Facebook Ad Library study: what 673 live US ads from law firms, dentists, real estate and home services show

The Facebook Ad Library (Meta now calls it the Meta Ad Library, and plenty of people search for the Facebook Ads Library) lets anyone see the ads a business is running right now. What it does not do is add anything up. So we ran 16 searches that returned 1,272 live US ads, kept four local-service trades, removed ads that did not come from real advertisers in them, and counted what the remaining 673 ads from 427 advertisers do.

The headline from this Facebook Ad Library data: local businesses leave their ads running for a very long time, most of them run a single ad, and what they run depends on the trade. On the day we collected, the median live ad had been running for 271 days. Lawyers lean on video and free consultations, home service firms on single images and free estimates, and about one in nine consumer real estate ads was missing the Housing label Meta requires. The full dataset is free to download at the end.

What we pulled from the Facebook Ad Library

We ran 16 searches on 3 November 2026 and kept the four industries with enough clean data: law firms, dentists, real estate and home services (mostly roofers and plumbers). For comparison we have added med spas from our med spa study, collected the same day.

52.9% of the ads our searches returned made it into the analysis. Most of the rest came from shops, creators and pages outside the four trades, including the eight searches we dropped. The Library's keyword search is noisy, and we come back to that in the how-to section below.

Live ads have been running for months

Across the four industries, 88% of live ads had been running for 90 days or more and 42.6% for at least a year. Very little fresh creative was in the mix: only 2.3% of law firm ads were under 30 days old, and not a single dentist ad was.

Dentists had the longest-running ads, with a median of 365 days. One implant chain ran 73 of the 192 dentist ads, 38% of the group, so we also took each advertiser's own median. On that basis the typical dentist's ads had been live for 492 days, which is longer still. Law firms were the most active, with a median of 181 days and a quarter of their ads under 110 days old.

Among formats with at least 30 ads, carousels had the longest median run at 408 days, followed by single images at 374, dynamic creative at 223 and video at 222. Be careful with that comparison. Formats cluster by trade (home service firms use images, law firms use more video), so part of the gap comes from the trade itself.

Our read: a long-running ad is a winner in a big account that tests constantly. In a local business with one ad, it more often means nobody has looked at the account in months. Meta's delivery system now leans on the ad itself to decide who sees it, so in our experience one tired ad limits your reach more than budget does. We cover how we refresh creative in our creative testing framework.

Most advertisers run a single ad

79.6% of the 427 advertisers had exactly one active ad. Real estate was the extreme at 92%. Law firms were the most likely to run several: 6.2% had five or more live ads, against 1% of dentists and none of the real estate advertisers.

Med spas sit in the same range, with 80.1% running one ad. In all five trades at least seven in ten advertisers ran a single ad, which suggests it is a habit of small local advertisers in general. In our experience, if you run one ad, adding two or three genuinely different concepts (an offer, a person on camera, a proof or review piece) is a better next step than raising the budget.

Formats depend on the trade

37% of law firm ads were video, against 11.1% for home services and 8.1% for real estate. The format mix was one of the biggest differences between the trades.

The dentist figure needs a warning. The implant chain ran 71 videos out of its 73 ads. Without it, 26.9% of dentist ads were video and single images led at 42%. So the trade with the most video is really law. Law firms sell things that need explaining, such as injury claims and legal options, and we think a person talking does that better than a static graphic. Home service firms mostly run a single image with a short offer.

Real estate is different again: 19.2% of its ads were catalog ads, which build an ad for each listing from a home listing feed. Our view is that home service firms are leaving the cheapest win on the table. A short phone video of the owner on a roof, showing what storm damage looks like, would stand out in a feed where only 11.1% of competitors use video. For trade-specific ideas see our guides to roofing ads and dental advertising.

Buttons and where the click goes

Learn more was the most common button overall, on 42.8% of ads. Home services had no clear favourite: Learn more on 18.8%, Contact us on 17.1%, Get quote and Call now on 14.5% each, and Book now on 12%. Dentists looked similar once the implant chain's 73 Learn more ads are set aside: Learn more on 24.4% and Book now on 21.8%.

Home services had the highest share of ads with no link at all, 23.1%, which means a Call now or Message button. That suits a trade where the job starts with a phone call, as long as someone answers. Real estate used instant forms most, on 10.1% of ads. Our comparison of lead form ads and landing pages covers when each works.

