Signalfacebook · adLibrary · search · ads
Search the public Meta Ad Library (all ad types, all countries). GET /v1/facebook/adLibrary/search/ads accepts your x-api-key header. Costs 2 credits per successful fresh call; failures and opt-in cache hits (cache_max_age) are free. Native path: GET /api/v1/web/facebook/adLibrary/search/ads. Same request parameters and JSON shape as the reference API, so you can switch by changing the base URL.
Request parameters
Keyword search of facebook.com/ads/library as a logged-out guest. Covers every ad type and country the public site shows. First page comes from the server-rendered page; later pages replay the site's AdLibrarySearchPaginationQuery with the returned cursor.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
query | string | Yes | Keyword or phrase. |
sort_by | string | No | total_impressions (default) or relevancy_monthly_grouped. Allowed: total_impressions, relevancy_monthly_grouped. |
search_type | string | No | keyword_unordered (default) or keyword_exact_phrase. Allowed: keyword_unordered, keyword_exact_phrase. |
ad_type | string | No | all (default) or political_and_issue_ads. Allowed: all, political_and_issue_ads. |
country | string | No | ISO-3166 alpha-2 country or ALL (default). |
language | string | No | Content language ISO-639-1 code, e.g. en. |
status | string | No | ACTIVE (default), INACTIVE or ALL. Allowed: ACTIVE, INACTIVE, ALL. |
media_type | string | No | ALL (default), IMAGE, VIDEO, MEME, IMAGE_AND_MEME, NONE. Allowed: ALL, IMAGE, VIDEO, MEME, IMAGE_AND_MEME, NONE. |
start_date | string | No | Ads delivered on/after YYYY-MM-DD. |
end_date | string | No | Ads delivered on/before YYYY-MM-DD. |
trim | boolean | No | Return a slimmer ad object (no cards/extra media). |
cursor | string | No | Opaque pagination cursor returned by the previous page. |
freshness | string | No | 24h (default), 1h, 7d, or live. Accepted cache hits are free; live forces refresh except simultaneous requests may share newly fetched data. |
Code examples
Set SIGNALSHELF_BASE_URL and SIGNALSHELF_API_KEY on your server.
curl "$SIGNALSHELF_BASE_URL/v1/facebook/adLibrary/search/ads?query=nike" \
-H "x-api-key: $SIGNALSHELF_API_KEY"const response = await fetch(process.env.SIGNALSHELF_BASE_URL + "/v1/facebook/adLibrary/search/ads?query=nike", {
headers: { 'x-api-key': process.env.SIGNALSHELF_API_KEY },
});
const body = await response.json();
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(body.error.message);
console.log(body.data, body.meta);import os, requests
response = requests.get(
os.environ['SIGNALSHELF_BASE_URL'] + "/v1/facebook/adLibrary/search/ads?query=nike",
headers={'x-api-key': os.environ['SIGNALSHELF_API_KEY']},
timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()
print(response.json())Response and pagination
The response contains data and meta. data includes platform, resource, sample:false, provider, and the public source payload. Lists return data.items; individual resources return data.data.
Author feeds include data.next_cursor. Return it unchanged in cursor for the next page. Feed entries can include reposts. Single-post lookups resolve the handle to a DID first. Deleted or moderated posts may be unavailable.
meta includes event_id, mode, cache, credits_charged, fetched_at, age_seconds, and duration_ms. A fresh successful result costs one credit; accepted cached results and failures cost zero.
Availability and failures
Implementation is not a continuous availability guarantee. Source rate limits, retention, deleted content, restrictions, and regional availability apply. This is an independent SignalShelf contract, not a drop-in competitor response format.
400: invalid parameters. 401: missing/revoked key. 402: insufficient credits. 404: missing public resource. 429: SignalShelf throttle. 502/503: upstream failure or rate limit, with credit restored.