How we track ads

Everything here comes from the public Meta Ad Library. Every number below is something you can check yourself: each ad links to its Ad Library entry. We don’t know or estimate spend, and nothing here is a performance figure.

Collection

• Once a week, early Monday (UTC), we open each tracked newsletter’s Ad Library page with active ads in all countries and record every ad on it.
• For each ad: the creative, primary text, headline, call to action, link, placements, start date, and how many ads use the same creative.
• We follow the link and screenshot the landing page before signup, at most once a week per URL.
• Each newsletter page shows when its Meta page was last checked.
• Newsletters are added when they’re found advertising, or when members ask: request one from search.

Run length (days live)

From the ad’s “Started running on” date in the Ad Library (or the first week we saw it, if earlier dates aren’t shown) to the last week it was live. That’s why an ad can show more days live than we’ve been tracking the newsletter.

Stopped, and relaunched

• An ad counts as stopped only after it’s missing from two complete weekly checks in a row. One missed week is treated as a gap in our data, not a stop.
• If an ad comes back after being stopped, it counts as relaunched.
• Weeks where we couldn’t read the whole page never count as misses.

Duplicates

Meta groups ads that use the exact same creative and text (“N ads use this creative and text”). “In 17 ads at once” means 17 ads share it right now, usually separate ad sets, audiences or placements. It suggests the advertiser is putting more behind it, but it isn’t a budget figure.

Variants

Ads from the same newsletter that share their primary text, or the exact same image, are grouped as variants of one idea. The ad page shows every variant, which ones are still running, and which one lasted longest.

Scaling now

An ad that’s running and either launched in the last 4 weeks and is already in 6+ ads at once, or whose duplicate count has at least doubled (and grown by 3+, to 3 or more) over recent weeks. It flags what a newsletter has just started putting weight behind.

Signal score

A 0–100 rank against every ad we track: half days live, 30% duplicates and 20% relaunches, each as a percentile. It favours ads an advertiser keeps paying for. It’s not a prediction that an ad works for you, and it’s not spend.

Offer type and hook

Offer type (lead magnet, plain subscribe, giveaway, course) is detected from the copy; hooks are tagged by us. Both can be wrong: if you spot a mistake, tell us.

EU reach and audience

For ads delivered in the EU, Meta publishes estimated reach, age and gender. We show it when it exists. It covers EU delivery only, so it understates reach for ads aimed at the US or UK.

What we don’t do

• Estimate spend, CPS, or results.
• Show which recommendation network a newsletter uses.
• Contact anyone’s subscribers.