How to find out which competitors are running catalog ads on Meta
Catalog ads are the biggest blind spot in competitor ad research. Here's how to filter for them, read the winning formats, and confirm whether they're actually driving revenue.
A fast, filter-first workflow for spotting the catalog ads your competitors are quietly scaling while you're still studying their videos.
A friend of mine runs a mid-8-figure apparel brand. Last quarter he burned three months of creative tests trying to catch a competitor pulling ahead of him in his niche.
The competitor's Meta ads looked ordinary. Same video length, same hooks, same sort of product shots.
He finally dug into their funnel. Two-thirds of their Meta impressions were catalog ads.
He wasn't losing to better creatives. He was losing to a category of ad he wasn't studying at all.
Catalog ads, DPAs, product feed ads, Advantage+ catalog campaigns, are the biggest blind spot in competitor ad research right now. The creatives are technically visible.
But unless you filter for them, you can't tell which brands in your niche are running catalog ads at scale.
This is how to find out, in about 40 minutes, who's scaling catalog ads in your niche and what their winning format looks like.
Why catalog ads disappear in normal competitor research
When you scroll a competitor's Meta ads, you see the creative. You don't see the funnel.
Catalog ads look like regular ads at first glance. But they route to a product feed instead of a landing page.
Meta pulls from the brand's catalog and serves whichever SKU the algorithm thinks the viewer will buy.
That's the whole point of DPAs. And it's why operators running them quietly scale past teams still pushing single-product video ads on cold audiences.
Most ad spy tools won't tell you which ads are catalog and which aren't. So the brands doing 60% of their Meta revenue from catalog ads, the ones you actually want to learn from, look identical to everyone else in your feed.
You end up copying creative without copying the mechanism.
The filter that makes catalog ads visible
In Brandsearch Discovery, the Meta filter bar has a Funnel Type option. Three values: Landing page, App, Product catalog.
Click Product catalog, search a niche keyword, and every ad that loads is a DPA.
That's it. That's the step nobody writes about.
Switch the same search back to Landing page and you'll see the brands still driving traffic to static product pages. Switch to App and you'll see the ones running app-install campaigns.
The three buckets tell you exactly how each competitor is building their funnel.
Pick your niche, set Funnel Type to Product catalog, then sort by Top rank. The brands at the top of that list are scaling catalog creative hard enough that Meta is giving them reach.
Those are the ones to study.
What to actually read off each catalog ad
Once you're filtered down to catalog ads, the creative question changes.
Single-product ad research is about the hook and the offer. Catalog ad research is about the grid, how many products per carousel, how they're stacked, which anchor SKUs lead, and how the copy frames the catalog itself.
Here's what I check first on any catalog ad that's been running 25+ days:
- Number of products in the carousel (usually 4–10, rarely more)
- Whether the first card is a bestseller or a testing product
- Whether they mix premium and entry-level SKUs in the same catalog
- Whether the copy names the category ("new arrivals", "bestsellers", "under $50") or stays generic
- Whether the static cards use lifestyle imagery or flat product shots
You can pull all of this from Brandsearch Discovery directly. No need to click through to the competitor's store.
The ad card shows the full carousel, running days, and active status.
Sort by Longest running next. The catalog ads live for 60+ days are the ones Meta's algorithm has already validated.
If a brand has the same "under $50 bestsellers" catalog running for three months, that's not a test. That's infrastructure.
Write down the headline template too. Catalog ads use dynamic fields, `{product_name}, now {discount}% off`, or `Loved by {review_count} customers`.
The headline template is the only copy the operator actually wrote. Everything else is rendered on the fly.
A template that's been running 60 days is one you can borrow almost directly.
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Catalog creative on its own doesn't tell you if it's working. It tells you what they're running.
To figure out whether catalog ads are actually carrying the brand, open Brand Analysis on any of the top competitors you found. The Overview tab is the default landing screen.
You'll see three live charts, Ad Scaling, Traffic Sources, and Traffic Trends, next to the metrics banner and the brand profile card. The Traffic Trends chart is the one that matters here.
It's the monthly visitor history going back, and it shows you exactly when a brand started scaling.
Line up the traffic inflection point with when they started going heavy on catalog ads. If traffic started climbing the same month they scaled DPAs, you have your answer.
If it didn't line up, their catalog ads are probably a retention play, not a cold-traffic weapon.
Creative without context is just a screenshot collection. This is the cross-check that keeps you from copying a pattern that isn't actually winning.
Why catalog ads matter more in 2026 than they did two years ago
Meta's Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns pushed catalog ads from "retargeting tactic" to "primary acquisition channel" for most serious DTC brands.
Two shifts made the difference.
Advantage+ changed who catalog ads work for. You no longer need a warm pixel to run them profitably.
ASC campaigns blend catalog creative with cold audiences, and Meta's optimization handles the matching. Brands that used to run single-product video ads on cold traffic are now running catalog ads on cold traffic at better CPAs.
The creative lift is lower. One product feed, one dynamic template, 40 variations Meta assembles on the fly.
Teams that used to struggle shipping five new statics per week are now pushing 200 SKUs through a single creative template.
That's why the brands scaling hardest in 2026 aren't always the ones with the best video ads. They're the ones with the best catalogs wired into the best DPA templates.
And that's exactly the layer most ad spy workflows miss.
Three competitor audits you can run this week
Pick one niche you're selling into. Then run these three searches in order.
Audit 1: Who is running catalog ads at all?
Open Brandsearch Discovery, set platform to Meta, filter Funnel Type to Product catalog, and search your niche keyword. Scroll the first two pages and write down every brand you see.
Those are your catalog-first competitors.
Audit 2: Whose catalog ads are actually scaling?
Same search. Sort by Longest running, then by Top rank.
The brands that show up on both lists have catalog ads Meta is rewarding with reach. Save them to a folder.
Audit 3: Is the catalog ad carrying their revenue?
Open Brandsearch Brand Analysis on each of those saved brands. Check the Overview tab's Traffic Trends chart.
If the traffic inflection lines up with when their catalog ads started scaling, you've confirmed the pattern.
Three searches, maybe 40 minutes of work. At the end of it, you know exactly which competitors are running catalog ads, whether their catalog ads are working, and what the winning format looks like in your niche.
You also know which brands to model your own catalog ads against.
Free way to start if you're not ready to subscribe
Most of this only works inside a paid tool because you need the Funnel Type filter. But there's a lighter free entry point worth knowing.
Start with the Brandsearch Chrome Extension, it's free, it lives in your browser toolbar, and every Shopify store you land on shows instant traffic, ads, tech stack, and estimated revenue. It won't filter catalog ads for you, but it'll tell you which brands in your niche are large enough to be worth digging into later.
Every brand you research with the extension carries straight into the full app when you upgrade.
Meta Ad Library and TikTok Creative Center are still useful as secondary free options for general scrolling. Just know they have no funnel type filtering, so you'll have to guess at catalog vs. landing page from the creative itself.
Summary
Catalog ads are the quiet infrastructure behind most of the brands scaling in 2026. Most operators can't see them because the tools they use don't distinguish funnel types.
Fix that by running a single filter pass:
- Brandsearch Discovery, filter Meta ads by Funnel Type = Product catalog, sort by Longest running, and write down the brands that appear twice.
- Brandsearch Brand Analysis, open each of those brands on the Overview tab and line up the Traffic Trends chart with when their catalog ads started scaling.
- Brandsearch Swipe Files, save the winning catalog ads into a "DPA references" folder so you can model your own layout against proven ones in your niche.
Stop guessing which competitors are running catalog ads. Filter for them.