ChatGPT answers, unedited

For your use case—monitoring competitors’ display + video ads for multiple local-business clients—I’d narrow it to Adbeat vs. Semrush/AdClarity.

My pick: Adbeat

adbeat.com is particularly strong if the core job is “show me what my competitors are actually running.” It covers display, native, and video ads and lets you investigate creatives, publishers, ad networks, landing pages, and campaign activity. It also supports alerts for new competitor ads and reporting/export features, which are useful for an agency managing several clients. Adbeat Adbeat

Its current plans start at $249/month, with the $399/month Advanced plan adding competitor alerts, country filtering, comparisons, and a year of historical data. Adbeat

Semrush is more attractive if you want an all-in-one agency platform

semrush.com now includes AdClarity, which covers competitor display, video, and social advertising. You can investigate advertisers, publishers, campaigns, creatives, placements, estimated spend, and share of voice. Semrush Semrush

The current Pro Advertising Toolkit is $220/month and includes AdClarity. Semrush

One important caveat for your local-business clients: Semrush explicitly says some of its advertising data can miss campaigns that run only at the local level, so I wouldn't treat its estimates as a complete picture of what a competitor is showing in a particular city. Semrush

How I'd choose

For a local agency specifically, I'd probably start with Adbeat if competitor ad monitoring is the primary requirement. If you're already paying for Semrush for SEO/PPC work, I'd test AdClarity first before adding another subscription.

One thing I'd want to evaluate before committing is geographic granularity—i.e., whether you can reliably answer “What ads is this HVAC company showing to people in Wichita?” rather than simply “What ads does this HVAC company run nationally?” That's particularly important for local-service clients.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage and what industries they're in, I can also compare Adbeat, AdClarity, Moat, Meta Ad Library, Google Ads Transparency Center, and a couple of agency-focused alternatives specifically for your workflow.

For a local-business agency, I’d shortlist these:

• mediaradar.com — my pick if you want agency-grade competitor monitoring across display, video, programmatic, social, search, and CTV, with alerts and reporting. MediaRadar MediaRadar
• adbeat.com — particularly strong for display/native/video, including publishers, ad networks, creatives, landing pages, and competitive alerts. Adbeat
• semrush.com + AdClarity — good if you already use Semrush and want broader SEO/PPC plus display/video intelligence. AdClarity covers 50+ markets and 650k+ publishers. Semrush
• similarweb.com — strongest when you also want competitor traffic, spend, publishers, and channel-level context alongside ad monitoring. similarweb.com support.similarweb.com

For your specific use case, I’d start with MediaRadar if you need client-ready competitive reports across many local accounts; Adbeat if the priority is specifically seeing display/video creatives and where competitors are running them.

For local business clients, I’d choose based on whether you need creative monitoring, media-spend intelligence, or something you can turn into a monthly client report. There isn’t one perfect tool, but these are the ones I’d shortlist:

My recommendation for a local marketing agency

For most agencies managing restaurants, dentists, home services, law firms, med spas, etc., I’d build a stack like this:

1. Adbeat as the core competitor display/video tracker

• “Who is advertising?”
• “What offers are they pushing?”
• “What landing pages are they sending traffic to?”
• “What publishers/networks are they appearing on?”

Adbeat1. Meta Ad Library + Google Ads Transparency Center for free verification of social/search creatives. SocialPeta

2. Add Pathmatics only if your clients are larger accounts or you need polished executive reports around spend share, impressions, and channel mix. Sensor Tower

If your main goal is monthly client reporting

I’d prioritize:

• Competitor creative screenshots
• Offer/message tracking
• New campaign alerts
• Landing page changes
• “What changed this month?” summaries

Clients usually understand those better than estimated spend numbers.

A practical agency workflow

For each client:

• Track 5–10 competitors
• Capture:

• new display ads
• video creatives
• promotions/offers
• calls-to-action
• landing pages
• seasonal campaigns
• Turn it into a monthly “competitive ad intelligence” slide

If you’re managing many small local clients (10–100+), I’d lean toward Adbeat + a reporting layer rather than buying enterprise-grade intelligence for every account. Adbeat Sensor Tower

I can also suggest a lower-cost stack if you’re trying to monitor dozens of local markets without spending enterprise SaaS prices.

For local business clients, I’d choose based on how deep you need the competitor monitoring to be. There isn’t one perfect tool — display/video ad intelligence is split between “see the ads” and “understand the strategy.”

Here are the platforms I’d shortlist for an agency serving local businesses:

My recommendation for a local marketing agency

If you manage multiple local clients (dentists, HVAC, attorneys, restaurants, contractors, etc.), I’d probably build a stack like:

1. MediaRadar → for premium client reporting and competitive presentations
2. Adbeat → for display/programmatic competitor intelligence
3. Free sources (Meta Ad Library + Google Ads Transparency Center) → for quick checks before buying another tool Atria

If you’re mostly trying to answer:

• “What Facebook/Instagram ads are my competitors running?” → use Meta’s Ad Library.
• “What YouTube/video/display campaigns are competitors running?” → look at MediaRadar or Adbeat.
• “How can I create monthly competitor reports clients will pay for?” → MediaRadar is probably the strongest fit. MediaRadar MediaRadar

For local businesses specifically, I’d avoid buying a huge enterprise platform unless you have enough clients to spread the cost. A lot of local competitors don’t spend enough on display/video for deep intelligence to be valuable, so the biggest ROI often comes from tracking:

• competitor offers/promotions
• ad creative themes
• review messaging
• landing pages
• Google Local/Maps visibility
• paid search copy

If you tell me how many clients you manage and what niches (home services, medical, legal, restaurants, etc.), I can suggest a more cost-effective stack.

If your main goal is monitoring local competitors’ display + video ads for multiple clients, I’d lean toward Adbeat rather than a general SEO/PPC tool.

My picks

1. adbeat.com — best for display/video intelligence

• Built specifically around display advertising.
• Shows competitor creatives, publishers, ad networks, landing pages, and media-buying patterns.
• Covers display, native, video, interstitials, etc.
• Has alerts and reporting, which is particularly useful if you're managing multiple clients. Adbeat Adbeat
• My pick if your agency's primary need is "What are my competitors actually running?"
• semrush.com — best if you want an all-in-one agency stack

• AdClarity provides display, video and social intelligence, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
• Semrush says AdClarity covers 50+ markets and 650,000+ publishers, with creative, placement and spend-pattern data. Semrush Semrush
• Better choice if you're already using Semrush for SEO/PPC and want competitor ad intelligence under the same umbrella.
• similarweb.com — best for broader competitive analysis

• Goes beyond creatives into competitor spend, traffic sources, paid channels and market benchmarking.
• Covers display, video, social and search. SimilarWeb Similarweb
• I'd consider this if you're selling full competitive intelligence/reporting rather than just ad monitoring.

One important point for local businesses

For a small local client, I'd actually use a two-layer setup:

Paid monitoring: Adbeat or AdClarity
Official verification: Google Ads Transparency Center + Meta Ad Library

The free platform libraries are useful because they show the actual ads directly from the advertising platforms. Google covers Search, Display and YouTube, while Meta covers Facebook/Instagram/etc. adlibrary.com ClickPatrol

The paid platform becomes valuable when you're managing 20, 50, or 100+ competitors/clients and don't want someone manually checking libraries every week.

What I'd choose for an agency

For your specific use case, I'd start by demoing Adbeat and AdClarity side-by-side. The deciding factor is going to be how well they handle local competitors—because national-brand ad intelligence can look impressive while having surprisingly weak coverage for a local dentist, roofer, HVAC company, med spa, etc.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200) and the typical industries, I can narrow it down to the best platform and workflow for an agency.

If your main requirement is monitoring competitors’ display + video ads for local-business clients, I’d recommend Semrush’s Advertising Toolkit Pro, specifically AdClarity.

semrush.com

My ranking

1. Semrush + AdClarity — best overall for an agency

• Tracks display, video, and social ads.
• Lets you inspect competitor creatives, placements, campaigns, estimated spend, impressions, and share of voice.
• AdClarity covers 650,000+ publishers across 50+ markets, including the US. Semrush Semrush
• Particularly useful if you want to turn the data into client-facing competitive reports.
• Current Pro pricing is listed at $220/month when billed annually, and includes AdClarity. Semrush
• Similarweb Ad Intelligence — best if you want deeper market intelligence

• Covers display, video, search and other paid channels.
• Particularly strong for analyzing where competitors advertise, their publishers/platforms, creatives, campaigns and estimated spend. Similarweb Similarweb
• I'd lean toward this if you're managing larger accounts or want broader competitive/media-market analysis.
• Pricing is more sales-led, so it can get considerably less agency-friendly than Semrush depending on your needs.
• Semrush Advertising Research alone — good, but not enough for your use case

• Excellent for competitor Google Search ads, keywords, ad copy and historical PPC activity. Semrush
• But if display + video are specifically what you care about, you want AdClarity, not just the standard Advertising Research module.

For local businesses, there's one important caveat

Don't assume competitor intelligence tools can reliably tell you everything a local competitor is running in a particular town/ZIP code. Ad data can miss highly localized, audience-targeted, time-specific campaigns. Semrush explicitly notes that its search-ad data can miss campaigns that run only locally or under particular targeting conditions. Semrush

So I'd use the platform as a competitive monitoring layer, not as a perfect record of every ad being served.

What I'd do if I were building this for your agency

I'd set up each client with:

Competitors → AdClarity →

• New competitor creatives
• Display placements
• Video campaigns
• YouTube/publisher activity
• Creative themes/offers
• Estimated spend/impressions
• Landing pages
• Campaign duration
• Changes month-over-month

Then turn that into a monthly "Competitor Ad Watch" for the client rather than just giving them access to another dashboard.

