Ad spy tools are essential for businesses and marketing professionals seeking insights into competitive strategies. They promise to track competitor campaigns, targeting strategies, ad effectiveness, and more. But as data privacy becomes tighter across platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, the big question is—what can these tools really track?
By 2025, significant changes in how social platforms handle data will shape what’s accessible through ad spy tools. This blog unpacks what data these tools can access, what remains out of reach, and how marketers can leverage them effectively amidst current limitations.
The State of Data Access in 2025
The growing emphasis on privacy from governments and platforms has led to “data blackouts,” creating stricter restrictions on available metrics. Transparency tools have evolved, offering limited windows into public ad performance and competitor strategies, but nothing close to complete access.
Here’s a look at what’s happening on the major platforms in 2025:
Facebook’s Data Policy
Since Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) changes in 2021, Facebook has leaned on aggregated data to protect user privacy. This shift limited the audience data that third-party tools could access. Despite these restrictions, Facebook’s Ads Library remains one of the most powerful transparency resources.
What Ad Spy Tools Can Access
- Creative Insights: Ad formats, creatives, headlines, and CTAs for active and inactive ads.
- Targeting Information (Estimate): Some tools attempt to “reverse engineer” targeting elements like audience demographics or interests, though these are inferred based on ad content rather than directly supplied.
- Placement Data: Placement variations (e.g., feed vs stories vs marketplace).
Key Limitations
- Spy tools cannot display exact targeting details, funnel data, or individual user interactions due to compliance regulations like the GDPR and CCPA.
- Performance data, such as click-through rates or ROI figures, is not directly available.
TikTok’s Data Ecosystem
TikTok has emerged as a dominant platform for advertisers, with its algorithm-driven content model and creative-first approach. However, its commitment to data sovereignty and user privacy has created significant barriers for third-party tools.
What Ad Spy Tools Can Access
- Ad Content & Creatives: Spy tools offer visibility into the creatives used by competitors, including video formats and length considerations.
- Hashtags & Trends: Tools can extract trending hashtags and track those associated with active ads, providing insights into campaign virality.
- Estimated Audience Interests: While exact audience breakdowns aren’t disclosed, spy tools can identify patterns in the use of specific hashtags or contextual targeting signals.
Key Limitations
- Unlike Facebook, TikTok does not have a public ads library, so the data captured by tools is typically pieced together from publicly visible campaigns.
- Metrics like conversions, spends, or granular targeting data are unavailable.
Instagram’s Integration with Meta
Since Instagram is part of the Meta family, its advertising transparency is closely aligned with Facebook. However, ad spy tools face additional challenges when tracking ephemeral content like Stories or Reels.
What Ad Spy Tools Can Access
- Feed Ads & Static Content: Spy tools can track target audiences’ engagement levels, including likes, comments, and shares on most promoted posts.
- Aesthetic Patterns: Analyzing how competitors design their creatives, filters, and tones to resonate with Instagram’s visual audience.
Key Limitations
- Ephemeral data from Instagram Stories and Reels is much harder to track due to the short-lived nature of the content.
- No insight into metrics such as swipe-ups or clicks received, limiting understanding of ad success rates.
Metrics Breakdown: Real vs Estimated Data
One common misconception about ad spy tools is that they provide direct access to all relevant metrics. However, the reality is that platforms like Meta and TikTok safeguard user and advertiser data carefully. Here’s a quick breakdown of metrics you can expect to see through spy tools in 2025:
Metrics Spy Tools Can Access
- Visible Creatives (Real): Images, videos, headlines, and call-to-actions used by rival campaigns.
- Public Engagement (Real): Likes, shares, comments, and even view counts for some video ads.
- Estimated Targeting Data (Estimated): Demographics, interests, and behaviors based on inferred analysis.
Metrics Spy Tools Cannot Access
- Click Metrics (Unavailable): Exact CTRs (Click-Through Rates), CPCs (Cost per Clicks), or other funnel-specific higher metrics.
- Conversion Data (Unavailable): Sales conversions, leads generated, or retention specifics tied to ads.
Extracting Targeting Insights from Spy Tools
While direct targeting details aren’t accessible, ad spy tools can enable some clever workarounds. Marketers can still gather valuable targeting insights if they know where to look.
Using Creative Patterns for Audience Deduction
Analyzing ad creatives, copy, and imagery used by competitors can give clear indications of whom their ads target. For example, certain phrases, visuals, or age-specific references in ad copy can reveal whether the campaign is aimed at Gen Z, Millennials, or boomers.
Detecting Interest Themes Through Hashtags
For platforms like TikTok, where hashtags rule, following ongoing trends combined with embedded hashtags helps marketers identify interest categories competitors are targeting (e.g., #BudgetTravel #EcoFriendlyLiving).
Current Limitations & Data Privacy Compliance
Spy tools are improving, but they are far from perfect. Modern privacy frameworks like GDPR and recent updates in CCPA prioritize user data anonymity, restricting the range of data usable for ad spying purposes.
Platforms themselves are adopting blind-spot policies designed to keep sensitive data (such as precise targeting and performance metrics) private. This means marketers relying on spy tools must temper their expectations and focus more on directional insights than exhaustive datasets.
How to Leverage Ad Spy Tools Despite Limitations
Marketers wanting to maximize their results must adapt to the current limitations of ad spy tools. Here are some strategies to stay ahead of the curve:
- Combine Tools with Platform Ad Libraries
Platforms like Meta’s Ads Library and YouTube’s Ads Transparency Center are invaluable complementary resources for verifying and supplementing spy tool metrics.
- Focus on Creative as a Primary Indicator
With limited targeting data, peek at how competing brands structure and position their creatives to identify actionable patterns.
- Track Trends Proactively
Set up alerts in your spy tools to contextualize competitor actions within larger industry trends. This can keep you informed about shifts in tone, creative direction, or ad placements early.
- Prioritize Testing
While spy tools give direction, on-platform testing remains critical for confirming assumptions about audience response rates, interests, and conversion funnels.
Wrapping Up
By 2025, ad spy tools will continue to evolve as fantastic resources for competitor benchmarking and strategy inspiration. Although privacy-centered restrictions limit some metrics, these tools offer valuable access to real and estimated data that can drive meaningful campaign optimizations.
Success with ad spy tools hinges not on a full data download, but clever analysis and creative inferences. Combine ad spying insights with trial-and-error testing to find your unique edge in highly competitive advertising landscapes like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.
