Snapchat ads spy tool: how to see what competitors run on Snapchat

Is there a Snapchat ads spy tool at all?

The plain answer: not in the sense you expect. Snap's public library (the Snap Political Ads Library) publishes political and advocacy ads as yearly archive files, and Snap has a commercial ads gallery for the European Union under EU law. There is no official library of Snapchat's commercial ads in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf.

And the global paid tools we compared in Ad spy tools (Minea, AdSpy, BigSpy, Pipiads, Foreplay) are built around Meta and TikTok ads; none of them replaces a Snapchat library for the Gulf. So "spying" on Snapchat ads is done through three indirect methods, all public and legitimate.

Method one: the Snapchat pixel on a competitor's store

We cannot count Snapchat ads, but we can count the stores set up for them: the Snapchat pixel is installed on a store to measure Snapchat ads, and a store does not install the pixel of a platform it does not advertise on. On the latest snapshot of 30,000 store pages that Gulf ads lead to, the Snapchat pixel is on 54% of pages:

The gap between platforms is striking: 82% of Salla stores and 83% of Zid stores carry the Snapchat pixel, against 49% of Shopify stores. A Saudi store advertising on Meta usually advertises on Snapchat too. The full study is in Tracking pixels in Gulf stores.

How to check one store:

1. The Snap Pixel Helper extension in Chrome: open the store page and it shows the pixel.
2. The page source: search for snaptr.
3. GccFY: the store page window lists the tracking tools we found on the latest snapshot, next to the page itself.

Method two: the same video in the Meta Ad Library

Most Gulf advertisers shoot one vertical video and run it on Snapchat, Instagram Reels and TikTok. Instagram ads are published openly in the Meta Ad Library: search the competitor's Page in the Facebook Ad Library and you see the video, the offer, the button and the start date, and it is usually the Snapchat ad itself.

In GccFY you find the same video with what the Meta library does not give: a sort by longest running, stopped ads kept, and the store page behind the ad. To learn which videos actually sell, sort your competitor's ads by running time.

Method three: their public account, and the ads with your own eyes

• Follow their public Snapchat account: stories and public content reveal offers and seasons, sometimes before the ads.
• See the ads yourself: ads reach people like their audience; engage with your category's content and its ads will appear.
• Know the formats stores use: Snap Ads (a full-screen image or video with a button), Collection Ads (a video with products underneath), Dynamic Ads from the catalogue, and AR Lenses for big brands.

The three methods together give you what a real "spy tool" would: whether they advertise on Snapchat (the pixel), with what (the video in the Meta library), and when (their public account). The wider guide to Snapchat ads in Saudi Arabia is Snapchat ads.

What GccFY adds for whoever advertises on Snapchat

• The pixel filter: narrow your country's ads to stores carrying the Snapchat pixel, and you see who competes with you on Snapchat and Meta at once.
• The vertical videos of Gulf stores, Arabic only, with the longest running first.
• The store page captured behind every ad, with price, offer, payment method and pixels.
• What it does not do: it does not collect Snapchat ads themselves, nor TikTok; its source is Facebook and Instagram ads.

The free plan has 20 searches a day with no card; paid plans from $19 dollars a month. Every other free option is in Free ad spy tools.