ChatGPT answers, unedited

If historical ad tracking is a core requirement, I’d shortlist these differently than I would for ordinary social-media competitor analysis:

My top recommendation: Sensor Tower Pathmatics

sensortower.com is the strongest choice if you want serious competitive advertising intelligence, rather than just a social analytics dashboard.

• Tracks current and historical ad activity, including spend and impression estimates.
• Covers Facebook/Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit and other digital channels.
• Lets you examine individual creatives, messaging, CTAs, audience profiles, targeting/site information, spend, impressions and flighting.
• Particularly useful if you want to answer “What did this competitor spend, when did they scale it, and what creative/messages were they using?” rather than simply “What ads are they running?” Sensor Tower

The downside is that it's an enterprise-oriented product, so I'd expect it to be substantially more expensive and heavier than a tool intended primarily for marketers/creative teams.

Best for social competitor analysis: Socialinsider

socialinsider.io is my pick if your broader objective is competitor social strategy, with advertising research as one component.

It covers TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and X, and lets you benchmark competitors on things such as engagement, follower growth, posting frequency and content performance. Socialinsider Socialinsider Help Center

However, I wouldn't choose it specifically for historical ad-library intelligence. Its strength is organic/social competitive analytics, while Pathmatics is much more purpose-built around advertising intelligence.

Best if you mainly want a searchable ad library: AdSpyder

adspyder.io is worth looking at if you want cross-platform ad discovery in one interface. It says it indexes ads across 15+ platforms, including Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube and others, and provides filtering/search around advertisers and creatives. AdSpyder

I'd put it ahead of Socialinsider if your workflow is primarily:

competitor → find their ads → save creatives → analyze hooks/copy/offers → monitor changes

rather than:

competitor → analyze their entire social presence → benchmark organic performance.

How I'd choose

One important distinction: the native ad libraries are free but generally show the raw advertising landscape rather than a complete historical competitive database. Meta's library and TikTok Creative Center are useful for research, but paid intelligence platforms add persistence, historical views, filtering and—in some cases—spend/impression estimates. Socialinsider Adyntel

If you tell me your budget (e.g. <$500/mo, $500–2k, or enterprise) and which channels matter most (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.), I can narrow this to 2–3 platforms and compare their historical coverage, alerts, creative archiving, pricing, and API/export capabilities.

If your priority is competitor analysis + historical ad-library tracking, my top recommendation is foreplay.co.

Why Foreplay

• Historical ad tracking: Its Spyder product continuously tracks competitor ads on Meta and maintains a historical record; for 20,000+ brands, Foreplay says data goes back to August 2023. Foreplay
• Multi-channel creative research: You can research and save ads from Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn, with discovery/search functionality across a very large creative database. Foreplay Foreplay
• Competitor monitoring: Spyder is designed specifically for automatically monitoring competitor campaigns rather than requiring you to repeatedly check native ad libraries. Foreplay
• Creative analysis: You can organize ads, examine hooks/formats, capture landing-page information, and see how long ads have been running—useful for identifying persistent creative strategies. Foreplay
• API: If you're building a competitive-intelligence workflow, Foreplay also offers API access to live/historical advertising data, including creative, transcription, creative velocity, and active status. Foreplay

How I'd compare the main options

socialinsider.io is the better choice if by "competitor analysis" you mean organic social performance—engagement, follower growth, content performance, benchmarking, and cross-channel comparisons. It explicitly provides historical social data and competitor benchmarking. Socialinsider Socialinsider

If you mean "show me everything my competitors have advertised over time, across social channels, and let me analyze their creative strategy," I'd choose Foreplay.

One caveat: Foreplay's historical archive is particularly strong for Meta, while its broader discovery functionality covers multiple platforms. If you need a single database with deep historical coverage of Meta + TikTok + YouTube + LinkedIn + Google, I'd also evaluate adlibrary.com. Its current offering advertises a 7+ platform database, historical archive, performance data, and API. adlibrary.com

If you tell me which social channels matter most (e.g. Meta + TikTok + YouTube) and whether you need estimated spend/performance data, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 platforms and compare pricing/features.

