Alternatives to MOAT - Ad Search and Ad Analytics

Moat Ad Search was considered an industry leader in ad search and analytics services. However, after Moat's acquisition by Oracle in 2017, its free ad spy tools disappeared. Since then, researchers, marketers, and ad agencies have scrambled to find the newest, best Moat alternative.

This article discusses what Moat Ad Search was and why it's no longer accessible, as well as the best alternatives for ad search and analytics services available in the market today.

Let's start.

What was Moat Ad Search?

Founded in 2010 by Jonah and Noah Goodhart, Moat Ad Search was a free digital advertising search engine that provided analytics and insights for marketers and advertisers. It quickly became used by top brands, like Duracell, Spotify, and Bloomberg Media Group, offering an intuitive user interface and robust features.

Beyond simply ad search, Moat also allowed users to do the following:

• View and learn competitor ad creatives, placements, and tags.
• Get insights on audience demographics and engagement metrics.
• See details on how ads run and where users have seen them.
• View and measure engagement analytics like viewability and attention time.
• Track campaign performance.
• Find ad designers via their crowdsourced marketplace.

Among its standout features was its heatmap engagement analytics, showing where users hovered their mouse on ads. For instance, Moat’s data revealed that an image of a shoe could generate 2.6 times more clicks than an image of a person.

What Happened to Moat Ad Search?

In 2017, Oracle acquired Moat for $850 million, integrating its employees and functionalities into Oracle's broader digital cloud services. This led to the discontinuation of Moat Ad Search's free tools, frustrating people worldwide who simply wanted quick, cost-effective ad analytics.

While Oracle continues to offer advanced advertising analytics through its digital cloud services, the gap left by Moat Ad Search was undoubtedly significant. 

On Reddit, for example, we can see users expressing their disappointment and confusion over Moat’s disappearance:

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Moat Ad Library Alternatives You Can Try Today

1. MagicBrief

MagicBrief is largely considered the worthy successor to Moat in 2024. This ad platform offers an interactive ad library that supports banner and video ads from Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. With access to over 5,000,000 ads from more than 25,000 brands, users have a wealth of inspiration and insights at their fingertips to craft winning ads.

MagicBrief's advanced search filters enable users to refine searches by industry, brand, country, ad format, and even ad score—a unique AI metric that ranks ads from red to green based on performance.

Users can also sync their ad campaigns to the platform, tracking key metrics such as engagement, audience demographics, thumbstop rates, interest levels, traffic, and conversion rates. These metrics are displayed in colorful charts and graphs that are easy to interpret.

Sign up for MagicBrief and start your 5-day free trial to explore all its features and benefits today.

You can also utilize native analytics tools provided by social media platforms:

2. Facebook Ad Library

If you're running social media ads, you're likely using Facebook. Beyond its own analytics dashboard, the platform also has a useful ad library feature.

Here, you can search for inactive and active ads from Facebook, Instagram, What's App, and audience networks. You can sort these by country, date range, and ad format and filter to show specific advertisers. 

Thanks to the EU's transparency regulations, ads shown in Europe offer more details about its funding and targeting. This feature helps you understand the geographic and demographic targeting strategies used by various advertisers.

3. TikTok Ad Library

Similar to the Facebook Ad Library, this platform lists all ads running on the app in various countries. While its filtering capabilities aren't quite as robust, it still provides useful information such as ad format, demographics, and targeting details.

4. Google Transparency Center

Another Moat alternative is the Google Transparency Center.

Launched on September 22, 2022, this platform lets you find ad creatives from Google’s various platforms, including Google Search, Google Maps and YouTube. Search results can also be filtered by ad format, such as text, image, banner, and video. 

While the Center is fairly comprehensive, users have noted that keyword data is limited and competitor budget insights, bid strategy and targeting options, and landing pages aren't available. Nonetheless, it's still a solid resource for analyzing ads and gaining insights into your competitors' strategies.

Final Thoughts on Today's Moat Alternatives

While Moat's shutdown is still felt in the industry, it's only spurred the creation of more tools that offer similar features and insights. These have essentially filled the void, offering marketers even better tools and resources to optimize their ad campaigns.

MagicBrief stands out as the closest alternative to Moat, offering a modern and advanced version of the capabilities Moat once provided. With its ability to support video formats, and features like AI-powered tagging, video ad transcription, and customisable dashboards, users have even more control and in-depth analysis at their fingertips.

Alternatively, the rise of platform-native ad libraries like Facebook and TikTok also provide valuable information for advertisers in those specific channels. With more transparency regulations being implemented, it's clear that the industry is moving towards a more transparent and accountable future. Keep an eye out for new tools and features that continue to push the boundaries of ad analytics!

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