That's where I think Semrush has a particularly good agency fit: it also supports competitor monitoring, reporting, and white-label-style agency workflows. Semrush

If you tell me roughly how many local-business clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200+) and whether they're mostly dentists, HVAC, legal, med spas, restaurants, etc., I can recommend the most cost-effective stack—including whether I'd pay for Semrush, Similarweb, or a cheaper dedicated ad-spy platform.

Then turn that into a monthly "Competitor Ad Watch" for the client rather than just giving them access to another dashboard.

For local business clients, I’d usually avoid enterprise-only ad intelligence platforms unless you have enough clients to justify the cost. The best choice depends on whether you need creative monitoring, spend estimates, placements, or client reporting.

My shortlist:

G2 Adbeat Similarweb### My recommendation for a local marketing agency

If you manage 5–50 local businesses:

• Start with Adbeat + Meta Ad Library + Google Ads Transparency Center.
• Build a monthly competitor report showing: - New competitor creatives
• Offers/promotions being pushed
• Landing page changes
• Messaging themes
• Video ad examples
• Estimated channel strategy

Adbeat is particularly suited to seeing competitor display/video activity, including creatives, publishers, and landing pages. Adbeat

If you have 50+ clients or sell high-ticket strategy retainers:

• Look at Similarweb Ad Intelligence or Pathmatics because they are better positioned for broader competitive benchmarking and client-facing insights. Similarweb specifically positions its ad intelligence around competitor creatives, spend trends, publishers, and cross-channel analysis. Similarweb Similarweb

A practical local-client workflow

For each client, track:

1. Top 5–10 local competitors
2. Their active ads each month
3. New creative angles/offers
4. Ad frequency changes
5. Landing pages being promoted
6. Your recommendations: - "Competitor A is emphasizing financing"
7. "Competitor B switched to video testimonials"
8. "Competitor C is running seasonal discounts"

That turns the tool into a retention/reporting asset, not just a spy tool.

If you tell me:

• number of clients you manage,
• industries (dentists, HVAC, legal, restaurants, etc.),
• monthly budget you can spend on tools,

I can narrow this to the best stack.

For local business clients, I’d choose based on what you need to show them (creative examples, competitor spend, placements, video, reporting) rather than just “ad spying.” The best fits are:

My top picks

1. Similarweb Ad Intelligence — best all-around agency choice

similarweb.com

Best for: agencies managing multiple local clients who want polished competitor reports.

Strengths:

• Tracks competitor display, video, search, and other paid activity. Similarweb Knowledge Center
• Lets you analyze creatives, publishers, campaigns, and estimated spend trends. Similarweb Knowledge Center
• Good client-facing dashboards and broader market context (traffic, competitors, audience research). Similarweb

Weakness:

• Usually more expensive than niche ad-spy tools.
• For a small local business, some of the enterprise-level data may be overkill.

I’d pick this if you have 10+ clients and need recurring monthly competitive reports.

2. Adbeat — best for display/video ad intelligence specifically

adbeat.com

Best for: seeing exactly what competitors are running across the display ecosystem.

Strengths:

• Strong focus on display, native, and video ads. Adbeat
• Shows competitor creatives, publishers, placements, landing pages, and campaign activity. Adbeat
• Useful for “your competitor is running this offer on these sites” style reports.

Weakness:

• Less of a complete marketing intelligence suite than Similarweb.

I’d pick this if your clients are mostly local services (roofing, HVAC, dentists, attorneys, med spas, etc.) and you want to prove what competitors are doing.

3. Sensor Tower Pathmatics — best for bigger advertisers

sensortower.com

Best for: brands spending seriously on media.

Strengths:

• Strong media intelligence around spend, impressions, channels, and creatives. G2
• Good if clients compete against regional chains or national brands.

Weakness:

• Often priced and designed for larger teams.

Lower-cost stack I’d consider for local clients

If you’re a smaller agency, I would combine:

• Meta Ad Library — free for seeing competitors’ Meta ads.
• Google Ads Transparency Center — free for Google-served ads.
• Adbeat or Similarweb — for display/video intelligence.

The free libraries won’t replace paid tools, but they’re useful for verifying active creatives.

My recommendation for a local marketing agency

For a typical local-business agency, I’d probably start with Adbeat because the client value is easy to demonstrate: “Here are your top 5 competitors, their ads, where they’re running, and the offers they’re pushing.” Adbeat

A useful question: are your clients mostly home services (HVAC/roofing/plumbing), healthcare, legal, restaurants, or retail? The best tool changes a bit by vertical.

If your main job is monitoring competitor display + video ads for local-business clients, I’d start with Adbeat.

My recommendation

1. adbeat.com — best fit for your use case

• Strong specifically for display, native, programmatic and pre-roll video intelligence.
• Lets you see competitor creatives, publishers/placements, ad networks, landing pages, and campaign trends.
• You can set competitor alerts when new ads, networks, or publishers appear.
• It also supports client-ready reports and comparisons, which is useful if you're an agency managing multiple local accounts. Adbeat Adbeat
• The catch: pre-roll video is on the Enterprise tier, so I'd verify the video coverage you actually need before buying. Adbeat
• sensortower.com — best if you want broader coverage

• More of an omnichannel ad-intelligence platform: display, video, social, YouTube, TikTok, CTV/OTT, etc.
• It provides estimated spend, impressions, creatives, placements and competitive strategy. Sensor Tower
• I'd favor this if your clients want you to monitor Meta + YouTube + display + CTV, rather than just programmatic/display.
• similarweb.com — best if you also care about search/traffic

• Covers display, video, social and search, so it's useful if competitive research goes beyond media creatives.
• Better choice if you want to connect competitor advertising with their broader web traffic and digital strategy. Similarweb Similarweb Knowledge Center

What I'd choose for a local-business agency

Adbeat + a separate social-ad library would probably give you the best practical setup.

The important distinction is that these tools aren't necessarily going to tell you exactly what a competitor in Kansas City saw on their phone yesterday. They're primarily competitive-intelligence datasets. For local clients, I'd want to monitor:

• Competitor creative
• Offer/promotional messaging
• Landing pages
• Publishers and placements
• Video/pre-roll creative
• Frequency/new creative launches
• Estimated spend/trends
• Geographic relevance
• Meta/Instagram and YouTube activity

Adbeat is particularly compelling because its plans explicitly include competitor alerts, advertiser comparisons, publisher placements and reporting, while its Enterprise offering adds pre-roll video and estimated spend. Adbeat

One thing I'd investigate before committing: how well each platform handles local/regional advertisers. That's much more important for your use case than how impressive the database looks for national brands.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200+) and which channels you care about (Google Display, YouTube, Meta, CTV, etc.), I can narrow this down to the best 2–3 platforms and their approximate costs for an agency setup.

If your main goal is monitoring competitors’ display and video ads for local-business clients, I’d recommend Semrush + AdClarity as the best fit.

My ranking

1. Semrush AdClarity — best overall for an agency

• Specifically built for competitive display, video, and social ad intelligence.
• Lets you see competitor creatives, publishers, campaigns, formats, estimated spend, and advertising activity.
• Covers 650,000+ publishers across 50+ markets, including the U.S. Semrush Semrush
• Particularly useful for an agency because you can research multiple client markets and turn the findings into competitive reports.
• Current standalone pricing starts around $129/month, with higher tiers for more reporting/exports. Semrush

semrush.com

2. Similarweb Ad Intelligence — best if you want broader market intelligence

• Stronger choice if you want to go beyond "what ads are they running?" and understand where competitors advertise, estimated spend/impressions, publishers, campaign duration, and trends.
• Supports display and video formats and can download actual ad images/videos. Similarweb Similarweb
• Its advertiser activity data is updated daily. Similarweb
• The downside is that it's more of an enterprise/market-intelligence platform, so it can be overkill for a small local-business client.

similarweb.com

3. SpyFu — excellent inexpensive companion, but not my pick for display/video

• Very good for Google Search/PPC competitor monitoring—keywords, ads, spend trends, and competing domains.
• Current pricing starts around $33/month. SpyFu SpyFu
• I wouldn't buy it specifically for display/video intelligence.

spyfu.com

What I'd do for your agency

If you're managing, say, 10–50 local businesses, I'd start with:

AdClarity → competitor discovery → creative monitoring → publisher/channel analysis → monthly client report

For each client, I'd track:

• 5–10 direct local competitors
• Their active display creatives
• Video ads
• First-seen / last-seen dates
• Publishers they're appearing on
• Ad formats and messaging
• Estimated impressions/spend
• Landing pages
• New creatives appearing
• Which competitors are increasing/decreasing activity

One important caveat: these platforms are estimating competitor spend/impressions from observed data; they aren't giving you the competitor's actual ad-account data. Similarweb explicitly describes its spend/impression figures as modeled estimates. Similarweb

If I were buying one specifically for your use case, I'd choose AdClarity. It is unusually well aligned with "I run marketing for local businesses and need to show clients what their competitors are doing in display/video."

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage and your monthly software budget (e.g. $100, $300, $1,000+), I can narrow this down to the best setup and show you what I'd use for competitor ad monitoring + automated client reporting.

If your main goal is monitoring competitors’ display + video ads for local-business clients, my first choice would be AdClarity.