Placements varied by trade too. 52% of all ads also ran on Audience Network, Meta's network of third-party mobile apps, rising to 59.8% for home services. Dentists showed 35.4%, but that again is the implant chain, which used Audience Network on 1 of its 73 ads; the other dentists used it on 56.3%. For instant-form lead campaigns we usually switch Audience Network off, because in our experience it brings accidental form fills.

What the copy offers

28.7% of law firm ads offered something free, more than any other trade.

For law firms, every dollar figure was a settlement or recovery amount. Each trade leans on the offer its buyers expect. Law firms promise a free consultation, a free case review or no fee unless they win. Home service firms offer a free estimate or inspection, and 12% mention reviews or ratings, close to law firms at 14.3%. The dentists' 13% on financing is mostly the implant chain again, which mentioned payment plans in 19 of its 73 ads; across the other dentists it was 5%.

The Spanish figure stood out. 10.6% of law firm ads were in Spanish or bilingual, and 22 of those 28 ads were immigration ads. Across all four industries there were 35 Spanish or bilingual ads, most of them from lawyers. For a firm in a market with a large Spanish-speaking population, that shows where competitors are already spending.

Real estate: the Housing label and listing feeds

Of the 99 real estate ads aimed at buyers, sellers or renters, 88.9% showed the Housing label in the Library. 11 did not. Meta requires ads for housing opportunities, such as homes for sale or rent, mortgages, homeowners insurance and appraisals, to run in the Housing special ad category, which limits targeting options to prevent discrimination.

The 11 unlabelled ads included homes-for-sale ads, "sell your house for cash" offers and a few ads for property outside the US. We cannot see from the outside why they were not labelled. If you run real estate ads, check yours, because an ad that belongs in the Housing category and is not declared can be rejected or restricted later. Our guide to Meta special ad categories in the US explains what each category allows.

Law firms had a surprise of their own: 11.3% of their ads were flagged under Meta's financial products and services category (the Library's data still calls it Credit, its name before January 2025). All 30 were personal injury ads, and 22 of them talked about compensation, settlements or money. We cannot tell whether the firms chose the category or Meta applied it. Either way, ads in a special category lose age, gender and ZIP code targeting, so injury firms should check which category each of their ads is running under.

How to use the Meta Ad Library without fooling yourself

Pulling ads for two studies taught us where the Library misleads people.

• Keyword search matches words in the ad. A search for a trade returns any ad that mentions it. In our med spa study, only 439 of the 1,223 ads returned (35.9%) passed our filters, and at least 478 (39.1%) came from product brands, shops, software or training courses. Here, the trade searches also brought back supplement brands aimed at tradespeople and roofing-material manufacturers. Check the page behind each ad before you draw conclusions.
• Dynamic creative hides part of the text. In 156 of 179 dynamic creative ads (87.2%) the Library showed a placeholder, usually {{product.description}} in the line under the headline; 12 showed {{product.name}} where the headline goes. Open the ad's details to see the versions people actually get.
• A long run date shows only that an ad is still on. In a small account that often means it was forgotten. The Library shows no spend for ordinary US ads, so you cannot tell a winner from a leftover.
• Look for grouped ads. 17% of law firm ads had more than one ad grouped under the same card. That can be an advertiser testing versions, or the same ad running in several ad sets, so open the group before you copy it.
• Filter before you browse. Set the country, choose active ads only, and narrow by media type. It cuts the noise more than any keyword does.

We walk through a full monthly routine for this in how to read your competitors' ads.

What we would change after reading these ads

• Run more than one idea. Four in five local advertisers run one ad. Two or three different concepts give Meta's system far more to work with.
• Refresh on purpose. A year-old ad is fine if you watch its results. It is a problem if nobody has looked since launch.
• Use the format your competitors skip. Video for home service firms and realtors; for law firms, where video is common, a clear single image with the offer can stand out.
• Check special ad categories. Real estate ads belong in Housing; loans, credit, insurance and other money offers belong in Financial products and services.
• Answer the phone. If your ad has no website link, the call or chat is the whole funnel.

If you would like a named buyer to look at your account, our Meta ads team runs campaigns for local service businesses in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. More studies are on our original research page.

How we did this

Questions about the Facebook Ad Library