You’re scrolling Facebook and notice a competing contractor “running 40 ads.” Your own account has three. The natural reaction is to wonder whether you’re behind, whether they’re outspending you, and whether you should copy what they’re doing.
That number is the least useful figure in competitor research. I can’t verify what myfli.com is or exactly how its count is calculated, so I’ll refer to it as a third-party tool or site, and anchor everything to Meta’s Ad Library, which is the public source those figures ultimately trace back to.
The count can still be a starting point. Used carefully, it points you toward start dates, offers, and gaps in the market, and it sends you back to the only number that pays your bills: what it costs you to book a job.
1. Confirm what the count is actually counting
A third-party figure can mean several different things. It might be active ads or every ad the Page has ever run. It might be per Page or per ad account. It might count one creative shown on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger as one ad or as three. Until you know which, the number can’t be compared to anything.
Suppose a tool reports 22 ads for a local plumber. You open Meta’s Ad Library and find 6 active creatives, with some of them repeated across placements. The “22” was inflating a much smaller testing effort. That is an illustration, but it’s the kind of gap you should expect to find. As of this writing, the Ad Library is public, shows active ads for any Page along with start dates and the platforms they run on, and groups duplicate creative together.
To check a figure:
- Search for the competitor’s Page name in the Meta Ad Library.
- Filter to active ads only and select the right country.
- Count the distinct creatives, not the placements or duplicates.
- Compare that count and the actual creative with what the tool showed you.
The common mistake is treating a third-party number as fact because it looks precise. Tools scrape, estimate, and define terms their own way. Spot-check a handful of figures, and track what percentage match the Ad Library. If most don’t, stop quoting the tool and work from the source. Our guide on how to see how many ads any competitor is running compares the tools that do this well.
2. Treat the count as testing activity, not budget
An ad count tells you how many creatives are live. It says nothing about how much money sits behind them. Facebook spend is set at the campaign or ad set level, and a business can push a large daily budget into three ads or spread a small one across twenty-five.
Consider a hypothetical: one competitor shows 25 ads and another shows 3, yet both spend the same amount each month. The first is splitting that budget into thin slices. The second is concentrating it. Neither is necessarily outspending you, and neither is necessarily doing it right.
What the count does hint at is testing habits. A Page with many ads is probably trying lots of angles. A Page with a few may have found something and stuck with it, or may have stopped paying attention. The way to tell the difference is to look at whether the ads are refreshed or stale. Note when ads started and whether new ones appear every few weeks.
The mistake is assuming a rival with more ads is outspending you, then raising your own budget in response. Your decision should rest on your numbers. Track your own spend per ad and per creative theme, so you know what each idea costs you. If you’re already spending and not seeing results, Facebook ads wasting budget is the place to diagnose where the money is going. The competitor’s count isn’t something you can measure against, because you can’t see their budget.
3. Sort competitor ads by start date to find what survives
Start dates are more informative than counts. Advertisers tend to turn off ads that lose money, so an ad that has been running for a long time may be earning its place. That is a hint, not proof.
Imagine a competitor whose free-estimate ad has been live far longer than anything else in their account. Everything around it has rotated out. That suggests the offer is holding up, or at least that nobody has had a reason to kill it. It’s worth noting the offer, the format, and the wording.
Build a simple record for each competitor:
- Open their active ads in the Ad Library and read the start date on each.
- List the three oldest live ads.
- For each one, write down the offer, the format (video, image, carousel), and the headline.
- Repeat for every competitor in your set, then look for patterns.
The trap is assuming an old ad is profitable. It may be forgotten, left running on a tiny budget, or tied to a season, like a furnace tune-up that returns every autumn. Treat each long-runner as a hypothesis to test against your own results. What to measure here is how many recurring offers or formats show up across several competitors. One old ad is an anecdote. The same offer appearing on four Pages is a pattern.