If your priority is competitor analysis + historical ad-library tracking across social channels, I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation: AdLibrary.com

adlibrary.com is probably the closest match to what you're describing. It positions itself around multi-platform ad intelligence, with a historical archive, estimated performance data, saved collections/tags, and API access. It covers Meta, TikTok, Google, YouTube and LinkedIn, rather than forcing you to research each network separately. adlibrary.com adlibrary.com

The particularly important distinction is historical tracking. Native Meta's Ad Library is excellent for seeing what competitors are running now, but for ordinary commercial ads it doesn't function as a comprehensive historical archive once ads stop running. Meta explicitly provides historical access primarily for issue/election/political ads. Facebook

If creative analysis is the bigger goal

I'd also look at adscanner.ai. Its differentiator is going beyond storing ads: it analyzes hooks, offers, claims, audience assumptions, creative patterns and funnel signals, then lets you compare those patterns across brands and time. AdScanner.Ai

One important caveat

I'd not rely on any third-party platform's "historical performance" numbers as literal competitor ROAS/revenue data. Much of the useful intelligence is inferred from public signals—creative longevity, variations, estimated impressions, etc.—rather than the competitor's actual Ads Manager data.

For TikTok specifically, the native ads.tiktok.com is worth keeping in the stack: its Top Ads system provides filters and performance-oriented creative analysis. TikTok is currently transitioning that experience toward TikTok One, however. TikTok Ads TikTok For Business

If I were setting this up for a marketing team:
AdLibrary.com for the historical cross-channel database + native Meta/TikTok libraries for verification + AdScanner.ai if you want deeper AI-driven creative/strategy analysis.

If you tell me whether you're DTC/e-commerce, SaaS, agency, or B2B, I can narrow this to the 2–3 platforms that make the most sense and compare pricing, channels, historical depth, alerts, exports/API, and creative-analysis features.

If your priority is competitor analysis + historical tracking of competitors’ ads across social channels, I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation: Foreplay

For a marketing team trying to answer “What are competitors running, how has their creative evolved, and what should we learn from it?”, I’d start with Foreplay.

Its Ad Creative Time Machine lets you go back through ads that have been saved in its database, while its competitive research functionality lets you build competitor hit lists and track campaigns across platforms. It supports saving ads from Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn. www.foreplay.co

Foreplay Discovery / Ad Library

Why I prefer it: it is more useful for an actual creative-analysis workflow than simply searching a giant database. You can build a structured competitor swipe file, organize creatives, and analyze patterns rather than just collecting ads.

If you need the deepest/broadest ad database: BigSpy

BigSpy is the better choice if you want maximum breadth and volume. It says its database contains 1B+ pieces of ad intelligence and covers Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and other channels. bigspy.com

I'd choose BigSpy if your analysts are doing lots of market/category discovery rather than maintaining a relatively small set of named competitors.

If you also care about organic social: Socialinsider

Socialinsider is probably the strongest option if “competitor analysis” means more than ads. It provides cross-channel competitor benchmarking, historical social data, top-performing content analysis and comparisons across major social networks. bigspy.comwww.socialinsider.io

The caveat: I'd use it alongside a dedicated ad-intelligence tool if historical ad creative is the central requirement.

One important distinction

If by “historical ad library tracking” you mean “show me everything competitor X ran over the last 3–10 years, including ads that are no longer active,” then AdSpy is worth considering. Its major advantage is the depth of its Meta/Facebook/Instagram archive, though it is much less attractive if you need TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. adlibrary.com

My ranking for your stated use case:

1. 🥇 Foreplay — best overall for marketing/creative teams
2. 🥈 BigSpy — best broad ad database
3. 🥉 Socialinsider — best if organic competitor benchmarking matters too
4. AdSpy — best if you're heavily focused on historical Meta ads

If you tell me which channels you care about (e.g. Meta + TikTok + LinkedIn) and roughly how many competitors you want to monitor, I can narrow this to the best 1–2 options and compare pricing, historical depth, alerts, exports/API, and coverage.

