Twitter ad library: how to see a competitor's X ads
X (Twitter) has no ad library for US ads; its Ads Repository covers only ads shown in the EU, so US ads have to be found through the replies people post to them.
The Ads Repository
X's Ads Repository lists ads shown in the EU. If the competitor advertises only in the US, it returns nothing.
Finding US ads through replies
An ad written only as an ad never appears on the company's profile or in search. People do reply to those ads, and replies are searchable.
- Search
to:companyhandleon X. - Open the replies and look at the post each one answers.
- A post written by the company that is not on its public profile is almost always an ad.
We tested this on our own accounts against the X Ads API. On one account all 16 posts it found were real ads. On a busier one it found 11 of 46 ads, the ones that got replies, which carried 43% of the impressions. It finds the big ads and misses the quiet ones. Check the founders' handles too; small companies often run ads from the founder's account.
Checking it for every competitor
CompetitorBase checks this library and the four others for every competitor you add, re-checks them daily (X weekly) and emails you when a competitor starts or stops advertising or launches a new ad. Starter costs $29/month for 10 competitors, with a 3-day free trial.