My recommendation

1. adclarity.com — best overall for your use case

It is specifically built for competitive ad intelligence and covers display, video, social, mobile, and CTV. You can see competitor creatives, placements, publishers, estimated spend, impressions, share of voice, formats, and campaign activity. AdClarity AdClarity

For an agency, the particularly useful part is that AdClarity supports geo/market analysis and client-facing reporting, and its agency offering specifically covers display, video, social and mobile by geography and competitor. AdClarity

adclarity.com

2. semrush.com — best if you also need SEO/search intelligence

Semrush is excellent for competitor Google Ads/PPC research, but its own documentation points to AdClarity for the display/video side. Advertising Research lets you see competitor paid-search ads, keywords, ad copy, landing pages and historical activity. Semrush Semrush

Interestingly, Semrush actually integrates/advises using AdClarity for display and video competitor analysis, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Semrush

What I'd do for a local-business agency

If you're monitoring, say, 10–50 local competitors per client, I'd build the workflow around:

AdClarity → competitor discovery → creative monitoring → geo analysis → monthly client report

For each client, track:

• Competitor name
• New ads launched
• Display creatives
• Video creatives
• Platforms/publishers
• Ad formats
• Estimated spend/impressions
• Messaging/CTA
• Landing pages
• Geographic activity
• Changes over time

The big advantage is that you're not merely asking "what ads are they running?" You can start answering "where are they advertising, how aggressively, what creative are they using, and what are they changing?" AdClarity specifically provides spend, impressions, SOV, creatives and placement intelligence. AdClarity AdClarity

One caveat

For small local advertisers, coverage can be the deciding factor. These platforms estimate activity from their data sources rather than giving you a magical feed of every ad served to every person. So before committing to a subscription, I'd test 5–10 actual competitors in your clients' verticals and ZIP/metro areas and see how much usable creative/activity AdClarity finds.

AdClarity currently offers a free live analysis of your top 3 competitors, which makes that test particularly worthwhile. AdClarity

Bottom line: If display + video competitor monitoring is the core requirement, AdClarity > Semrush. If you want one broader marketing platform covering SEO + PPC + competitor research, Semrush + AdClarity is the stronger agency stack.

If you tell me roughly how many clients/competitors you need to monitor and your monthly budget, I can also compare AdClarity vs. Similarweb vs. Pathmatics vs. Semrush specifically for an agency workflow.

What I'd do for a local-business agency

If you're monitoring, say, 10–50 local competitors per client, I'd build the workflow around:

AdClarity → competitor discovery → creative monitoring → geo analysis → monthly client report

For each client, track:

Yes. For monitoring competitor display + video ads for local-business clients, my first choice would be AdClarity.

My recommendation

1. adclarity.com — best fit for your use case

It is specifically built for competitive ad intelligence rather than primarily SEO/search research. You can monitor:

• Display ads
• Video ads
• YouTube
• Facebook / Instagram
• TikTok
• CTV
• Ad creatives and variations
• Publishers/placements
• Estimated spend and impressions
• Share of voice
• Campaign activity over time
• Geographic markets

AdClarity says its current platform covers display, video, social and CTV, with competitor creative, spend, publisher and campaign data. AdClarity AdClarity

That's particularly useful for an agency because you can turn the data into client-facing competitive reports, rather than just using it yourself. It also supports custom reports and exports. AdClarity

2. semrush.com — best if you also need search

If you're already using Semrush, I'd seriously consider adding AdClarity through the Semrush ecosystem.

Semrush's regular Advertising Research is excellent for Google Search competitor analysis—keywords, ad copy, historical activity, landing pages, etc. Semrush

Then AdClarity fills the gap for display/video/social. Semrush specifically describes AdClarity as its solution for discovering display and video competitors across publisher sites and social platforms. Semrush

So you effectively get:

Google Search → Semrush Advertising Research
Display/Video/Social → AdClarity

That's probably the most sensible stack for a local-marketing agency.

3. Pathmatics / Sensor Tower — worth considering at larger scale

Pathmatics by Sensor Tower is another serious ad-intelligence platform, particularly if you're managing a larger number of brands or want deeper media-spend intelligence. It's commonly compared directly with AdClarity and covers video, display, mobile, tablet and native advertising. G2

I'd lean toward it if you're operating more like a media intelligence/research operation than a typical local-business agency.

What I'd do in your position

For local clients, I wouldn't pay for a giant enterprise intelligence platform unless you have a substantial number of clients.

I'd start with:

One important caveat: competitor ad intelligence is generally estimated data, not the advertiser's actual account data. Spend, impressions and performance should be treated as directional rather than exact. Semrush itself recommends looking at sustained trends rather than relying on a single spend estimate. Semrush

If you're specifically trying to answer: "What are the 3–5 local competitors of my client running right now, what creatives are they using, where are they running them, and roughly how aggressively are they spending?" — AdClarity is the one I'd demo first.

If you tell me roughly how many local clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200+) and your monthly software budget, I can narrow this down to the best platform/plan and tell you what I'd actually buy.

If your main goal is monitoring competitors’ display + video ads for local-business clients, I’d look at Adbeat first, with Similarweb Ad Intelligence as the broader alternative.

My ranking for your use case

• 🥇 Adbeat — Best if display/programmatic is the priority. It’s specifically built around competitor display advertising, including creatives, placements/publishers, networks, landing pages, and historical activity. Atriatry The GTM Directory
• 🥈 Similarweb Ad Intelligence — Better if you want display + video + social + search alongside broader competitor/traffic intelligence. It’s more of an all-around agency research platform. SocialPeta Backlinko
• 🥉 Pathmatics / Sensor Tower — Strong if your clients are larger and you care about estimated spend, impressions, media mix, and video/social at the brand level. It’s more enterprise-oriented. SocialPeta
• Semrush Advertising — Worth considering if you're already using Semrush for SEO/PPC. It's particularly useful when you want to connect competitor advertising with search keywords and broader marketing research. Backlinko

But there's an important trick for local clients

I wouldn't necessarily pay for one platform for everything.

You can supplement your paid tool with the free first-party ad libraries:

• adstransparency.google.com — lets you search advertisers and see ads published through Google, including Google/YouTube advertising. Ad Transparency
• Meta Ad Library — useful for seeing competitors' active Facebook/Instagram creative.

For a local agency, I'd build the workflow around:

Competitor → Creative → Offer → Messaging → Landing page → Duration → Placement/channel → Changes over time

The duration/history piece is especially valuable because you can identify competitors' ads that keep running rather than merely collecting a giant swipe file.

What I'd choose for an agency

If you're monitoring 10–50+ local businesses and want something you can turn into a recurring client-reporting service, I'd lean Adbeat + the free Google/Meta libraries.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you have, what industries they're in (HVAC, roofing, dentists, med spas, etc.), and your monthly budget, I can narrow this down to the best platform and show you a competitor-ad monitoring workflow you could productize for your clients.

If your goal is ongoing competitor ad monitoring for local-business clients, I’d recommend Similarweb Ad Intelligence as the best overall platform, with Adbeat as the stronger choice if you care primarily about display advertising.

My ranking

1. similarweb.com — Best overall for an agency

• Tracks display, video, search, and social advertising.
• Lets you see competitor creatives, landing pages, campaign duration, publishers, estimated spend/impressions, and trends.
• You can compare competitors and markets, which is useful when you're managing multiple local clients.
• Its display intelligence includes actual image and video creatives, and its video tools track YouTube pre/mid/post-roll campaigns. Similarweb Knowledge Center Similarweb Knowledge Center
• Particularly good if you want to turn the data into client-facing competitive reports.
• adbeat.com — Best for serious display-ad intelligence

• I'd choose this if your clients' competitors are heavily invested in Google Display/programmatic/native advertising.
• Very good placement-level intelligence: competitors' ads, publishers, ad networks, landing pages, creatives, estimated spend, etc.
• It supports display, native, and video and has alerts for new campaigns, plus PDF/CSV/PowerPoint reporting. Adbeat Adbeat
• The tradeoff is that it's more specialized around display than an all-channel agency platform.
• Free route: Meta Ad Library + Google Ads Transparency Center

• Excellent if you mainly need to answer "What ads is this competitor running right now?"
• The downside is that they're much more manual and don't give you the same historical monitoring/reporting workflow as paid intelligence platforms. Arcalea

What I'd do in your situation

If you're an agency with, say, 10–50 local-business clients, I'd lean Similarweb because you can build a repeatable competitive-intelligence workflow:

Client → 5–10 competitors → monitor creatives → identify new campaigns → compare offers/messaging → create monthly competitive report.

For example, for a local dentist you could monitor competitors for:

• New display/video creatives
• Promotional offers
• Financing messaging
• Before/after creative
• Landing pages
• Campaign longevity
• Estimated spend changes
• Publishers/networks they're appearing on

That gives you something much more valuable to sell the client than simply saying "we checked their Facebook ads."

One caveat: don't assume estimated ad spend is exact. Platforms like Similarweb model impressions/spend using their own data and assumptions, so I'd use those figures primarily for directional competitive benchmarking, not as audited numbers. Similarweb Knowledge Center

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage and your monthly budget for the tool, I can narrow it down to the best 2–3 platforms and tell you which one I'd actually buy.

If your goal is specifically to monitor competitors’ display and video ads for local-business clients, I’d recommend Semrush’s Advertising Toolkit Pro, specifically its AdClarity component.

semrush.com

Why I’d pick it

AdClarity is much closer to what you’re describing than a traditional SEO/PPC competitor tool. It covers:

• Display ads
• Video ads
• Social ads
• Competitor creative
• Publishers/placements
• Estimated spend
• Impressions, views, clicks and share-of-voice metrics
• Geographic filtering
• Historical campaign activity

Semrush says AdClarity monitors advertising across 650,000+ publishers and 51 markets, including the U.S. Semrush Semrush

For an agency handling multiple local businesses, the useful workflow would be:

Client → local competitors → see their active creatives → identify where they're advertising → monitor changes → use that intelligence in your client's campaigns.

One important caveat for local businesses

This is where I'd be careful.

Semrush's regular Advertising Research is primarily useful for paid search and explicitly warns that its data isn't designed to capture campaigns that run only at the local level. Semrush

AdClarity is the part I'd use for your display/video competitive intelligence, rather than relying on Semrush's normal PPC competitor reports.