If your priority is both competitor social analysis and historical ad-library tracking, I’d shortlist these:

🥇 My recommendation: Minea

Minea is probably the closest match to what you're asking for. Its database covers 100M+ ads across Meta and TikTok, with competitor search, creative variations, ad duration, engagement/performance signals, and historical tracking. www.minea.com

The particularly useful part for competitive analysis is that you can look at how a competitor's advertising evolves rather than simply seeing what's live today—e.g., recurring creative concepts, offers, hooks, formats, and how long particular ads remain active. www.minea.com

I'd choose Minea if you're trying to answer questions like:

• What ads has Competitor X been running over the last 6–12 months?
• Which creative concepts do they repeatedly bring back?
• What hooks/offers are they testing?
• Are they shifting spend toward video, UGC, carousels, etc.?
• What competitors are launching new campaigns right now?
• Which ads appear to have longevity/traction?

🥈 If you care more about organic social: Socialinsider

Socialinsider is stronger for cross-platform organic competitor benchmarking. It supports Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and X, and provides historical social data so you can compare competitors over time. www.socialinsider.io

It's better than Minea if your analysis is something like:

"How does our social strategy compare with Nike, Adidas and Lululemon across engagement, posting frequency, content formats and growth?"

But it's not my first choice if historical paid-ad intelligence is the core requirement.

What I'd actually use

For a serious competitive-intelligence setup, I'd use:

Minea + Socialinsider

• Minea: paid ads, creative intelligence, historical ad activity
• Socialinsider: organic content, engagement, audience/growth benchmarking
• Native Meta Ads Library / TikTok Creative Center: verification and free primary-source research

That gives you a much more complete picture of what competitors are saying organically + what they're paying to amplify.

If you only want to buy one: Minea for an ad/creative-heavy marketing team; Socialinsider for a broader social-media strategy team.

If your priority is competitor analysis + historical tracking of paid social ads, I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation: Pathmatics

For a professional competitor intelligence program, I'd choose Sensor Tower Pathmatics. It goes beyond simply showing you ads: it provides historical spend and impression estimates, creative-level data, flighting, channel comparisons, share of voice, and competitive trends. It also covers a much wider digital ecosystem than just Meta/TikTok. sensortower.com

That makes it particularly useful if your questions are:

• How has Competitor A's paid-social strategy changed over the last 12–24 months?
• Which competitors are increasing spend?
• What percentage of their activity is Meta vs. TikTok vs. YouTube?
• Which creative concepts are being sustained?
• When do competitors ramp advertising seasonally?
• How does our share of voice compare with theirs?

If you mainly care about historical creative libraries

I'd look hard at AdLibrary.com. It specifically emphasizes preserving paused ads, historical archives, cross-platform searching, estimated performance signals, collections/tags, and API access. adlibrary.com

That's arguably a better fit if your workflow is more:

"Show me everything Competitor X has advertised, let me compare their creative over time, and help me identify the concepts they're scaling."

One important distinction

Don't confuse ad libraries with social listening/competitive social analytics.

If by "competitor analysis" you also mean organic social performance—posting frequency, engagement, follower growth, top posts, content themes, etc.—I'd use a social analytics platform alongside an ad-intelligence platform. The ad tools above are strongest for paid media, not comprehensive organic-social benchmarking.

Bottom line:

• Enterprise / media intelligence: Pathmatics
• Best dedicated ad-library workflow: AdLibrary.com
• Budget / broad ad database: BigSpy
• Creative strategy & swipe files: Foreplay
• Organic + paid social competitive analysis: use a social analytics platform alongside one of the above

If you tell me your channels (e.g. Meta + TikTok + LinkedIn), number of competitors, desired history (6 months / 2 years / longer), and approximate budget, I can narrow this to the 2–3 platforms I'd actually buy.

If your priority is competitor analysis + historical ad-library tracking across social channels, I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation: Foreplay

Foreplay — competitor ad intelligence

Foreplay is the closest match if you're specifically trying to answer “What are my competitors advertising, how has their creative strategy changed, and what have they run historically?”

Its Spyder product continuously tracks competitor ads on Meta and maintains a historical record. For 20,000+ brands, Foreplay says historical data can go back to August 2023. help.foreplay.co

It also supports saving/organizing ads from Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn, and its broader discovery database covers Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn and other channels. www.foreplay.co

The particularly useful workflow is:

Competitor → historical ads → creative/format → messaging angle → CTA/offer → landing page → duration → changes over time

That makes it much more useful for competitive creative research than simply browsing the native ad libraries.

