How long does a Meta ad run before it gets cut? Everyone has an opinion, few people have numbers. So we counted.
We took every ad in CreaSpy, CreaFlow AI's library of Meta ads, and measured how long each one ran: 237,138 ads from 27,667 advertisers, almost all launched in 2025 and 2026. Here is what they say about ad lifespan, and about the formats, copy and industries that last.
The key numbers
- 23 days: the median run time of a Meta ad.
- 24.8% of ads stop within their first week, and 13.5% within the first three days.
- 26.6% run past 60 days, 6.9% past six months, and 1.9% last more than a year.
- 1 in 6: among advertisers with at least 20 ads, the median share of ads that run past 60 days. 31% of them have none.
- Video 23 days, image 22 days: format barely changes the run time. Carousels do slightly better, at 28 days.
- 12 days vs 34: the gap in median run time between apps and sports. Industry matters far more than format.
How we measured
The Meta Ad Library doesn't show an ad's sales or return on ad spend. It shows when the ad first ran and the last date it was seen running. So we use run time as the signal: an advertiser doesn't keep an ad that loses money running for weeks. It's the same signal media buyers use when they dig through the Meta Ad Library.
For each ad, run time = last known run date − first run date + 1 day. An ad that is still live keeps running after our capture, so these run times are minimums.
Three limits to keep in mind:
- This isn't every ad on Meta. CreaSpy mostly follows e-commerce brands and their competitors, with ads in French (94,042) and English (94,703). The results describe that market.
- Correlation isn't causation. When a format or a type of copy runs longer, it's an observed trend, not proof that it sells.
- An ad can stop for reasons other than poor results: the end of a sale, a stock-out, seasonality.
One ad in four doesn't make it past the first week
| Run time | Share of ads |
|---|---|
| 3 days or less | 13.5% |
| 7 days or less | 24.8% |
| 14 days or less | 38.7% |
| 30 days or more | 44.0% |
| 60 days or more | 26.6% |
| 90 days or more | 17.7% |
| 180 days or more | 6.9% |
| 365 days or more | 1.9% |
The distribution is very stretched. Half of the ads stop before 23 days, but the most durable quarter runs past 63 days, and one ad in ten runs past 139 days. In other words, most ads are tests that get cut quickly, and a small minority carries the account for months.
That's how modern media buying works: launch a lot, cut what doesn't take off quickly, and let what works keep running. An ad that lasts more than two months isn't the norm; it's the exception you're looking for.
Only one ad in six becomes a long-runner
To see how many ads you need to launch to find one that lasts, we looked at the most active advertisers: the 1,639 advertisers with at least 20 ads in the database (36 ads at the median).
- For the median advertiser, 16% of ads run past 60 days, roughly one in six.
- 31% of these advertisers have no ad running past 60 days, despite 20 ads or more.
This lines up with what industry studies observe: genuinely winning ads are rare. Above all, it gives a useful order of magnitude: to have a good chance of finding a long-running ad, you need to test at least six, on genuinely different ideas. Since Meta's algorithm update (known as Andromeda), specialists stress exactly this point: ten variations of the same image aren't worth ten ideas.
Video, image or carousel: format matters less than you'd think
| Format | Ads | Median run time | Run past 60 days | Cut within 7 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video | 131,258 | 23 days | 26.6% | 24.6% |
| Image | 70,425 | 22 days | 24.4% | 27.1% |
| Carousel | 34,808 | 28 days | 30.6% | 21.2% |
Video makes up 55% of the ads in the database, but it doesn't run much longer than images: one day apart at the median. Carousels do slightly better on every measure. One possible explanation: they're often used to show a catalog or several benefits, ads that are left running continuously.
The lesson: don't switch to video because you were told it's a must. A good idea as an image lasts as well as a good idea as a video. Our guide to static ad formats covers the ones that work.