What I'd actually buy

The current Pro plan is listed at $220/month when billed annually and includes AdClarity; the Base plan is $99/month but does not include AdClarity. Semrush Semrush

For your use case, I'd start with Pro rather than stacking several tools.

If you're managing, say, 10–50 local-business clients, though, there are some more specialized ad-intelligence platforms I'd want to compare against AdClarity before you commit—particularly based on how granularly you need to monitor individual cities/ZIP codes and whether you want automated competitor alerts. I can give you a 3–5 platform comparison specifically for a local marketing agency if that's what you're building.

Yes. For monitoring competitors’ actual display and video advertising, I’d put AdClarity at the top of your list.

My recommendation: AdClarity

adclarity.com is specifically built for competitive ad intelligence. It tracks display, video, social, and programmatic advertising, including the creative, publishers, placements, estimated spend, impressions, campaigns, and ad formats. It currently reports coverage of 650,000+ publishers across 50+ markets, including the U.S. Semrush AdClarity

For a local-business agency, I'd use it like this:

• Enter each client's 5–20 biggest competitors.
• See which display/video creatives they're running.
• Track new ads appearing and ads that persist over time.
• Identify publishers/sites where competitors are buying inventory.
• Look at estimated spend, impressions, CPM and share of voice.
• See whether they're emphasizing display vs. video vs. social.
• Save the strongest creatives into a client-specific competitive swipe file.
• Use the data in monthly client reports: "Here's what your three biggest competitors are doing right now."

AdClarity also lets you filter by U.S. market, device, channel and time period, which is particularly useful when you're dealing with local clients rather than national brands. Semrush

The important caveat for local businesses

There's a distinction between "Can I see what competitors are advertising?" and "Can I accurately see everything they're advertising in my client's specific city?"

Ad-intelligence platforms generally have much better coverage for larger advertisers. A small HVAC company spending $1,500/month in one metro may not generate enough detectable activity for the same level of intelligence you'd get on a national advertiser.

So I'd probably build your agency stack around:

Semrush's traditional Advertising Research is particularly good for Google paid-search competitors, while AdClarity fills the display/video gap. Semrush Semrush

Another one I'd look at: MediaRadar

mediaradar.com is worth considering if you're operating more like a media/advertising agency and want ongoing competitor monitoring rather than occasional creative research. It says it monitors competitor activity across search, display, social, programmatic, video and influencer, with daily-refreshed creative, keyword and placement data. MediaRadar

I'd put it in the "talk to sales and see if their coverage fits your clients" category rather than automatically choosing it over AdClarity.

What I'd do in your situation

If you're managing multiple local-business clients, I'd start with AdClarity + the free platform-native ad libraries rather than buying five different "ad spy" tools.

The bigger opportunity is actually creating a competitor monitoring system for your agency:

Client → Competitors → New ads → Creative/message → Placement → Estimated spend → First/last seen → Weekly change → Client report

That turns competitor research from something you occasionally do into an ongoing deliverable you can sell clients.

AdClarity currently lists plans starting around $129/month, with higher tiers at $298 and $349/month, although I'd verify current pricing before purchasing. Semrush

If you tell me what types of local businesses you manage (roofing, dentists, med spas, dealerships, restaurants, etc.) and roughly how many clients, I can recommend the best agency-level stack and workflow, including which tools are actually worth paying for.

If your main need is monitoring competitor display + video ads for local-business clients, I’d shortlist these:

1. adbeat.com — my pick for display-heavy work

• Excellent for seeing actual display creatives, publishers, ad networks, landing pages, and campaign activity.
• Covers display, native, and video, including mobile.
• Has competitor alerts, comparisons, and report exports—which is particularly useful if you're doing this across multiple clients. Adbeat Adbeat
• Pricing is relatively accessible for an agency: currently $200/mo Standard or $315/mo Advanced when billed annually. Adbeat
• semrush.com — best all-around agency option

• AdClarity gives you display + video + social intelligence, including creatives, placements, estimated spend, impressions, and share of voice. Semrush Semrush
• Particularly attractive if you're already using Semrush for SEO/PPC.
• You can analyze competitors by publisher and even YouTube channel. Semrush
• I'd choose this over Adbeat if you want one broader competitive-intelligence stack rather than primarily display intelligence.
• mediaradar.com — best if you're managing lots of clients

• Tracks display, programmatic, video/YouTube, search, social, and influencer activity.
• It emphasizes daily refreshed competitive monitoring, alerts, benchmarking, exports, and reporting, which is very useful for an agency workflow. MediaRadar
• More enterprise-oriented, so I'd investigate pricing before committing.

What I'd do in your situation

For a local-business agency, I'd probably start with Adbeat.

The reason is that local competitors often aren't sophisticated enough to have massive, easily analyzable campaigns. What you really want is:

"Show me every ad this competitor is running, where they're running it, what the creative looks like, what landing page they're sending traffic to, and whether they've been running it for weeks/months."

That's where Adbeat is particularly strong. Adbeat

Then I'd use AdClarity if you also care heavily about YouTube/video + Meta/social + cross-channel spend intelligence.

One important caveat: none of these tools should be treated as a perfect record of every ad a competitor is running, especially at the hyperlocal level. Estimated spend and impression numbers are directional rather than ground truth.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200+) and what industries they're in (HVAC, dentists, attorneys, med spas, restaurants, etc.), I can recommend the best stack + cheapest plan for your agency, including how I'd automate the competitor monitoring/reporting.

If your main need is monitoring competitors’ display + video ads for local business clients, I’d put Adbeat at the top of the list.

My recommendation

1. adbeat.com — best fit for your use case

Adbeat is specifically built around display advertising intelligence. You can enter a competitor and see:

• Their display, native, and video creatives
• Publishers/sites where their ads appear
• Ad networks and media-buying patterns
• Landing pages
• Creative history and flight dates
• Estimated spend/share-of-voice on higher tiers
• Alerts when competitors launch new ads
• Client-ready reports and PowerPoint/PDF exports Adbeat Adbeat

The big caveat is video: pre-roll video is included on Adbeat's Enterprise tier, while Standard/Advanced are primarily display/native focused. Current listed pricing is $200/mo Standard, $315/mo Advanced, with Enterprise requiring a quote. Adbeat

2. semrush.com + AdClarity — best if you want broader coverage

This is probably the alternative I'd evaluate if your clients advertise across display + video + social.

AdClarity can analyze competitors across display, video, and social, including platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. It provides things like top ads, campaigns, placements, estimated expenditure, impressions, views and share of voice. Semrush Semrush

The advantage for an agency is that you're getting a broader marketing/SEO/PPC ecosystem rather than buying a specialized display-intelligence product.

What I'd choose for a local agency

One important distinction: Semrush's traditional Advertising Research isn't really the tool you want for this—it's heavily focused on paid search. For display/video, it's AdClarity that matters. Semrush Semrush

For local businesses specifically, I'd also think about whether you need to monitor national competitors or actual ads being served in a particular city/ZIP. That's a meaningful distinction because a platform can know that a competitor is running 50 creatives without necessarily telling you exactly what a consumer in, say, Mexico, Missouri is being served.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200+) and which ad channels you care about (Google Display/YouTube/Meta/programmatic), I can narrow this down to the best platform and the most cost-effective setup.

If your goal is ongoing competitor monitoring for local-business clients, especially display + video, I’d lean toward Similarweb Ad Intelligence as the primary paid platform.

My ranking

1. similarweb.com — best overall for an agency

• Tracks competitor display, video, search and other paid activity.
• Lets you see creatives, publishers, landing pages, campaign activity and estimated spend/share-of-voice signals. Similarweb Similarweb
• Its video intelligence includes the actual video creative, destination URL, campaign duration and networks, which is particularly useful for the monitoring workflow you're describing. Similarweb
• Best if: you're managing multiple local clients and want something you can turn into recurring competitive reports.
• semrush.com + AdClarity — best alternative

• AdClarity covers display, video and social, with competitor creatives, placements and spend patterns. Semrush says it covers 50+ markets and 650,000+ publishers. Semrush
• Particularly attractive if you're already using Semrush for SEO/PPC reporting.
• Best if: you want competitor ad intelligence alongside your existing SEO/PPC stack.
• adbeat.com — best specifically for display

• Very strong for figuring out where competitors' display/video ads are appearing, what creatives they're using, which publishers they're buying, and which landing pages they're sending traffic to. Adbeat
• Has competitive monitoring, alerts and reporting.
• Best if: display advertising is the main thing you care about rather than social/search.

One important caveat for local businesses

If you're talking about a local HVAC company, dentist, roofing company, med spa, attorney, restaurant, etc., I wouldn't rely exclusively on a paid "ad spy" platform.

I'd pair the paid tool with the free first-party ad libraries:

• Meta Ad Library — Facebook/Instagram
• Google Ads Transparency Center — Google Search, Display and YouTube
• TikTok Creative Center — TikTok
• LinkedIn Ad Library — B2B/local professional services

Google's transparency database is especially useful for your use case because it encompasses Search, Display and YouTube, while the other platforms have their own separate libraries. AdEye AdEye

What I'd do if this were my agency

For 10–100+ local clients, I'd build the workflow around:

Similarweb → competitor monitoring → weekly/monthly alerts → screenshots/creative archive → client-facing competitive report

For each client, track maybe 5–10 direct competitors and record:

• New display creatives
• New video creatives
• First/last seen dates
• Landing pages
• Publishers/sites they're appearing on
• Messaging/offers
• CTA
• Creative format
• Estimated spend/share of voice where available
• Changes from the previous period

That gives you a much more useful deliverable than simply saying "Competitor X is running ads."