When I'd choose Socialinsider instead

Socialinsider competitor analysis

Choose Socialinsider if by “competitor analysis” you mean overall social strategy, not primarily advertising. It benchmarks competitors across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok and X, with historical social data, engagement metrics, content analysis and cross-channel benchmarking. www.socialinsider.io

So I'd think of it as:

• Foreplay = paid creative intelligence
• Socialinsider = broader social intelligence
• BigSpy = massive ad database / ad discovery

If you're building a serious competitor-monitoring stack, I'd actually use Foreplay + Socialinsider rather than trying to force one platform to do both jobs.

If you tell me which channels matter most (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X) and whether you're analyzing B2B or B2C, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 platforms and compare pricing, historical depth, coverage, alerts, and export/API capabilities.

If your priority is both social competitor analysis and historical ad-library tracking, I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation: Pathmatics

For your specific use case, I'd start with Pathmatics (now part of Sensor Tower). It tracks competitor advertising across Facebook/Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit and other digital channels, and importantly gives you historical spend, impression estimates, creative, messaging, targeting/audience information and ad flighting. sensortower.com

That makes it much more useful than simply browsing the native ad libraries if you're trying to answer questions like:

• What ads has Competitor X been running for the last 6–12 months?
• Which creative concepts do they keep renewing?
• When do they ramp spend?
• Which channels are they emphasizing?
• How does their share of voice compare with ours?
• What messaging/offer angles are becoming more prevalent?
• Which campaigns appear to be evergreen versus short-lived tests?

Pathmatics explicitly supports current and historical spend/impression data and side-by-side competitor comparisons. sensortower.com

If you mainly care about creative history: AdLibrary.com

I'd also demo AdLibrary.com. It positions itself as a unified archive across Facebook/Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Google and LinkedIn, with historical ads, collections, estimated impressions and creative analysis. adlibrary.com

The advantage is that it's much more ad-research-oriented than a conventional social analytics platform.

If organic social is equally important: Socialinsider

Socialinsider is probably the better complement for the organic side. It supports competitor benchmarking across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok and X, with historical social data, content analysis and cross-channel comparisons. www.socialinsider.io

So a strong stack would be:

Pathmatics + Socialinsider

→ Pathmatics = What are competitors paying to promote?
→ Socialinsider = What are competitors doing organically, and how is the audience responding?

If you want one platform rather than a stack, I'd choose Pathmatics for a performance-marketing/competitive-intelligence team, or Meltwater if your remit also includes PR, social listening, brand monitoring and broader market intelligence. Meltwater specifically offers cross-channel competitive benchmarking and extended historical social data. www.meltwater.com

If you tell me which channels matter most (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X) and roughly your budget/team size, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare their historical depth, estimated spend data, creative archive, alerts, exports/API, and pricing.

If your priority is competitor analysis + historical ad-library tracking across social channels, my top recommendation is Foreplay.

My shortlist

Why I'd pick Foreplay

Foreplay is unusually well matched to your specific use case. Its Spyder product continuously tracks competitors' Meta advertising and maintains a historical record; for 20,000+ brands, it says historical data goes back to August 2023. help.foreplay.co

It also lets you analyze the actual creative—videos, images, copy, landing pages, formats, and how long an ad has been running—and organize competitors into research collections. www.foreplay.co

Its API is another advantage if you're building a more systematic competitive-intelligence workflow: Foreplay says its API provides live and historical advertising data across 300,000+ brands, including creative velocity, transcription, active status, videos and images. www.foreplay.co

The caveat: if by "historical ad library tracking" you mean deep historical paid-media intelligence across many channels, including estimated spend, impressions, placements and share of voice, I'd move Pathmatics/Sensor Tower to #1. It explicitly provides current and historical spend/impression data and competitive views across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, LinkedIn and other digital channels. sensortower.com

For organic competitor analysis—follower growth, engagement, top posts, content pillars, cross-platform benchmarking—Socialinsider is stronger. It supports Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok and X and offers historical competitive benchmarking. howto.socialinsider.io

Bottom line

• Creative strategy / "What ads are my competitors running and how has that changed?" → Foreplay
• Enterprise media intelligence / "How much are competitors spending and where?" → Pathmatics
• Organic social strategy / "How are competitors performing on social?" → Socialinsider
• Broad, inexpensive ad discovery → BigSpy

If you tell me which channels matter most (e.g. Meta + TikTok + YouTube + LinkedIn), your approximate budget, and whether you need spend estimates, I can narrow this to the best 1–2 platforms.

