Adligator glossary: every term you'll see in the app
A one-page lookup for every Adligator-specific term — Tracker, Longest running, GEO, Display format, DCO, and everything else on a card.
Adligator borrows some terminology from Meta's ecosystem and invents some of its own. This page is the lookup — open it in a side tab while you learn the app, or bookmark it as a quick reference when you run into a term mid-search.
Terms are alphabetical. If you came in from a link on another article, jump straight to your anchor.
A
Active
An ad is active when Meta is currently serving it to users. On a card the run-time badge shows the number of consecutive days the ad has been active. On the filter panel, the Last seen active filter lets you keep only ads seen as active within the last 1 / 3 / 7 / 15 / 30 days.
Ad
A single row in the Creatives grid — one image / video / carousel that Meta is (or was) serving on a brand's behalf. Adligator and Meta both call these "ads"; you will also see them called "creatives" interchangeably across the app and this Academy.
Ad launched
The date Meta first served the ad publicly. Visible on the detail page right-rail. Sortable indirectly via Creation date filter.
Ad stopped
The date Meta last served the ad. Empty for currently active ads. Visible on the detail page right-rail.
Advertiser
The Facebook page running the ad — the entity Meta charges for impressions. Synonym: Page (see below).
Analytics
The dashboard that unlocks once you save a Tracker. Slices the tracked brand four ways: launches over time, visuals breakdown, copy patterns, country mix. Includes the Heatmap sub-view for day-of-week / hour-of-day launch cadence. See the Analytics deep dive.
Audience Network
One of the four Meta placements on the Platforms line of a card. It is Meta's third-party ad inventory — apps and websites outside Meta-owned properties. Ads here are usually smaller-format banners or interstitials.
C
Card
A single ad row in the Creatives grid. Eight signals per card; see Reading a creative card.
Carousel
A Meta ad format with multiple swipeable images or videos in a single ad unit. Marked on the card with a small dot indicator showing the number of slides.
Collection
A folder of ads you have saved. Every card has a bookmark icon — clicking it drops the ad into your default collection. Open the Collections tab to rename folders, drag ads between them, or share by link. See Collections feature.
Creation date
The date the ad was first launched on Meta. Filter the grid by an exact day, a range, or one of the nine presets (Today, Yesterday, Last week, This month, etc.).
Creative
Synonym for Ad. Used interchangeably throughout the app.
CTA button
The clickable call-to-action attached to the ad — "Shop now", "Learn more", "Sign up", "Install mobile app", etc. Filter the grid by CTA to isolate by funnel stage: "Sign up" / "Apply now" / "Install" usually means lead generation; "Shop now" / "Book travel" usually means transactional.
D
Days active
How many consecutive days the ad has been live on Meta. Both a card signal and a filter (From / To numeric range). The single most useful filter for finding winners. See find long-running winners.
DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimization)
A Meta ad format where the advertiser uploads multiple headlines, images, descriptions, and CTAs and Meta auto-combines them into variants. Marked with a DCO badge on the card. Brands running heavy DCO are delegating creative selection to Meta's algorithm — common at scale.
Display format
The visual format of the ad: Image, Video, DCO, Carousel, Event, DPA, Text, Page like, Multi images, Multi videos, Multi medias. Filter the grid by one or more formats. See find ads by format.
Domain zone
The TLD (top-level domain) of the ad's landing page — com, io, co.uk, ru, etc. Useful for regional / ccTLD-based filtering.
DPA (Dynamic Product Ads)
A Meta format driven by a product catalog. Each impression renders a different product based on what the user has browsed. Marked with a DPA badge. Almost always ecommerce.
F
FB page
Synonym for Page. The advertiser entity that runs the ad. In autocomplete, choosing an "FB page" row scopes the search to that specific advertiser.
Filter panel
The pop-out panel that drops from the search bar containing all 13 filters. Three groups inside: Campaign (GEO, To, Creation date, Days active), Source (FB page, URL/IP, Domain zone, Platform, OS), Properties (Text language, CTA button, Display format, Last seen active). See filters deep dive.
G
GEO
The countries where the ad is being served. On a card, it appears as GEO: 1 country (single-market test) or GEO: 12 countries (validated, globalized). In the filter panel, GEO is a multi-select dropdown with all countries Meta operates in.
H
Heatmap
A sub-view inside Analytics that plots launch activity across day-of-week × hour-of-day. Hover any cell for the exact launch count. Useful for spotting weekly cadence — e.g. "this brand re-launches every Sunday evening."
I
Inactive
The opposite of Active. Meta has stopped serving the ad. Adligator still indexes inactive ads for historical analysis — many of the strongest creative teardowns happen on ads that ran for 200+ days and then stopped.
L
Last seen active
A filter that keeps only ads Meta has shown as active within a window (1 / 3 / 7 / 15 / 30 days). Use this when you want a "currently running winners" view that doesn't include ads that quietly stopped a week ago.
Longest running
A sort option in the Creatives grid. Ranks ads by descending Days active. The top of the list is the brand's proven winners — ads they have paid to keep live the longest. The single most useful sort change for a first-time user.
M
Meta Ad Library
Meta's official public archive of ads currently running on Facebook, Instagram, and the Audience Network. Adligator's data originates here — every ad we surface is one Meta itself publishes for transparency. Adligator's job is to make it searchable, filterable, and continuously monitored.
O
Open in Ad Library
A link on the ad detail page that takes you to the original ad inside Meta's native Ad Library. Useful for cross-referencing.
OS
Operating system: iOS or Android. Filter the grid by OS for mobile-platform-specific creative analysis.
P
Page
A Facebook page — the entity running the ad. Synonym for Advertiser and FB page. The Pages tab lists pages instead of ads; see Pages tab feature.
Pages tab
The second main tab of the app. Lists Facebook pages, not ads. Each row shows page name, total ads ever indexed, active count, rejected count. Click a row to jump to a brand-scoped Creatives grid.
Phrase search
The "Search by phrase" row at the top of the autocomplete panel. Runs a broad keyword match across ad copy — best for niche-wide research like weight loss patches or ai resume builder.
Platform
One of Meta's ad placements: Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger, Threads. Both a card signal and a multi-select filter.
Primary text
The long-form description above the visual in a Meta feed ad. The "first line" is usually the hook. On a card, primary text is truncated at the second line on purpose — to force you to read the hook the way the actual user does.
R
Rejected
A Meta ad-policy status — the ad was disallowed and Meta refused to serve it. On the Pages tab, the Rejected column is the page's lifetime count of disallowed ads. Useful for spotting brands that operate near policy lines.
Run time
Synonym for Days active. The badge label on a card.
S
Sort dropdown
The top-right control of the Creatives grid. Options: Newest in database, Recently launched, Longest running.
T
Text language
A filter for the language of the ad copy (English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, etc.). Useful for localization audits and language-specific creative pulls.
To (filter)
The numeric "max GEOs" filter next to GEO. Setting To = 1 keeps only ads running in a single country — the simplest way to isolate hyper-targeted, market-specific creative.
Tracker
A saved search. Configure once (brand + filters), Adligator re-runs it for you and surfaces only the new ads on every visit. Unlocks the Analytics tab. See Trackers feature.
U
URL / IP
A free-text filter for the ad's destination URL or landing-page IP. Useful for funnel-teardown and scraping workflows.
If you spot a term in the app that isn't here, ping us — the glossary grows from real questions. Next, if you want to leave the lookup table and go back to building: the filters deep dive is the natural next step, and the how-to recipes cover the most common end-to-end workflows.