If budget is a concern, you can actually build a surprisingly good system using the free Google + Meta + TikTok libraries and automate the monitoring around them. The paid platforms become worthwhile when you're monitoring dozens of businesses continuously rather than doing occasional competitive audits.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200) and whether you're mainly monitoring Google/YouTube, Meta, programmatic display, or all of them, I can recommend the most cost-effective stack and workflow for your agency.

If your main goal is monitoring competitors’ display + video ads for local-business clients, I’d put Adbeat at the top of your shortlist.

My ranking

1. adbeat.com — best for serious display-ad monitoring

• Built specifically around competitive display advertising.
• Tracks display, native, video, mobile, publishers, ad networks, creatives, landing pages, and estimated spend.
• You can set alerts when competitors launch new ads/campaigns.
• It also supports client-ready reports and competitive comparisons. Adbeat Adbeat
• Current paid plans start around $200/month, with higher tiers adding alerts, country filtering, more history, spend estimates, etc. Adbeat

For an agency, this is probably my #1 choice if display/video is the primary thing you're selling.

2. semrush.com + AdClarity — best all-around agency option

• AdClarity covers display, video, and social, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok.
• Semrush says AdClarity covers 50+ markets and 650,000+ publishers.
• You also get the broader Semrush ecosystem for SEO, PPC, competitor research, etc. Semrush Semrush

I'd choose this if you want one platform you can use across a client's entire marketing strategy, rather than purely ad intelligence.

3. similarweb.com — best for broader competitive intelligence

• Tracks competitor activity across display, video, social and search.
• Gives you creatives, landing pages, spend trends, channel mix and competitive benchmarks. Similarweb
• Particularly useful if you want to tell a client "Here's what your competitors are doing across their entire digital acquisition strategy" rather than just "here are their ads."

One important caveat for local businesses

If you're talking about something like:

"I have 20 HVAC companies as clients and I want to know what the HVAC company 10 miles away is currently running on YouTube, programmatic display, Facebook, etc."

I'd test the platforms on your actual client/competitor domains before committing.

Competitive-ad platforms can have very different coverage at the local advertiser level. A tool can be fantastic for national brands but have sparse data for a small local plumber, dentist, roofing company, med spa, etc.

For your use case, I'd actually run a test with 5–10 real competitors and measure:

• Can it find the competitor at all?
• How many creatives does it have?
• Does it show video?
• Can you see the actual creative?
• How recent is the data?
• Does it identify placements/publishers?
• Can you see historical ads?
• Can you export the findings into a client report?
• Can you monitor the competitors automatically?

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200) and what types of local businesses they are, I can narrow this down to the best platform + the most cost-effective setup for an agency.

Competitive-ad platforms can have very different coverage at the local advertiser level. A tool can be fantastic for national brands but have sparse data for a small local plumber, dentist, roofing company, med spa, etc.

For your use case, I'd actually run a test with 5–10 real competitors and measure:

• Can it find the competitor at all?
• How many creatives does it have?
• Does it show video?
• Can you see the actual creative?
• How recent is the data?
• Does it identify placements/publishers?
• Can you see historical ads?
• Can you export the findings into a client report?
• Can you monitor the competitors automatically?

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200) and what types of local businesses they are, I can narrow this down to the best platform + the most cost-effective setup for an agency.

If your main need is monitoring competitors’ display + video ads for local-business clients, I’d recommend AdClarity first, with Similarweb Ad Intelligence as the strongest alternative.

My pick: AdClarity

adclarity.com is particularly well suited to an agency because it focuses heavily on competitive ad intelligence. It tracks competitor display, video, social, CTV, creatives, publishers, placements, estimated spend, impressions, and share of voice. It currently says it monitors 52 markets and refreshes competitive data daily. AdClarity AdClarity

For your use case, I'd want to be able to answer things like:

• "What ads are my client's competitors running right now?"
• "Which creative concepts are they repeatedly using?"
• "Where are they buying display inventory?"
• "Are they running video/YouTube campaigns?"
• "How long has this creative been running?"
• "Which competitors are increasing their advertising activity?"
• "What landing pages are they sending traffic to?"
• "Can I put this into a client-facing competitive report?"

AdClarity is strong on essentially all of those.

Runner-up: Similarweb

similarweb.com is probably the one I'd test alongside AdClarity.

Similarweb lets you investigate competitor display, video, social and search advertising, including actual creatives, campaigns, publishers, impressions, estimated spend and campaign duration. Similarweb Knowledge Center Similarweb

Its video functionality is particularly useful if YouTube competitor monitoring matters to you: it can show the actual video ads, target URLs, campaign duration and associated networks. Similarweb Knowledge Center

What about Semrush?

semrush.com is worth considering if you're already using Semrush for SEO/PPC. Its AdClarity integration specifically provides display, video and social competitive intelligence. Semrush says AdClarity covers 650,000+ publishers across 50+ markets. Semrush Semrush

The interesting part is that AdClarity is actually available through Semrush's Advertising Toolkit, so you could potentially consolidate your stack. Semrush currently lists the Pro Advertising Toolkit at $220/month, with AdClarity included, although the included AdClarity limits are fairly significant. Semrush

What I'd do for a local-business agency

One important caveat: don't treat estimated competitor spend as ground truth. These platforms model spend/impressions from observed advertising data, rather than having access to the competitor's actual ad-account billing.

For local businesses specifically, I'd also evaluate how well each platform can drill down geographically. That's potentially more important than the raw number of ads in the database—e.g. you don't really care that a competitor spends $50k nationally if your client is a Denver HVAC company and you need to know what's happening in the Denver market.

If you tell me what types of local businesses you manage (HVAC, dentists, lawyers, med spas, restaurants, etc.) and roughly how many clients, I can narrow this down to the best platform and workflow for monitoring 10–20 competitors per client without the costs getting ridiculous.

If your goal is specifically monitoring competitors’ display + video ads for local-business clients, I’d look at AdClarity first, rather than a generic SEO competitor tool.

My picks

1. semrush.com — best overall for an agency

• Tracks display, video, and social competitor advertising.
• Lets you see creatives, publishers/placements, campaigns, estimated spend, impressions, and share of voice.
• You can filter by geography, which is particularly useful for local clients.
• Semrush says AdClarity covers 50+ markets and 650,000+ publishers. Semrush Semrush
• Big advantage: you can combine this with Semrush's SEO/PPC research and reporting, so it's easier to turn competitor intelligence into something you can put in a client report.
• adbeat.com — best if display is your primary concern

• Very strong for display, native, and video.
• Lets you investigate competitors' publishers, ad creatives, landing pages, networks, and campaigns.
• Has competitive monitoring and alerts for new campaigns. Adbeat
• I'd favor this if your clients are spending heavily on programmatic/display and you want deep placement intelligence.
• similarweb.com — best for broader competitive intelligence

• Covers search + display + social + video.
• Strong if you want to show clients the overall competitive advertising picture, including spend trends, channel mix, creatives, publishers, and share of voice. Similarweb Similarweb
• Probably more platform than you need if your sole job is "show me what my local competitors' ads look like."

What I'd choose for your agency

Start with Semrush + AdClarity.

The workflow I'd use for each local client would be:

Competitor → active ads → creative → placement/publisher → estimated spend → geography → first/last seen → landing page

That gives you much more useful intelligence than simply collecting screenshots. You can tell a client, for example:

"Competitor A has been running these three video creatives for 11 weeks, primarily across these publishers, while Competitor B has recently shifted budget into display."

AdClarity specifically supports competitor comparisons and filtering by geography/channel, and Semrush's documentation says its advertising toolkit can export reports to PDF/Excel—useful for agency reporting. Semrush

One caveat: don't treat estimated competitor spend as ground truth. These platforms model spend/impressions; they don't have access to a competitor's actual ad-account billing. Semrush explicitly notes that no tool can tell you exactly what a rival spends. Semrush

If you tell me roughly how many local clients you manage and what industries they're in (HVAC, dentists, attorneys, restaurants, etc.), I can narrow this down to the best 2–3 platforms for your specific agency workflow and budget, including which ones are actually good at local geographic competitor monitoring.

For an agency managing local-business clients, I’d put Semrush AdClarity at the top of the list—especially if your main goal is to monitor competitor display + video ads and turn that into client-facing competitive intelligence.

My ranking

1. semrush.com — best overall for an agency

• Tracks display, video, and social ads.
• Lets you see competitor creatives, publishers/placements, campaigns, estimated spend, impressions, and other competitive signals.
• Covers 650,000+ publishers across 51 markets, including the U.S. Semrush Semrush
• Particularly useful if you want to make a repeatable report for each client: “Here are the competitors advertising, what they're running, where they're running it, and how aggressively.”
• Current pricing starts around $129/month for AdClarity Starter, with higher tiers for more reporting/export capacity. Semrush
• sensortower.com — best for serious ad-intelligence work

• Much more powerful if you want to analyze spend, impressions, creative, placements, publishers, audience, and channel mix at a deeper level.
• Covers display/video plus YouTube, Meta, TikTok, OTT/CTV and other channels. Sensor Tower
• Has geographic breakdowns, which is potentially valuable for local/regional competitive analysis. Sensor Tower
• I'd choose this if you're building competitive-intelligence as a substantial agency service, rather than just checking ads.
• Semrush's broader Advertising Toolkit — best if you already use Semrush

• The Pro Advertising Toolkit currently includes AdClarity alongside search-ad research and other advertising tools, listed at $220/month. Semrush
• This can be attractive if your agency already uses Semrush for SEO/PPC, because you consolidate the workflow.

One important caveat for local businesses

There's a distinction between “can I see what competitors are advertising?” and “can I reliably see what competitors are advertising specifically in my client's ZIP code/city?”

