TikTok has updated its Ad Library with searchable insights into all ad campaigns running on the platform. Marketers will be able to find information in ad targeting, reach, who paid for an ad and more.

There is one drawback though. The platform will only show European campaigns – but even so, it could still be an excellent way to research what works and what doesn’t across TikTok ads.

Help marketers do their research

To view ads, head to Ads Library and enter the information you want to search for – including ad type and target nation. Then, tap on any campaign to bring up more detail on it. Here, you can see how long the ad ran and how many unique users saw it.

Searchers can also see influencer marketing campaigns on the database, which is a handy tool for anyone considering going down that route.

TikTok

It also includes information about content that’s commercial in nature and tagged with either a paid partnership label or promotional label, such as content that promotes a brand, product or service, but is not a paid ad

TikTok did admit that there was originally less information available to researchers, but after tests and expert inputs, the scope of the library was broadened.

We’ve added the ability to perform precise searches, included more targeting parameters, and improved data quality – among other updates.

Excellent research tool… for some ads

As mentioned, the new feature will help brands to see what ads perform well on TikTok, but unless you’re based in Europe, the performance won’t be specific to your region. That will take some of the context out of your research, but could still provide a knowledge base for you to investigate further.

There’s some noise that the move is tied to EU regulations, so the Ads Library tool may not expand to other regions if TikTok isn’t legislated to do so. Anyway, this will be one to keep an eye on moving forward.

Not a unique tool

The new tool expands on its existing Ad Library tool by allowing researchers to dive deeper into the data, but it’s not unique among advertisers.

For example, Meta has its own ads library that allows people to search for ads running across Meta platforms – as well as some that have expired, such as ads about issues, elections or politics.

Ads can be filtered by country, impressions, platforms and a keyword search – and when you’ve selected an ad to look at, you can see when it started running, which Meta platform it was shown on and the ad ID. You can even report the ad or see further information about it, such as where it was created and admin country locations.

For ads about social issues, elections or politics you can dig a little deeper and check out the amount spent or if it has any disapproval notices attached to it. Meta also keeps this data for seven years from when it was first viewed.

Google does it too

Google provides a similar platform with its Ads Transparency Center, which helps people learn more about the ads served on Search, YouTube and Display.

Within the Ads Transparency Center, you can see the ads a specific advertiser has run, which ads were shown in a certain region, the ad format and the last date the ad ran.

Alejandro Borgia, Director, Product Management, Ads Safety, Google

“For example, imagine you’re seeing an ad for a skincare product you’re interested in, but you don’t recognize the brand, or you’re curious to understand if you recognize other ads from this brand. With the Ads Transparency Center, you can look up the advertiser and learn more about them.”