The EU's ad repositories, in one dataset that keeps what platforms delete.
The Digital Services Act made platforms publish their ads, but each repository has its own format, its own limits and its own deletions. AdLib reads them into one schema and keeps every ad it saw, with the date a platform removed it.
- Academic researchers
- Investigative journalists
- Civil society and watchdog organisations
The problem
Ten repositories, ten formats
Comparing an advertiser across platforms means learning every repository's search, fields and quirks first.
Ads disappear
Platforms take down ads that broke their rules, and some drop data like per-country reach once an ad ends. What is gone cannot be studied.
Official APIs come with gates
Meta's API needs identity verification and covers only some ads; other platforms have no API at all.
How it works with AdLib
- 01
Search across repositories
One query over all platforms that support it, in one schema with payer, beneficiary, targeting and reach where published.
curl "https://api.adlibapi.com/v1/search?q=election&country=DE" \ -H "X-API-Key: $ADLIB_API_KEY" - 02
Find what platforms took down
Ads a library no longer shows keep removed_from_library_at in our archive.
curl "https://api.adlibapi.com/v1/search?advertiser=meta:15087023444&source=history&removed=true" \ -H "X-API-Key: $ADLIB_API_KEY" - 03
Export to your analysis tools
Any endpoint answers as CSV with output=csv, for R, Python or a spreadsheet.
curl "https://api.adlibapi.com/v1/search?advertiser=meta:15087023444&source=history&output=csv" \ -H "X-API-Key: $ADLIB_API_KEY" -o ads.csv
- Free plan
- 5,000 credits every month
- Most ads
- 1 credit (Google 2, LinkedIn 3)
- Removed and archived ads
- Kept as long as the archive exists
Questions
- Which repositories are covered?
- Meta, Google (with YouTube and Google Play), TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, X, Snapchat, the Apple App Store, Amazon and Microsoft (beta).
- How do you know an ad was removed?
- For watched advertisers we look up stopped ads one by one. When a library no longer returns an ad in two lookups at least 20 hours apart, we record removed_from_library_at and a removed event.
- Do you handle deletion requests?
- Yes. Data subjects can ask for their data to be removed; we delete it including stored media.