The latter is much harder. Ad-intelligence platforms generally use panels, crawlers, modeled data, and other collection methods rather than giving you a perfect live feed of every ad served to every person in a particular local market. Pathmatics, for example, explicitly describes using opt-in panel data, web crawling, and modeling. Sensor Tower

So if your clients are, say, dentists, HVAC companies, med spas, attorneys, auto dealers, restaurants, etc., I'd test the platforms specifically against 10–20 real competitors in your clients' markets before committing.

My recommendation: start with AdClarity. It's probably the best balance of capability, price, and agency usability. If you find yourself wanting deeper spend/share-of-voice/geo/channel analysis, graduate to Pathmatics.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage and what industries they're in, I can also recommend the most cost-effective setup (including whether I'd use AdClarity, Pathmatics, Meta Ad Library, Google Ads Transparency Center, or a combination).

If your main goal is monitoring competitors’ display + video ads for local-business clients, I’d recommend semrush.com with AdClarity as the best starting point.

My recommendation

1. Semrush + AdClarity — best fit for an agency

AdClarity is specifically built for competitive ad intelligence. It lets you research:

• Display ads and creatives
• Video ads
• Advertisers and campaigns
• Publishers and placements
• Estimated spend/impressions
• Share of voice
• Geography and device
• Historical activity
• Top-performing ads

Semrush says AdClarity can filter competitor intelligence by geography, which is particularly useful when you're dealing with local businesses. Semrush Semrush

The current Advertising Toolkit Pro plan is $220/month billed annually and includes AdClarity; the Base plan is $99/month but doesn't include the display/video competitor intelligence. Semrush Semrush

semrush.com

2. Similarweb Ad Intelligence — best if you want deeper media intelligence

similarweb.com is probably the platform I'd look at if you want something more sophisticated than basic "ad spying."

It covers display, video, search, native and other formats, and gives you information around creatives, publishers, campaigns and estimated spend. Similarweb Similarweb

The downside is that Similarweb is generally more of an enterprise/marketing-intelligence platform, so it can make less economic sense if you're managing a bunch of small local clients.

What I'd do in your situation

If you're an agency managing, say, 10–50 local businesses, I'd start with Semrush/AdClarity.

I'd build a recurring competitor-monitoring workflow like:

Client → 5–10 local competitors → AdClarity → monthly creative/placement report

For each competitor, track:

• 🖼️ New display creatives
• 🎥 New video creatives
• 📍 Where they're advertising
• 📅 How long an ad has been running
• 💰 Estimated spend
• 👀 Estimated impressions
• 🏆 Their most persistent/high-volume creatives
• 🔗 Landing pages
• 🎯 Geographic targeting where available

One important caveat: don't treat competitor spend estimates as ground truth, particularly for small local advertisers. These platforms are intelligence/estimation systems rather than access to the competitors' actual ad accounts. Semrush explicitly notes that its advertising numbers are benchmarks rather than exact competitor spend. Semrush

One other option I'd consider

If local/geographic accuracy is your #1 requirement, tell me roughly what kinds of clients you have (HVAC, dentists, lawyers, restaurants, home services, etc.) and how many clients you're managing.

I can compare AdClarity vs Similarweb vs SpyFu vs other ad-intelligence platforms specifically for local-market competitor monitoring, including which ones actually let you see the creative, placements, geography, historical ads, and video ads.

What I'd do in your situation

If you're an agency managing, say, 10–50 local businesses, I'd start with Semrush/AdClarity.

I'd build a recurring competitor-monitoring workflow like:

Client → 5–10 local competitors → AdClarity → monthly creative/placement report

For each competitor, track:

For an agency managing local-business clients, my first choice would be Adbeat if your main goal is monitoring competitors' display + video advertising.

My ranking

Why I'd pick Adbeat: it is specifically built around competitive display advertising. You can enter a competitor and see their creatives, landing pages, publishers, ad networks, formats, and historical activity. It covers display, native and pre-roll video, and supports competitor alerts and client-ready reports. www.adbeat.com

The big catch is pricing/tier selection: Adbeat's current pricing shows pre-roll video and estimated spend at the Enterprise level, while Standard starts at $200/month and Advanced at $315/month. www.adbeat.com So I'd test exactly what data you need before committing.

If you want one platform for the whole agency

I'd seriously consider Similarweb Ad Intelligence instead. It goes beyond display/video into search and social, and its current Ad Intelligence product covers display, video, native, search and social with competitor campaign, creative, publisher/platform and spend analysis. www.similarweb.com

For local clients, that broader view can be more useful because you could build a competitor dashboard like:

Client → 5 local competitors →

• Current display creatives
• Video creatives
• Where they're advertising
• Landing pages
• Estimated spend/share
• New campaigns detected
• Messaging/offers they're pushing
• Creative changes over time

One important caveat: don't expect any competitive-intelligence platform to perfectly tell you what a competitor is spending specifically within your client's local ZIP codes. The data is modeled/observed rather than being the competitor's actual ad-account data.

My recommendation:

• Primarily display/video → Adbeat
• Display + video + search + social → Similarweb
• Very sophisticated media-intelligence operation / lots of clients → evaluate Pathmatics/Sensor Tower too

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200) and whether you mainly care about Google/YouTube, Meta, programmatic display, or all three, I can narrow this down to the best platform and pricing tier for an agency.

For local business clients, I’d usually avoid enterprise-only ad intelligence platforms unless you have large budgets. The right choice depends on whether you want creative inspiration, proof for client reporting, or true media intelligence (placements/spend/programmatic).

My shortlist:

For local SMB clients (dentists, HVAC, roofing, attorneys, restaurants, med spas, etc.), my recommendation would be:

Best value stack

1. Adbeat → monitor competitor display/video campaigns and create quarterly “what competitors are doing” reports. www.adbeat.com
2. Google Ads Transparency Center (free) → verify Google-served ads and creatives.
3. Meta Ad Library (free) → monitor Facebook/Instagram competitors.
4. Use screenshots + insights in a monthly client report:
   • new offers competitors launched
   • creative themes
   • promotions
   • landing page changes
   • estimated positioning shifts

If you want one paid tool for an agency

I’d lean:

• Small agency / under ~50 clients: Adbeat or AdSpyder
• Agency doing sophisticated competitive briefs: MediaRadar
• Mostly Meta/Google local lead gen: combine free ad libraries + a reporting tool instead of paying for a big intelligence suite

One thing to watch: for local businesses, competitor creative and messaging are often more actionable than trying to estimate spend. Knowing “the competitor switched from ‘$99 inspection’ to ‘same-day service’ messaging” is usually more useful than knowing they spent roughly $8k/month.

If you tell me your client mix (home services, healthcare, legal, restaurants, etc.) and approximate number of accounts, I can narrow this down to the best ROI option.

For an agency managing local-business clients, I’d put AdClarity at the top of the list—especially if your priority is competitor display + video ad monitoring, rather than just Meta/Facebook ad spying.

My ranking

🥇 My pick: AdClarity

adclarity.com is particularly suited to what you're describing. It tracks display, video, social and CTV, and provides competitor creatives, publishers, placements, estimated spend, impressions and share of voice. Its current coverage spans 52 markets and millions of campaigns. AdClarity

The important part for your use case is that you can go beyond "what ad are they running?" and investigate:

• Which creatives competitors are running
• How long they've been running them
• Which publishers/sites they're appearing on
• Display vs. video activity
• Estimated spend/impressions
• Share of voice
• Campaign/creative trends
• Where competitors are buying media

That's much more useful for producing a monthly "Competitive Ad Watch" for a local client.

🥈 Similarweb is the other one I'd seriously consider

similarweb.com has particularly strong broader competitive intelligence. Its Ad Intelligence product covers display, video, search and social, including creatives, landing pages, publishers and spend trends. Similarweb Knowledge Center Similarweb

For video specifically, Similarweb lets you inspect actual competitor video ads, landing URLs, campaign duration and associated networks; its documented YouTube coverage includes pre-, mid-, and post-roll ads. Similarweb Knowledge Center

I'd choose Similarweb if you want to combine ad monitoring + website/traffic/market intelligence in the same platform.

One important caveat for local businesses

Neither platform should be interpreted as a literal "show me every ad my competitor is serving to people within 5 miles of this business" tool. The data is competitive-intelligence/estimated advertising data, and geographic granularity varies.

For a local client, I'd use the platform to build something like:

Competitor A
14 active display creatives
6 video creatives
First seen: March 2026
Estimated spend trend: ↑
Top publishers: X, Y, Z
Primary offer: "20% Off"
Landing page: /new-patient-special
Creative theme: before/after + testimonial
Agency takeaway: competitor has shifted from generic brand ads toward promotional acquisition creative.

That is the kind of intelligence clients will actually pay you for.

If you're trying to keep your agency stack lean

I'd do:

AdClarity → competitor display/video intelligence
Meta Ad Library → free verification of Meta creative
Google Ads Transparency Center → Google advertiser/creative verification
Your reporting dashboard → turn the raw intelligence into a monthly competitor report

If you tell me what kinds of local businesses you manage (dentists, HVAC, med spas, lawyers, restaurants, home services, etc.) and roughly how many clients, I can recommend the most cost-effective setup and tell you whether AdClarity vs. Similarweb is worth the money for your specific agency model.

For an agency managing local business clients, I’d lean toward Adbeat as the best fit if your primary goal is monitoring competitor display + video advertising.

