# See what a competitor posts and advertises on Facebook

> Ask your agent what a competitor posts on its Facebook page and which ads it runs on Meta. Manifold reads the page, its posts and the Meta ad library with no Facebook login, at 1 credit a call. Semrush posted six times in one day for 1 to 10 likes each, and ran 28 active ads, half of them about AI.

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Job | What a rival posts, what works, and what it pays to promote |
| Tools | facebook_get_profile, facebook_get_posts, ads_get_advertiser_ads |
| Credits | 4 for the four calls in this run |
| Needs | No Facebook login, Meta app or ad account |
| Run on | Semrush's Facebook page and Meta ads, 27 October 2026 |

## The prompt

We asked our own agent, Claude Code connected to Manifold, on 27 October 2026:

```text
What does Semrush post on its Facebook page, what gets the likes, and what ads is it running
on Meta right now? Tell me what a smaller SEO tool could learn from it.
```

## The calls

| Step | Tool | Input | Credits |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [`facebook_get_profile`](https://www.manifoldmcp.com/docs/tools/facebook#facebook_get_profile) | facebook.com/semrush | 1 |
| 2 | [`facebook_get_posts`](https://www.manifoldmcp.com/docs/tools/facebook#facebook_get_posts) | facebook.com/semrush, two pages | 2 |
| 3 | [`ads_get_advertiser_ads`](https://www.manifoldmcp.com/docs/tools/ads#ads_get_advertiser_ads) | Semrush in the Meta ad library, active ads | 1 |

The profile returns the page's followers, category and whether it is advertising now, with the id the ad library takes. The posts come newest first, with likes, comments and video views. The ads come from Meta's public library: each ad's text, format, dates, placements and landing page. None of it needs a Facebook login.

## What came back

**The page.** 275,000 followers, in Software, on Facebook since 2010, and running ads.

**The posts.** Two pages returned 6 posts, all from 27 October 2026, between 09:52 and 17:10 UTC.

| Time (UTC) | Format | Likes | Comments | Views | Topic |
| --- | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| 09:52 | Text | 4 | 1 | | 10 practices for visibility across search and AI |
| 11:48 | Video | 10 | 2 | 591 | Claude with Semrush's skills |
| 12:40 | Text | 4 | 1 | | What makes AI cite one page over another, from its own study |
| 14:32 | Text | 9 | 1 | | 5 tips to raise a website's authority |
| 16:34 | Video | 4 | 0 | 51 | Its Spotlight event in London |
| 17:10 | Text | 1 | 0 | | How AI describes the company you were two years ago |

**The ads.** The first page held 28 active ads, with more behind it: 14 videos, 9 dynamic ads, 3 images and 2 carousels. The oldest still running started on 1 June 2026. Some of them:

| Headline | Text | First shown | Lands on |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Still checking ChatGPT manually? | How often are you manually checking ChatGPT to see if your brand shows up? | 15 Sep | AI toolkit |
| Don't disappear in AI | Discover if AI assistants mention your brand or skip you entirely | 5 Jun | AI toolkit |
| The site audit changed everything | I tested AI-generated SEO advice against a real site audit. The difference was brutal. | 22 Aug | Site audit, 4 versions |
| Generic SEO advice won't fix rankings | AI can write SEO advice. But it can't see what's broken on your website. | 18 Aug | Site audit |
| Google debunks 5 GEO tactics | Special AI rewrites? Content chunking? Google says they aren't ranking shortcuts. | 19 Aug | Semrush One |
| What is your audience searching for? | Find the keywords worth targeting in seconds. | 15 Sep | Keyword tool |

## What the agent concluded

- **The ads sell against AI as much as with it.** 14 of the 28 ads mention AI. Some sell tracking how AI answers name your brand; others say AI-written SEO advice cannot see what is broken on your site, and send people to the site audit.
- **The site audit is the workhorse.** 6 ads land on its page, one of them in 4 versions, the sign Meta gives when an advertiser scales a winner. 11 of the 28 offer the same thing: try free for 7 days.
- **The page posts often for little reward.** Six posts in one day drew 1 to 10 likes each from 275,000 followers. The video about using Claude did best, at 591 views.
- **The library shows no reach or spend.** For these ads Meta publishes neither impressions nor spend, so how much Semrush pays behind each one is not in this data.

## Run it on yours

```text
What does {competitor} post on its Facebook page, what gets the likes, and what ads is it
running on Meta? Group the ads by offer and landing page.
```

For the comments under one post, call [`facebook_get_comments`](https://www.manifoldmcp.com/docs/tools/facebook#facebook_get_comments). To see who else runs ads on the same angle, [`ads_search_ads`](https://www.manifoldmcp.com/docs/tools/ads#ads_search_ads) searches the library by keyword, as in [our competitor ads run](https://www.manifoldmcp.com/use-cases/research-competitor-ads).

## Questions

### Do I need a Facebook account or a Meta app?

No. Manifold reads public Facebook pages and Meta's public ad library through a data provider, with no login, cookie or Meta developer app of yours.

### Can I see how much a competitor spends on Meta ads?

Only where Meta publishes it. For all 28 of these ads it published neither spend nor impressions, and your agent leaves those fields empty rather than guess.

### Does Facebook give share counts?

No. Facebook publishes no share count, so it comes back empty. Likes, comments and video views come back where the page shows them.

### Can I read a Facebook group?

Yes, a public one. A separate tool reads a group's posts.

## Next

- [Facebook MCP server](https://www.manifoldmcp.com/mcp/facebook)
- [Facebook tools in the docs](https://www.manifoldmcp.com/docs/tools/facebook)
- [Ad library tools in the docs](https://www.manifoldmcp.com/docs/tools/ads)

Published 27 October 2026. Updated 27 October 2026.