Every filter in Adligator, explained (the 13-filter reference)

This is the complete reference for Adligator's filter panel — 13 filters grouped into three sections. If you have been using only GEO and sort, this article is the unlock. Most experienced users live in 4-6 filters; knowing what each one does is the difference between "I think I can answer that" and "give me 30 seconds."

The filter panel opens from the button to the right of the search bar. Three groups inside, top to bottom: Campaign, Source, Properties.

Group 1 — Campaign filters

These describe the campaign itself: where it runs, when it launched, how long it has run.

GEO (multi-select countries)

The countries the ad is being served in. Multi-select dropdown with starts-with search inside.

• Click the input to open the dropdown.
• Type in the inner Enter value search to filter — case-insensitive, starts-with. Typing uk matches Ukraine, not United Kingdom.
• Click any country to add. Selected countries appear as pills inside the input.
• Pair with the To filter (next entry) to control whether you want ads served-in-country vs targeted-to-country-only.

Use it for: market-specific ad pulls, regional comparisons, country-tailored creative analysis. See the filter-by-country recipe.

To (max number of countries)

A numeric input with up/down spinners. It is a ceiling on how many countries an ad's campaign targets.

• To = 1 keeps only ads tailored to a single country. Combine with GEO=X to get "ads that target ONLY country X."
• To = 3 keeps ads targeting 3 or fewer countries — useful for regional groups (DACH, Nordic, LATAM-core).
• Blank To means no ceiling — ads targeting any number of countries are included.

Use it for: isolating market-specific creative, separating tested-in-one-country tests from globalized winners.

Creation date

A date picker for when the ad first launched on Meta. Supports single-day, date range, and 9 presets:

• Today, Yesterday, Last week, This month, Last month, 3 months ago, 6 months ago, Last year, All time.

Manual range: click a start day, re-open, click an end day. The input displays DD/MM/YYYY - DD/MM/YYYY.

Use it for: "what launched this week?" feeds, comparing a brand's recent activity vs historical, freshness-based research.

Days active (numeric range)

How many consecutive days the ad has been running. Two numeric inputs: From and To, both with spinners.

• From = 30 keeps only ads alive for 30+ days. The single most useful filter for finding winners.
• From = 30, To = 60 returns a survival cohort — ads in their "tested but not yet evergreen" window.
• To = 7 keeps only fresh launches (under a week alive).

Use it for: filtering out tests, surfacing proven winners, building survival-cohort analyses. See find long-running winners.

Group 2 — Source filters

These describe who or where the ad originates from.

FB page (id)

A hybrid free-text input with autocomplete on Facebook page name. Type a brand name and an autocomplete dropdown lists matching pages with avatar + name + numeric Page ID. Or paste a raw Page ID directly.

• Single value — no multi-select.
• Most useful when you have a specific competitor in mind and want their full ad library scoped to other filters.

Use it for: brand-specific deep dives, page-ID-driven workflows for ops/analytics teams.

URL / IP

A free-text input for the ad's landing-page URL or destination IP. No autocomplete, no validation.

• Useful for tracking which ads point at which funnels, scraping-prep workflows, or affiliate-link analyses.

Use it for: funnel teardowns, identifying which creative drives traffic to which landing page.

Domain zone

A free-text input for top-level domain (com, io, co.uk, ru, de, etc.). No autocomplete.

• Useful when you want to filter by ccTLD — "ads pointing at .ua domains" or "ads pointing at .co.uk landing pages."

Use it for: regional / ccTLD-based filtering, often paired with GEO for cross-validation (a .de domain + GEO=Germany is a stronger market signal than either alone).

Platform (multi-select)

A multi-select dropdown of Meta's ad placements. Five options:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Audience Network
• Messenger
• Threads

Pick one or more — picking two returns ads running on either.

Use it for: placement-specific creative analysis. Instagram-only ads are usually Reels/Stories optimized for vertical mobile. Threads-running ads are a leading indicator that the brand is testing the newer surface.