If your priority is competitor analysis + historical ad-library tracking across social channels, I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation

If you're building a professional competitor-intelligence function, I'd start with Pathmatics. It goes beyond simply collecting ads: it provides historical spend/impression estimates, creatives, placements, flighting, share of voice and competitor comparisons across social and other digital channels. That makes it much more useful for answering questions like “What has this competitor been investing in over the last 12 months?” rather than merely “What ads are they running today?” sensortower.com

If you're primarily a social/creative team and don't need enterprise media-spend intelligence, I'd test AdLibrary.com or BigSpy first. BigSpy claims a database of 1B+ creatives and broad multi-platform coverage, while AdLibrary.com emphasizes unified cross-platform searching, ad timelines and structured creative analysis. bigspy.com

One important distinction: the free native ad libraries are great for verification but poor as historical databases. Meta's Ad Library, for example, is useful for seeing currently available ads, but paid intelligence platforms add historical storage, search, filtering, alerts and/or estimated spend data. segwise.ai

If you tell me which social channels matter most (e.g. Meta + TikTok + LinkedIn) and whether this is for an agency, brand, or market-research team, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 platforms and compare pricing, historical depth, alerts, exports/API, and coverage.

If your priority is competitor analysis + historical ad-library tracking across social channels, I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation

For most marketing teams: BigSpy. It gives you a single interface across Meta, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and other networks, with a very large historical ad database. Current comparisons put its entry pricing around $9/month, making it substantially easier to justify than enterprise platforms. adlibrary.comwww.makometrics.com

For a larger organization doing serious competitive intelligence: SocialPeta or Sensor Tower/Pathmatics. These are better if you need more than creative scraping—particularly estimated spend, market-level analysis, audience/creative intelligence, and broad network coverage. They are enterprise-priced, though. adlibrary.com

If Meta is 80%+ of your research: AdSpy is worth considering because its historical Meta/Facebook + Instagram database is particularly deep. adlibrary.comwww.makometrics.com

One important distinction: historical ad tracking and ongoing competitor monitoring aren't quite the same thing. Many "ad spy" products are excellent searchable archives but don't automatically tell you "Competitor X launched 12 new creatives this week and shifted from product-led to testimonial messaging." For that workflow, look for watchlists, alerts, change detection, and creative/theme classification. www.makometrics.com

If you tell me which channels you care about (e.g. Meta + TikTok + LinkedIn) and roughly what budget you have, I can narrow this to the 2–3 best platforms and compare their historical depth, monitoring, exports/API, and pricing.

If your priority is competitor analysis + historical ad-library tracking across social channels, I’d shortlist these:

1. Best overall: Sensor Tower Pathmatics

If you mean “I want to know what competitors have been advertising, where, when, with which creatives, and roughly how much they're spending”, I'd choose Pathmatics.

It covers Facebook/Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit and other digital channels, with historical spend, impressions, creatives, placements, flighting and share-of-voice data. sensortower.com

That's materially more useful for strategic competitor intelligence than simply maintaining a swipe file.

Best for: marketing strategy, media planning, competitive intelligence, quarterly business reviews, agency work.

2. Best for creative intelligence: Foreplay

Foreplay is particularly good if your question is “What creative are competitors running, and how has their creative strategy evolved?”

Its Spyder product continuously tracks competitor Meta ads and maintains historical records; for 20,000+ brands, Foreplay says historical data can go back to August 2023. It also supports saving ads from Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn into a research library. help.foreplay.co

The advantage is workflow: save → tag → organize → compare → brief your creative team.

Best for: performance creative teams, agencies, DTC/e-commerce, creative strategy.

3. Best for broader social benchmarking: Socialinsider

Socialinsider is the better choice if organic social performance is as important as advertising.

It benchmarks competitors across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube and X, and provides historical social-performance data, content analysis and cross-channel comparisons. howto.socialinsider.io

The caveat: it isn't primarily an ad-intelligence database like Pathmatics or Foreplay.

