LinkedIn Ad Library: how to search it and what it shows

How to search the LinkedIn Ad Library

1. Open the Ad Library at linkedin.com/ad-library.
2. Search by company or advertiser name, by payer name, or by a keyword from the ad.
3. Narrow the results by country and date range.
4. For ads targeted to the EU, select More to filter by impression range and targeting parameters.
5. Open an ad to see its preview, format, advertiser and payer, and, for an ad targeted to the EU, its impressions, targeting and dates.

Source: LinkedIn Help

What the LinkedIn Ad Library shows

For a restricted ad, LinkedIn hides the preview, the advertiser name and the payer name, as the law requires. An ad appears shortly after its first impression and stays in the library for one year after its last.

Source: LinkedIn Help, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Help

The targeting LinkedIn shows for EU ads

For each parameter, the library says whether the advertiser used it to include people, to exclude them, or both. It can show twelve kinds:

• Language: the language of a member’s profile.
• Job: function, seniority, title, skills or years of experience.
• Education: degree, field of study or school.
• Company: category, size, revenue, name, industry, connections, growth rate or followers.
• Location: permanent or recent.
• Audience: matched audiences the advertiser uploaded.
• Age: inferred age.
• Gender: inferred gender.
• Demographic: inferred age range or gender.
• Member interests and traits: groups, interests, or traits such as job seeking.
• Predictive audiences, where the advertiser turned them on.
• Audience expansion, where the advertiser turned it on.

Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Help

How to read the impressions

Impressions come as an estimated total and a breakdown by country, each country rounded to the nearest percent; anything under one percent shows as <1%.

An ad can register impressions in countries it did not target, because members travel or their profile location is out of date. Read the breakdown as where the ad was seen, not only where it was aimed.

Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Help

What the LinkedIn Ad Library does not show

• Spend, clicks or results: none of them is among what LinkedIn says the library shows.
• Ads that ran before June 1, 2023, or whose last impression was more than a year ago.
• Dates, impressions or targeting for ads aimed only outside the EU.

Source: LinkedIn Help

How to use it to research competitors

1. Search each competitor by company name, then again by payer name: an agency or a parent company can be the one paying.
2. Filter to ads targeted to the EU, even if your market is elsewhere. It is the only place LinkedIn publishes impressions and targeting.
3. Sort what you find by format, offer and call to action, and note which ads reached the most impressions.
4. Compare the targeting across ads to see which roles, industries and company sizes a competitor is going after.
5. Save each ad’s link with the date you read it. Ads leave the library a year after their last impression.

Common questions

Sources

1. LinkedIn’s Ad LibraryLinkedIn Help, read October 1, 2026
2. Ad Library targeting parameters and impressionsLinkedIn Marketing Solutions Help, read October 1, 2026

Read next

• LinkedIn ad examplesTwelve LinkedIn ads with the impressions, targeting and dates the library publishes.
• How to see your competitors’ adsThe four ad libraries side by side, and a method for using them.