OS (multi-select)

A multi-select dropdown of operating system. Two options:

• iOS
• Android

Use it for: mobile-platform-specific creative analysis. App-install campaigns often segment iOS vs Android creative; consumer ads less so but worth checking when targeting one of the platforms specifically.

Group 3 — Properties filters

These describe the ad itself: language, CTA, format, recency.

Text language (multi-select with search)

A multi-select dropdown of the language of the ad copy. First 10 options surface by default:

• English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese, French, Kazakh, German, Italian, Thai.

More languages are scrollable below; the inner Enter value search filters the list.

Use it for: language-specific creative pulls, localization audits, "how do brands talk to language audiences?" research. Pair with GEO for native vs translated creative analysis (e.g. GEO=Spain + Text language=Spanish vs GEO=Spain + Text language=English will show two very different creative strategies).

CTA button (multi-select with search)

A multi-select dropdown of the call-to-action button on the ad. 11 options:

• Learn more, Shop now, Message page, View Instagram profile, Sign up, Like page, Install mobile app, Book travel, Event RSVP, Apply now, WhatsApp message.

Use it for: funnel-stage filtering. Lead-gen verticals skew toward Sign up / Apply now / Install. Ecom skews toward Shop now. Brand-building skews toward Like page / View Instagram profile. The CTA distribution alone tells you what the brand is optimizing for.

Display format (multi-select)

A multi-select dropdown of the ad's visual format. 11 options:

• Image, Video, DCO, Carousel, Event, DPA, Text, Page like, Multi images, Multi videos, Multi medias.

Use it for: format-specific competitor research. See find ads by format for the full recipe.

Last seen active (single-select)

A SINGLE-select dropdown (different pattern from the others — no checkboxes). Five options, relative-time only:

• 1 day ago, 3 days ago, 7 days ago, 15 days ago, 30 days ago.

Setting "7 days ago" keeps only ads Meta has shown active within the last 7 days. Useful when you want a "currently running" view that doesn't include ads that quietly stopped a week ago.

Use it for: keeping the result set fresh, building "live now" Trackers, filtering out historical noise.

Patterns by job

A quick-pick matrix for the four most common research jobs:

Most strong searches use 2-4 filters. Beyond 4, results usually start to empty out.

Filter stacking — how filters combine

• Across groups: AND. Adding a filter makes the result set smaller. GEO=US AND Display format=Video AND Days active From=30 returns only US-served videos that have been alive 30+ days.
• Within a multi-select filter: OR. Picking Platform=Facebook AND Instagram returns ads on either.
• Sort is independent. Sort affects ordering, not filtering. You always need both — filters narrow the universe, sort orders what's left.

When the panel returns zero results

Three things to check, in order:

1. GEO + To too tight. GEO=Germany + To=1 + brand-scoped search often returns nothing if the brand doesn't run Germany-only campaigns. Drop the To first.
2. Creation date too narrow. A 7-day window on a brand that launched 0 ads that week returns 0. Widen to 30 days or All time first.
3. Multiple multi-select filters all set. Each multi-select narrows the result. If you set Platform=Instagram AND OS=iOS AND Display format=Video, you might be down to "Instagram-iOS-Video" which is a narrow slice.

Loosen the most restrictive filter and re-check before assuming the brand has no matching ads.

Saving a filter combination

Once you've built a query that produces a clean result, save it as a Tracker. The Tracker stores every active filter; opening it later loads the same view and tells you what's new since your last visit. This is how filter discipline compounds — the 5 minutes you spent finding the right combo becomes a 5-second weekly check.

What's next

The filter reference is the floor. The how-to recipes are the ceiling — they show what filter combinations actually solve real problems:

• Filter by country — GEO + To recipe.
• Find long-running winners — sort + Days active.
• Find ads by format — Display format slicing.
• Compare two competitors — Trackers + Analytics for side-by-side reads.

If you're new to the app, the first search walkthrough is the right entry point. If a term in this article was unfamiliar, the glossary has the lookups.