My recommendation

I'd choose based on your actual research question:

• “How is my competitor allocating its advertising budget?” → Pathmatics
• “What ads/creative concepts has my competitor been running over time?” → Foreplay
• “How does our social presence/performance compare with competitors?” → Socialinsider
• Need all three at an enterprise level → Pathmatics + Socialinsider, with Foreplay added if creative research is a major workflow.

One important distinction: historical organic social data and historical paid-ad data are different problems. If historical ads are the non-negotiable requirement, I wouldn't pick a general social analytics platform just because it has strong competitor benchmarking.

If you tell me which channels matter most (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, etc.) and whether you need spend/impression estimates, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 platforms and compare pricing, historical depth, coverage, and API/export capabilities.

If your priorities are competitor analysis + historical ad-library tracking across social channels, I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation: SocialPeta

For your exact use case, SocialPeta is probably the strongest all-around choice. It combines competitor ad discovery, campaign monitoring, creative analysis, cross-channel comparisons, and historical data rather than just functioning as an ad swipe file. It currently advertises 1.7B+ creatives, 80+ countries and 40+ platforms, with filtering by advertiser, platform, country, format, duration and activity. socialpeta.com

It also specifically supports competitor campaign tracking, creative-volume comparisons, channel/country benchmarks and historical ad analysis. socialpeta.com

When I'd choose Foreplay instead

Choose Foreplay if your team is primarily doing creative strategy rather than media intelligence. Its Discovery product has a large ad database, while its Spyder product automatically tracks competitor Meta ads and maintains historical records. For 20,000+ brands, Foreplay says historical data can go back to August 2023. www.foreplay.co

A particularly useful feature is its historical timeline + landing-page archive + creative/hook analysis, which makes it good for answering questions like "What creative angles did this competitor test over the past year?" www.foreplay.co

When I'd choose Pathmatics

If you're an enterprise marketing organization and care about estimated spend, impressions and media mix, Pathmatics is more compelling. It provides current and historical spend/impression data across social, display, video and mobile, with coverage including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit and others. sensortower.com

Bottom line:

• Best overall for competitor ad intelligence: SocialPeta
• Best for creative teams/agencies: Foreplay
• Best for enterprise media/spend benchmarking: Pathmatics

If you tell me your channels (e.g. Meta + TikTok + LinkedIn), number of competitors, and whether you need estimated spend/performance data, I can narrow this to the best 1–2 options and compare pricing, historical depth, coverage, alerts, exports/API, and ease of use.

If your priority is competitor analysis + historical ad-library tracking across social channels, I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation: Adsmom

If by "historical ad library tracking" you mean “show me what competitors have been advertising, when they launched it, how long it ran, and let me compare their creative strategy over time,” I'd start with Adsmom.

It currently aggregates competitor ads across Meta, TikTok, and Google, with filters for timeframe, duration, reach, status and country. It also lets you save collections and search ads based on the meaning/content of the creative rather than just keywords. adsmom.com

That makes it particularly useful for questions like:

• What creative concepts has Competitor A been running repeatedly?
• Which ads have survived for 30/60/90+ days?
• How did their messaging change over the last six months?
• What hooks and offers are competitors using?
• Which creative formats are appearing across multiple competitors?
• How does Competitor A's strategy differ from Competitors B and C?

If organic social matters equally

I'd pair it with Socialinsider. It specializes in historical social performance and competitive benchmarking across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube and X. You can compare competitors' engagement, growth and content performance over time rather than just looking at their current feeds. www.socialinsider.io

So my preferred stack would be:

Paid/creative intelligence → Adsmom
Organic social benchmarking → Socialinsider

If you want one platform rather than a two-tool stack, I'd choose based on your primary question: ad creative intelligence → Adsmom; broader social/brand intelligence → Meltwater; organic social benchmarking → Socialinsider. Meltwater is particularly geared toward combining social, earned media, paid performance and competitive intelligence in one environment. www.meltwater.com

One caveat: no third-party platform can give you genuinely complete historical ad data for every network. The underlying public ad libraries and their retention/access rules vary by platform, so I'd test your specific 5–10 competitors and date range before committing.