4. Benchmark against local rivals, not national brands
The biggest advertiser in your category is almost always the wrong comparison. A national franchise might run hundreds of ads across many markets, with a creative team, a central budget, and a brand that people already recognize. None of that applies to a single-city electrician competing for the same homeowners in the same zip codes.
Your comparison set should be businesses selling the same service to the same people in your service area. Aggregators and lead-selling directories should be left out too, because their goals and economics differ from yours. They are paying for leads they resell, not for jobs they perform.
Build the set deliberately:
- List three to five direct local competitors, the ones you actually lose bids to.
- Confirm each one runs the same core service in your area.
- Remove franchises, national brands, and lead marketplaces.
- Revisit the list every quarter, since new entrants appear and others go quiet.
The mistake is picking a benchmark because it’s impressive. A small, relevant set beats a big, impressive one. Judge the set by size and relevance: same service, same area. If you want to see how this plays out in your trade, the relevant industry hubs collect the playbooks we use by vertical, and our breakdown of Facebook ads for contractors shows what local competitors in that space typically run.
5. Read the ads themselves: offer, hook, and what happens after the click
The content of competitor ads is where the useful information lives. The count barely matters next to what the ads actually say and where they send people.
Imagine you review every local HVAC competitor and find the same thing: each one advertises a discounted tune-up. Not one mentions same-day emergency service. That is a positioning gap. A homeowner whose system just died at 6 p.m. is not looking for a tune-up coupon, and nobody is speaking to them.
Log each ad with three fields: the offer, the hook (the first line or image that grabs attention), and the call to action. Then click through. Does the landing page match the promise in the ad? Does it make calling easy, with a visible phone number? That matters because, per our benchmarks, 40 to 70 percent of local leads come in by phone, so a page that buries the number is leaving jobs on the table.
The common mistake is copying a competitor’s discount. If everyone is offering $50 off, matching it just joins the crowd and shrinks your margin. Find the offer nobody is making: speed, a guarantee, a specific service, a clear price range. Then measure how many distinct offers you are testing that competitors aren’t running. If your own ads get clicks but not enquiries, see why your Facebook ads are not generating leads. If you want help turning those gaps into live campaigns, our services cover the Facebook ads side.
6. Set your own ad count by budget and judge it by booked jobs
Run as many ads as your budget can test properly. Each ad needs enough spend to produce a readable result, and a small budget stretched across many ads gives you noise instead of answers.
Take an illustration. A business is getting leads at the Facebook cost-per-lead benchmark of $10 to $25. It launches three distinct ads, lets them run, and tracks which one drives booked calls. After a few weeks it replaces the weakest and keeps the best. Three ads, one swap, and a clear record of what worked.
To set this up:
- Start with two to four genuinely different ads, different offers or hooks rather than minor tweaks.
- Allow for the 30 to 90 day ramp before judging the account as a whole.
- Track the source on every call and form, so you know which ad produced each lead.
- Replace the weakest creative with a new idea, and keep the rest running.
The mistake is launching a dozen ads on a small budget so none gets enough data. A related one is stopping at cost per lead. Leads that never book are expensive, whatever they cost to generate. Measure cost per booked job and the lead-to-job rate for each ad, and use our guide on how to optimize Facebook ads for leads to tighten the setup. A $12 lead that never picks up the phone loses to a $25 lead that books half the time.
Where to Start, and What to Ignore
Start with strategy 1, because every other step depends on trusting the number you’re looking at. Then do strategies 4 and 5 together: build a small set of real local rivals, and read what they’re actually saying. That gives you a competitor view that’s useful instead of impressive.
Spend most of your effort on strategy 6. Your own booked-job data will tell you more than anyone else’s ad count ever could.
Tired of spending money on marketing that doesn’t produce real revenue? We build lead systems that turn traffic into qualified leads and measurable sales growth. If you want to see what this would look like for your business, we’ll walk you through how it works and break down what’s realistic in your market. We’re also glad to give your current Facebook ads setup a free review.
