lets you work and share with your team with ease.
2. Filterable: A swipe file where you can easily find specific elements saves time. You can use tags on your folders and sub-folders to filter them.
3. Searchable: As you keep adding to your swipe file, you need to quickly search files, else you’ll find yourself in a mess.
Although you should carefully organize the elements of your swipe file, sometimes it can become disorganized as it grows. But following the above pointers you can make the most of your swipe file, even if you haven’t applied an organization method.
What is the Facebook Ad Library?
Facebook Ad Library gives you access to all the ads running on all Meta Platforms. These ads display a plethora of information, including the body, CTA, visuals, running duration and more. This is great for competitor research and collecting inspiration to build your campaigns.
The best part of using Facebook Ad Library is you can trust the information. Facebook values transparency and makes sure all the data is updated and correct. Hence, if you come across an ad, you can use the data to make calculated decisions.
The Facebook Ad Library also gives the ability to filter ads to smoothen your search.
You can filter by date, most impressions, platforms, ads with specific visuals (images, videos, GIFs, etc), ad types and more.
Download ads from Facebook Ad Library
Now, you can search for your competitors, find their winning ads to create similar or better creatives for your brand. But this process can easily tire you out, hence it makes sense to download and save the ads you want to reference later.
Unfortunately, Facebook Ad Library doesn’t offer an in-built download option. To save an ad, you can take screenshots or copy the ad link and save.
Here’s a coherent step-by-step process to help you download ads from Facebook Ad Library:
Search and filter the ads
Visit the Facebook Ad Library, and enter your competitors’ name, industry, niche, or product in the search field. Now, to narrow down your search, apply the filters to find the winning ads.
Pro-tip: filter ads which are running for at least 6 months with the most impressions.
Take screenshot and copy the ad link
After you have filtered and found the ads, either take an area screenshot or a scrolling one and click on the three-dotted icon and copy the ad link.
Upload in a Google Sheet or Docs
Now, create a new Google Sheet and paste the ad link along with columns like: industry, ad type, ad screenshot, your campaign name to which the ad is relevant. You can also do this with Google Docs.
Now you can update the sheet in real-time, collaborate with your team, and share feedback.
Downloading ads from the Facebook Ad Library is a hectic process because there is no download option. Every time you want to download, you need to either take a screenshot to save for later use or share the ad link.
But there is a catch. Facebook doesn’t show disabled ads and removes inactive ads from time to time. This means even if you share a link, and Facebook removes that ad, it won’t do you any good.
This is where tools like Foreplay and MagicBrief come in. With these tools, you can download and create ad swipe files with ease.
Download ads from Facebook Ad Library: Foreplay Chrome extension
With Foreplay’s chrome extension, you can seamlessly save Facebook Ads.
After you download and install the extension, you’ll see a “Save to Foreplay” button on ads from the Facebook Ad Library. You can click the button to send an ad to your Foreplay Board.
The best part is you’ll have access to the ads you save with Foreplay, even when Facebook removes it from the Ad Library.
Create ads swipe file with Foreplay
Foreplay gives a plethora of amazing features to discover winning ads and create swipe files.
You can use the deep product search feature to find ads from your competitors or use their AI search engine to search ads containing specific visuals.
Now, save the ads and add custom tags to organize them into categories you need. You can create folders and subfolders for your swipe file and enjoy over 100s of data point filters to find specific ad references with ease.
Finally, you can share the swipe file with your team with a single link, even if they don’t have a Foreplay account.
But that’s not everything.
Here are some other features you’ll definitely enjoy with Foreplay:
1. With Foreplay’s Ai Brief feature, you can create unique brand profiles and add variations of an ad brief in 15+ languages.
2. You get useful filters like ad running time, platform, Ad active status and natural language processing and more.
3. When you find an ad, Foreplay lets you see the landing page content on both Mobile and Desktop.
4. You can seamlessly create storyboards with example ads from your competitors to work with your team to brainstorm better creatives.
5. Foreplay lets you export your AI generated briefs into PDF, sheets, etc.
6. The new Spyder tool lets you monitor the activity of your competitors and automatically save fresh ads to your boards.
7. You can also embed ads into your Notion Page and on your website.
If you want to thoroughly research ads from the Facebook Ad Library and create swipe files without worrying about the nitty-gritty details, Foreplay is an amazing tool. Not only does it allow you to discover, track, filter ads, but also offers the creative freedom to create better ads with your team.
Download ads from Facebook Ad Library: MagicBrief Chrome extension
MagicBrief is another great tool which offers a chrome extension using which you can save ads from Facebook Ad Library with a single click. When you save ads using MagicBrief, you have access to them even when Facebook removes them. All you need to do is download and install the MagicBrief Chrome Extension. Now, you’ll see the save ads button on ads from the Library.
Create ads swipe file with MagicBrief
Creating Ads swipe file with MagicBrief is a treat. You get a prominent set of tools at your disposal to search, filter successful ads, quickly create swipe files and share with a client or your team.
The process is simple: save the ads you wish and add tags to filter them later. The best part is MagicBrief saves all the critical information like the ad copy, landing page, CTA, interactions and more. Now, you can share your swipe files with anyone with a single link.
There are more such amazing features, you get with MagicBrief:
1. MagicBrief uses AI to break the ads you save into key scenes, allowing you to work on them right away.
2. You get access to an expertly crafted 300+ Ad Libraries to help you discover winning ads easily.
3. With MagicBrief’s storyboards you can drag-drop ads, reorder them and embed video assets.
4. You can export your creatives into many formats like MP4, Premiere Pro Timeline, formatted scripts, captions or frames.
5. MagicBrief offers a block editor using which you can build detailed content briefs.
6. You can use the MagicAI feature to highlight the important keyframes in video ads and export them.
Conclusion
Now, you know 3 ways to download ads from Facebook Ad Library.
While the Ad Library offers a comprehensive set of information on ads around the world and lets you filter over many data points, you don’t get a direct downloading feature. You must take screenshots or copy and paste ad links, which are subject to getting removed.
You can also use tools like Foreplay and MagicBrief to download ads from Facebook Ad Library. With them, you also get a plethora of prominent features to quickly search, filter, and create swipe files.