Ad research

Ad research (Ads > Ad research) shows which of your past Meta ads worked, so you can build the next one from a proven starting point. It lists the ads your workspace has already run in its own connected Meta ad account, with the numbers Meta measured for each one and the creative itself.

It only reads from Meta and never writes to it. Opening it never creates a campaign and never spends a cent.

Why your own account matters most#

Your own ad account has what no competitor view does: real spend, impressions, clicks and click-through rate, plus the creative files you already own. Competitor ads carry none of those numbers, because Meta publishes no results for another advertiser's ordinary commercial ads.

What is on each card#

Every ad shows:

• Its picture or video, headline and primary text.
• Four measured numbers: click-through rate, clicks, impressions and amount spent.
• The dates Meta measured them over.

Nothing on the card is estimated. An ad Meta has no delivery data for yet says so instead of showing zeroes, because an ad that never ran did not earn a 0% click-through rate.

The picture is the full-size creative wherever Meta holds one, shown whole. A large one is scaled down to fit rather than cropped, and a small one stays its own size instead of being stretched. Videos keep their shape too.

How the ranking works#

Rank by click-through rate (the default), amount spent, or impressions. The sentence above the list always says which one is in use.

• An ad under 1,000 impressions cannot take a ranked position and sits below the ones that can. One click on forty impressions is a 2.5% click-through rate and means nothing, so letting it top the list would be a lie.
• Ads Meta has no data for sit last.

Which ad account it opens on#

Pick the account under Ad account at the top. Accounts that are not running ads are marked (not running ads). The picker holds only this workspace's own ad accounts and Pages: those of the business that owns the Facebook Page connected here, or, before a Page is connected, the ones ticked when connecting Meta. Other ad accounts the same Meta login can reach (another client's, say) are not shown.

Until you pick one, the page opens on, in this order:

1. The account that spent the most in the last 30 days.
2. The account Gene App last published an ad to.
3. The first active one.

Your pick is remembered for this workspace on this browser. It also goes into the page address (?account=), so a copied link opens the same account. If a remembered account can no longer be reached, the page falls back to the default.

For the same ad results added up per campaign over 7, 30 or 90 days, see the Meta ads card on Analytics.

Build a new ad from this#

The Build a new ad from this button on each card opens the ad wizard with that ad's headline and primary text already filled in. Its listing is selected too, when Gene App published the ad itself and therefore knows which listing it was about.

The picture does not come across. Gene App does not copy the image and does not generate a lookalike of it. You pick your own photos and one of the Gene styles or templates, and the words that already worked are your starting point. That keeps every asset in the finished ad one you own.

Move to Ads, or Open in Ads#

An ad you built in Ads Manager, outside Gene App, only shows up here at first.

Move an Ads Manager ad into your Ads list#

Where your workspace can publish ads to Meta, its card under Your results has a Move to Ads button. It adds the ad to your Ads list (Ads in the left menu) next to the ads Gene App published, labelled Built in Ads Manager.

• Nothing changes on Meta. The ad keeps running exactly as before, and it stays in Ad research too.
• Moving the same ad twice does not make a second copy.
• Without publishing to Meta, the card has no Move to Ads, because the moved ad's numbers and pause switch are part of the publish card. Build a new ad from this still works.

What you get on its page in Ads#

• Its live numbers: what this one ad has spent, its impressions and clicks.
• A pause and resume switch. It pauses only that ad, never the rest of its campaign, because a campaign built in Ads Manager can hold other ads.
• A link to Ads Manager. Its budget, words and picture are changed there, or on its campaign under Ads > Meta campaigns.
• Build a new ad like this, which starts a Gene App ad from its words instead.

Removing it from the Ads list (the bin on its tile) only takes it off the list. It keeps running on Meta.

Open in Ads#

A card for an ad that is already in your Ads list, because Gene App published it or you moved it earlier, shows Open in Ads instead. It opens that ad's page.

Competitor ads: watch them without leaving Gene App#

The Competitor ads view searches every advertiser on Meta, in any country, and shows the ads right on the page. Videos play in place and images load in place.

Each card carries the advertiser, the ad text, the call to action, and how long the ad has been running. The longest-running ads sit first, and the label above the list says why: an advertiser who keeps paying for the same ad usually likes what it returns.

Search#

• Search a competitor's name and a row of matching advertiser pages appears above the results. Click one to scroll everything that advertiser is running.
• Search a phrase like "off plan Dubai" instead to see who is advertising it.
• If your workspace has competitors named in its SEO settings, they wait as one-click searches before you type anything.
• Each card also links to the same ad on Meta's own Ad Library site.

How long is long? The benchmark chips#

Days running is the one signal Meta publishes for someone else's ad, so each card wears a benchmark chip based on its age:

These are read from one metric, not measured results, and the page never claims otherwise.

Setup for competitor ads#

This view runs through a paid ad-data provider, so it needs one server-side key set up once for the whole install. Until that key exists, the page says so in one sentence instead of showing results.

Requirements#

Meta has to be connected for this workspace under Flows > Inbound. The connection has to carry the ads_management permission, which is what reaches an ad account's ads and results.

If the connection is missing, expired, missing that permission, or reaches no ad account, the page says which of those it is and what to do about it rather than showing an empty screen. A Connect Meta or Reconnect Meta button connects right there.