Adbeat specifically covers display, native, and video ads, and lets you see competitors’ creatives, publishers/placements, landing pages, estimated activity, and campaign changes. It also supports alerts and client-ready reporting, which is particularly useful for an agency workflow. www.adbeat.com

How I’d rank the options

Pathmatics is especially worth considering if you want cross-channel ad intelligence and estimated spend, rather than primarily studying the actual creatives and placements. G2 currently rates it as one of the leading Adbeat alternatives, with coverage spanning video, display, mobile, tablet and native. www.g2.com

For your specific use case

If you're doing something like:

"I manage 30 local roofers / dentists / med spas / attorneys. I want to know what their competitors are advertising every week and give my clients a report showing the ads, offers, messaging, placements and changes."

I'd choose Adbeat.

The workflow could be:

Client → 5–10 competitors → Adbeat monitoring → new creatives/placements → screenshots + analysis → monthly competitive report

The nice thing is that Adbeat explicitly supports agency/client-services use cases, including competitive monitoring, comparisons, reports and alerts. www.adbeat.com

One caveat: if by "video" you specifically mean YouTube/CTV/streaming TV, rather than video ads across the web, I'd look much more closely at Pathmatics/AdClarity. CTV intelligence is a somewhat different category, and Pathmatics is listed among the stronger platforms for OTT/CTV competitive intelligence. www.blog.udonis.co

If you tell me what types of local businesses you manage and roughly how many clients, I can narrow this down to the 2–3 platforms I'd actually pay for, including approximate pricing and which one gives you the best agency ROI.

For local business clients (HVAC, dental, legal, restaurants, home services, etc.), I’d usually recommend a competitive ad intelligence platform rather than a general SEO tool. The best choice depends on whether you need creative monitoring, estimated spend, local geo insights, or client reporting.

My shortlist:

My recommendation for a local marketing agency

I’d rank them:

1. AdClarity — best dedicated choice

• Monitor 5–20 competitors per client
• Pull screenshots/videos of competitor creatives
• See where competitors appear
• Build “your competitors are spending here” reports for clients

adclarity.com

2. Semrush + AdClarity — best agency bundle

• Use Semrush for:
  • SEO competitors
  • Google Ads keywords
  • local search visibility
• Use AdClarity for:
  • display/video creatives
  • publisher placements
  • ad trends

www.semrush.com

3. Similarweb — best if you sell strategy retainers
If your client reports include “market share,” “where traffic comes from,” and “who is winning online,” Similarweb is stronger. support.similarweb.com

What I would track for each local client

Create a recurring competitor report with:

• Top 5–10 competitors
• New display creatives launched
• Video ads discovered
• Messaging/themes being used
• Landing pages competitors send traffic to
• Estimated ad intensity changes
• Channels used (YouTube, display networks, social, etc.)
• “Opportunities we see” section

One caveat: these tools are much better at national/regional competitors than tiny local businesses spending a few hundred dollars/month. For very small local advertisers, I’d combine them with:

• Meta Ad Library (free for Facebook/Instagram)
• Google Ads Transparency Center (free)
• manual local SERP checks
• your own ad monitoring screenshots

If you’re running this as an agency service, I’d probably start with AdClarity + a repeatable monthly competitor insights PDF/dashboard because it’s easiest to turn into a client-facing deliverable. adclarity.com

For your use case—monitoring local competitors’ display + video ads across multiple clients—I’d look at Semrush’s AdClarity first.

My recommendation

1. Semrush / AdClarity — best fit for an agency

AdClarity is specifically built for competitor display, video, and social ad intelligence. You can track competitors, creatives, placements, publishers, campaigns, and estimated spend, and it supports 50+ markets. www.semrush.com

For a local-business agency, I particularly like it because you can turn the data into a repeatable client workflow:

• Add 5–15 competitors per client
• Monitor new ads / new campaigns
• See their actual display creatives
• See video creatives and where they're appearing
• Identify publishers/sites they're buying on
• Look at estimated spend and impressions
• Track creative changes over time
• Export reports for client presentations

Semrush also explicitly supports finding competitors advertising on the same publishers, YouTube channels, and social platforms. www.semrush.com

2. Similarweb Ad Intelligence — best if you want deeper competitive intelligence

I'd choose Similarweb if you want more than an ad library. Its Ad Intelligence covers display, video, search and social, with data around impressions, spend trends, campaign duration, publishers, creatives, and geographies. support.similarweb.com

Its video intelligence can show the actual competitor video ads, landing URLs, campaign duration, networks, and first/last-seen information. support.similarweb.com

The downside for a local agency is that Similarweb tends to make more sense when you're doing fairly sophisticated competitive/media analysis rather than simply maintaining an ad-monitoring dashboard.

One important distinction

If by "local business" you mean something like:

Chicago dentist → monitor 10 nearby dentists
Roofing company → monitor 15 local roofers
HVAC company → monitor competitors within a specific metro

I'd test the geographic granularity before buying anything.

Competitor-ad platforms can be excellent at telling you what a company is advertising while being less reliable at telling you exactly what a local audience in a particular ZIP/metro saw. That's especially important with programmatic/display advertising.

What I'd do in your shoes

I'd probably start with AdClarity, and build a standardized competitor-monitoring report around:

Then give each client a monthly "Competitive Ads Watch" rather than simply handing them access to the platform.

If you tell me roughly how many local clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200) and whether you mainly care about Google/YouTube, Meta, programmatic display, or all three, I can narrow this down to the best 2–3 platforms and what I'd actually buy at agency scale.

For local business clients, I’d choose based on what you need to report back to clients (creative examples vs. spend/placement intelligence vs. ongoing alerts). There isn’t one perfect tool.

My shortlist:

For a local marketing agency managing dentists, HVAC, lawyers, restaurants, med spas, etc., I’d probably do:

Budget / practical stack

• Meta Ad Library + Google Ads Transparency Center (free baseline)
• Semrush or SpyFu for paid search intelligence
• Adbeat when you need deeper display/video competitor research

Agency-level client reporting

I’d lean toward MediaRadar if you have enough clients to justify it because it is designed around competitive intelligence workflows and reporting. www.mediaradar.combacklinko.com

If your main deliverable is “here are the ads your competitors are running”

I’d pick Adbeat. It is closer to a true “competitor ad swipe file + placement intelligence” tool for display/native/video. www.adbeat.com

A few questions would change my recommendation:

1. How many local clients are you monitoring (5, 50, 500)?
2. Are you mostly tracking Google Display/YouTube, Meta, or all channels?
3. Do you need client-facing PDF reports/white labeling, or just internal research?

For monitoring competitors’ display + video ads for local-business clients, I’d put Adbeat and MediaRadar at the top of the list, with Pathmatics (Sensor Tower) as the premium option.

My recommendation

Why I'd start with Adbeat: it is specifically built around competitive display intelligence. You can see competitor creatives, publishers, ad networks, landing pages, formats, and video/native activity, and it supports alerts and comparison reports. www.adbeat.com

Why MediaRadar may actually be better for your agency: it has broader cross-channel coverage—display, programmatic, video/YouTube, social, paid search, CTV, etc.—and specifically offers local advertising investment data across 210 DMAs. That could be very useful if you're managing multiple local businesses and want to show clients "here's what competitors in your market are doing." www.mediaradar.com

The important distinction for local clients

If by "monitor" you mean:

"Show me what the 5 competitors around this particular local business are actually running, where they're running it, their creative, and how their activity changes over time."

I'd lean MediaRadar.

If you mean:

"I want to quickly research a competitor's display/video strategy and steal the useful ideas for my client's campaigns."

I'd lean Adbeat.

If you want deep spend estimates, creative intelligence, social/video/display and larger-scale competitive reporting across dozens or hundreds of clients, I'd look at Pathmatics. G2's current comparison also puts Pathmatics, MediaRadar, Similarweb and Adbeat among the leading alternatives in this category. www.g2.com

One thing I'd check before buying

For local SMB advertising, don't just ask vendors whether they "track display ads." Ask them to demonstrate one actual local competitor in your clients' market.

Give them something like:

• Competitor: Joe's HVAC
• Market: Newark / Essex County, NJ
• Channels: display + YouTube
• Time period: last 30 days

Then ask them to show you:

1. Actual creatives
2. First/last-seen dates
3. Publishers/sites/apps
4. Video placements
5. Estimated spend/impressions
6. Geographic granularity
7. Historical creative
8. Alerts when new creative appears
9. Export/API capabilities
10. Whether the data is observed or modeled/estimated

That test will tell you much more than a sales demo.

For an agency serving local businesses, my shortlist would be: MediaRadar first, Adbeat second, Pathmatics third.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you have, what industries they’re in (HVAC, dentists, attorneys, restaurants, etc.), and your monthly software budget, I can narrow this down to the best platform and tell you what I'd actually buy.

Yes. If your goal is specifically to monitor competitors’ display + video advertising for local-business clients, I’d look beyond the usual SEO/PPC spy tools.

My top picks

1. AdClarity — best overall for an agency

AdClarity / Semrush

This would be my first choice for your use case. It focuses on display, video, social and programmatic advertising, and lets you research competitors by advertiser, publisher, campaign, creative, placement, etc. Semrush says AdClarity covers 50+ markets and 650,000+ publishers. sv.semrush.com

Particularly useful for client reporting because you can look at:

• Competitor creatives
• Display/video placements
• Publishers and channels
• Estimated spend/impressions
• Campaign activity
• Share of voice
• Creative history

2. Adbeat — best if display/programmatic is the priority

Adbeat

Adbeat is very strong for answering "Where are my competitor's ads actually running?" It covers standard display, native, video, interstitials and other formats, and provides publisher, ad, landing-page and network intelligence. It also has alerts and competitive comparisons. www.adbeat.com

I'd seriously consider this if your clients are spending meaningful amounts on programmatic/display.

3. Similarweb Ad Intelligence — best broader competitive picture

Similarweb Ad Intelligence

Similarweb gives you a broader cross-channel view across display, video, social and search, including creatives, publishers, landing pages and estimated spend. www.similarweb.com

It's attractive if you want competitor ad monitoring to be part of a larger competitive-intelligence/reporting stack.

