Glossary
What is the LinkedIn Ad Library?
Updated
Definition
The LinkedIn Ad Library is LinkedIn's public, searchable archive of the ads running on the platform, searchable by company name and country, introduced in 2023 alongside the EU's Digital Services Act requirements.
For B2B marketers this is the archive that matters most, because LinkedIn is where their competitors' pipeline spend lives. Search a company and the library returns its LinkedIn ads with creative and copy, the date range each ran, and, for EU-targeted ads, the DSA's extra targeting and impression detail. Ads are retained and searchable for a year after their last impression, which gives LinkedIn better lookback than Google's window.
The reliable read is messaging: which offers, claims, and creative angles a competitor is paying to put in front of buyers right now, and how that changes quarter to quarter. The unreliable read is scale: impression ranges appear only on EU-targeted ads, so the archive tells you what a competitor is saying far better than how hard they are pushing it.
The workflow mirrors every other library, with one B2B-specific addition: sales and marketing teams read it before pitches and category moves, because a rival's active LinkedIn ads are the closest public record of its current go-to-market story.
How this shows up in Waldo
Waldo includes LinkedIn in its unified library tracking (Meta, Google, and LinkedIn in one call, TikTok via its own endpoint), with every ad carrying its native deep link. For the agencies and B2B teams Waldo serves, the LinkedIn column is often the first one they open.
Questions teams ask
How far back does the LinkedIn Ad Library go?
Ads are searchable for a year after their last impression, and the library launched in 2023, so it is a rolling recent-history archive rather than a deep historical record.
Does it show who a competitor is targeting?
Only for EU-targeted ads, where the DSA requires targeting-parameter disclosure. For everything else you see the creative and dates, not the audience.
Why use it over just watching a competitor's page?
Company pages show organic posts; the library shows what a competitor pays to promote, including dark ads that never appear on the page. The paid set is the honest record of their current pitch.
Related terms and reading
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