What I would NOT use as the primary tool

Semrush alone. Its regular Advertising Research is excellent for Google paid search—competitor keywords, ad copy, landing pages, historical search activity, etc. www.semrush.com

But for the thing you're asking about—"show me the display and video ads my local competitor is running"—you want AdClarity/Adbeat/Simiarweb-type intelligence. Semrush itself now positions AdClarity specifically for display, video and social competitive analysis. www.semrush.com

For a local-business agency, I'd rank them:

My recommendation: Start with AdClarity if you want one platform for your agency. If your clients' competitors are heavily using programmatic/display, I'd demo Adbeat alongside it.

One important caveat for local clients: don't assume a platform's national ad data translates directly into "this competitor is targeting ZIP code 60540." Geographic granularity and estimated spend can vary considerably. I'd test the tools using 3–5 of your actual clients and their competitors before committing.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage (e.g. 10, 50, 200) and whether they're mostly home services, healthcare, legal, restaurants, etc., I can narrow this down to the best platform and pricing tier for an agency workflow.

For an agency managing local-business clients, I’d recommend Semrush Advertising Toolkit Pro, specifically because it includes AdClarity.

Semrush Advertising Toolkit

Why I’d pick it

AdClarity lets you research competitors across display, video, and social, including:

• 🖼️ Actual competitor creatives
• 📺 Video ads and where they're appearing
• 🌐 Publisher/placement information
• 💰 Estimated spend and impressions
• 📈 Share of voice and campaign trends
• 🎯 Geographic and device filtering
• 🔎 Competitor/campaign/advertiser searches
• 📊 Reports you can export for client reporting

Semrush says AdClarity covers 50+ markets and 650,000+ publishers and can show competitor creative strategy, placements, formats, and spend patterns. www.semrush.com

The important caveat for local clients

This is where I'd be careful: competitor ad intelligence is much harder at the local level than at the national level. Semrush explicitly notes that its Advertising Research search data can miss campaigns that run only locally. www.semrush.com

So for, say, a dentist in Hammond vs. another dentist in Hammond, I wouldn't treat an absence of an ad in the database as proof that the competitor isn't advertising.

What I'd use depending on your agency

Similarweb also has a dedicated ad-intelligence product covering display, social, search, and competitor video/creative analysis, but it's positioned more toward enterprise users and uses a sales/contact model. www.similarweb.com

For your particular use case

I'd probably go Semrush Pro ($220/month when billed annually) if you're going to use this across multiple clients. The Pro plan specifically adds AdClarity and competitor display/video/social intelligence; the Base plan is $99/month but doesn't include it. www.semrush.com

The bigger question is how you want to monitor them. If you're looking for something like:

"Tell me whenever my client's 5 competitors launch a new display/video campaign, show me the creative, where it's running, and give me a weekly report."

that's a slightly different requirement than simply having an ad-spy database. I can compare Semrush vs. Similarweb vs. Adbeat vs. SpyFu vs. Meta/Google's own ad libraries specifically for that workflow and tell you which is best for a local-agency monitoring system.

For what you’re describing—monitoring local competitors’ display + video ads across multiple clients—I’d put Adbeat at the top of the list.

My ranking

Why Adbeat: it is specifically built around competitive display advertising. It tracks standard display, native, video and interstitial ads and lets you investigate competitors' creatives, publishers, landing pages and spending patterns. www.adbeat.com

For an agency, one particularly useful feature is its competitive benchmarking: you can compare advertisers and look at spend/share-of-voice trends over time, then export reports as CSV, PDF or PowerPoint. www.adbeat.com

Adbeat

But there's an important alternative

If your clients are running Google/YouTube + Meta + display, I'd seriously consider Semrush's Advertising Toolkit with AdClarity instead.

AdClarity specifically covers display, video and social, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. You can investigate competitors, campaigns, top ads, impressions, estimated spend, placements and share of voice. It also supports geographic filtering and reporting. www.semrush.com

Semrush Advertising Toolkit

For a local-business agency, my choice would be:

• Mostly display/programmatic: Adbeat
• Display + YouTube + Meta/TikTok: Semrush + AdClarity
• Want broader market intelligence too: Similarweb
• Want free supplementary research: Google/Meta's ad transparency tools

Similarweb is also worth looking at because its current Ad Intelligence product explicitly combines display, social and search and lets you analyze competitors' creatives, landing pages and spend trends. www.similarweb.com

Similarweb Ad Intelligence

One caveat: if by "local" you mean "show me what competitors in a specific ZIP code/city are advertising and where they're running it," that's a more specialized requirement than simply finding a competitor's ads. In that case, I'd evaluate the platforms specifically on geo-level filtering and local advertiser coverage before buying.

If you tell me roughly how many clients you manage and what industries (HVAC, dentists, restaurants, lawyers, etc.), I can narrow this down to the best agency plan/tool for your exact use case and budget.

For local business clients, I’d choose based on what you actually want to monitor: creative, placements, estimated spend, or full competitor marketing activity. There isn’t one perfect tool.

My shortlist:

For a local marketing agency managing dentists, HVAC, law firms, restaurants, contractors, etc., I would likely do:

Best single choice: Adbeat

Use it to create monthly “competitor intelligence” reports:

• competitor ad screenshots
• messaging themes
• offers/promotions
• landing pages
• where competitors appear
• creative changes over time

It’s specifically built around display advertising intelligence, including display, native, and video formats. www.adbeat.com

Best client-retention stack:

• Adbeat → “Here’s what your competitors are advertising”
• Semrush → “Here’s what they rank/bid for”
• Google Ads Transparency Center + Meta Ad Library → free validation of active ads

If your clients are mostly small local businesses:

I would avoid jumping straight to expensive enterprise platforms. The value proposition is usually not “we found their exact spend,” but:

• “Your competitor is running this offer”
• “They are emphasizing financing/free consultations/discounts”
• “They changed creative this month”
• “Here are opportunities we can exploit”

One question changes the recommendation: are your clients mostly running Google Display/YouTube ads, Meta/Facebook ads, or are you trying to monitor all competitor advertising channels?

For a local business agency, I’d choose based on how many clients you manage, how deep you need to go, and whether you care more about creatives or media spend/placements.

My shortlist:

For local SMB clients (dentists, contractors, restaurants, med spas, lawyers, etc.), I’d probably rank them:

1. MediaRadar — best agency workflow
   • Build competitor watchlists by client
   • Show “what competitors launched this month”
   • Pull creative examples into monthly reports
   • Track shifts in channels/messages www.mediaradar.com

2. Adbeat — if your clients run Google Display, YouTube, native, or programmatic
   • Better when the question is: “Where are competitors advertising and what are their ads saying?” www.adbeat.com

3. Free/low-cost stack (good starter approach):
   • Meta Ad Library for Facebook/Instagram
   • Google Ads Transparency Center for Google/YouTube
   • TikTok Creative Center for TikTok
   • A reporting layer (Looker Studio, AgencyAnalytics, etc.)

Paid tools become worthwhile when manually checking 20–50 competitors becomes a weekly chore. backlinko.com

A practical agency workflow I’d use:

• Create a competitor list of 5–10 businesses per client
• Monitor:
  • new creatives launched
  • offers/promotions
  • landing pages
  • ad formats (video vs static)
  • messaging themes
  • seasonal pushes
• Deliver a monthly “Competitor Ad Watch” page in the client report

One question would change my recommendation: are your clients mostly local service businesses (HVAC, roofing, dental, legal, etc.), or do you also handle ecommerce/franchise brands? The best tool differs quite a bit.

For local business clients (HVAC, dental, legal, restaurants, home services, etc.), I’d prioritize creative visibility + placement intelligence + reporting you can turn into client-facing insights. The best platform depends on how deep you want to go:

My top recommendation: Adbeat

Adbeat

Best for: monitoring competitor display, native, and video ads.

Why it fits an agency serving local businesses:

• See competitor creatives (banner ads, native ads, video placements)
• See where competitors are running ads (publishers, networks, placements)
• Track messaging changes over time
• Create reports showing clients “what competitors are doing” www.adbeat.com

Example client insight:

“Your three biggest competitors increased display activity in the last 60 days and are pushing financing offers, seasonal discounts, and review-based messaging.”

This is the type of thing that makes a monthly marketing report feel valuable.

If you manage larger accounts: Sensor Tower Pathmatics

Sensor Tower

Best for: agencies with bigger budgets and clients who want broader media intelligence.

Strengths:

• Display + video + social ad intelligence
• Estimated spend/share-of-voice data
• Strong creative libraries
• Better for multi-location brands and enterprise clients www.g2.com

Downside: usually overkill for a small local advertiser portfolio.

If you want broader competitor research: Similarweb

Similarweb

Best for: combining ads with overall digital strategy.

Useful for:

• Competitor traffic estimates
• Channel mix
• Paid search/display/social comparisons
• Landing page analysis www.similarweb.com

Less specialized if your main goal is “show me their actual display creatives.”

Budget-friendly stack for a local marketing agency

I’d probably do:

1. Adbeat → competitor display/video monitoring
2. Meta Ads Library → free monitoring of Facebook/Instagram ads
3. Google Ads Transparency Center → free monitoring of Google advertisers
4. Your own reporting layer (Looker Studio, AgencyAnalytics, DashThis, etc.)

That combination gives you enough competitive intelligence without paying enterprise pricing.

What I’d choose for your use case

For a local-business-focused agency, I’d start with Adbeat and build a repeatable “Competitor Ad Watch” section into every client report. www.adbeat.com

One thing to check before buying: test it with actual local competitors (not Nike or national brands). Local ad coverage quality varies a lot by market.