Copy: not missing, not a novel
| Copy length | Ads | Median run time | Run past 60 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| No copy | 4,338 | 15 days | 19.0% |
| 1 to 80 characters | 24,713 | 24 days | 27.2% |
| 81 to 200 characters | 38,817 | 25 days | 28.7% |
| 201 to 500 characters | 83,070 | 24 days | 28.2% |
| 501 to 1,000 characters | 55,410 | 23 days | 25.5% |
| Over 1,000 characters | 30,790 | 21 days | 21.9% |
Ads with no copy run the shortest (15 days at the median). Ads between 80 and 500 characters, two to five sentences, run the longest. Beyond 1,000 characters, run time drops again.
Emojis also go with slightly longer-running ads: a 25-day median and 28.3% past 60 days for copy that contains them, versus 21 days and 24.0% without. The gap is modest, but it shows up across nearly 233,000 ads.
Industry changes everything
| Industry | Ads | Median run time | Run past 60 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sports | 1,980 | 34 days | 37.8% |
| Pets | 7,013 | 33 days | 32.9% |
| Beauty | 44,196 | 29 days | 31.9% |
| Electronics | 2,200 | 27 days | 28.0% |
| Food | 7,013 | 25 days | 26.0% |
| Fashion | 29,145 | 24 days | 26.6% |
| Jewelry | 9,020 | 23 days | 26.5% |
| Health | 60,018 | 22.5 days | 22.9% |
| Home | 10,486 | 20 days | 25.1% |
| Education | 4,016 | 14 days | 21.8% |
| Leisure and culture | 8,995 | 12 days | 20.0% |
| Apps and software | 6,105 | 12 days | 14.7% |
Two worlds emerge. Physical products with repeat purchases or strong loyalty (sports, pets, beauty) keep their winning ads running for a long time. Apps, courses and leisure refresh their ads at high speed: around 40% of their ads are cut within a week.
Before you judge how long your ads run, compare them to your industry, not to an overall average.
The call-to-action button mostly reflects the sales model
| Button | Ads | Median run time | Run past 60 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shop now | 111,199 | 23 days | 26.1% |
| Learn more | 62,955 | 26 days | 27.3% |
| See details | 13,498 | 18 days | 17.0% |
| Order now | 9,458 | 31 days | 31.8% |
| 5,890 | 33 days | 35.0% | |
| View Instagram profile | 4,149 | 50 days | 47.1% |
| Send message | 1,413 | 42 days | 43.5% |
| Install app | 5,109 | 10 days | 17.1% |
“Shop now” dominates by far. Buttons that open a conversation (WhatsApp, message, Instagram profile) go with the longest-running ads. Be careful with the interpretation: these buttons are mostly used by businesses that sell through conversation, with always-on ads. Changing your button won't make your ad last longer; it should match the way you sell.
What to take away for your ads
- Judge an ad after one to two weeks, not before. One ad in four is cut within its first week: many probably too soon.
- Prepare new ads every two to four weeks. That's the market's median pace: 23 days.
- Launch several different ideas, not variations. Only one ad in six becomes a long-runner among the most active advertisers.
- Don't bet everything on video. Images and carousels last just as well.
- Write two to five sentences. Ads with no copy and walls of text run shorter.
- Compare yourself to your industry. 12 days is normal for an app; it's short for a beauty brand.
- Take inspiration from your competitors' long-running ads. An ad live for more than 60 days is in the most durable quarter: it's the best idea to reuse, with your product. Our guide to seeing a competitor's Facebook ads explains how to find them.
Find the long-running ads in your niche with CreaFlow AI
The 237,138 ads in this study come from CreaSpy, the library of Meta ads built into CreaFlow AI. You can do what we did here yourself, for your niche:
- Sort by “Longest active” and see the ads that have been running for months first.
- Filter by category, niche, format, language and status, to keep only the ads in your market.
- See how many days each ad has been running, right on its card.
- Add ads while you browse the Meta Ad Library, with the Chrome extension.
And once you've found the right ad, CreaFlow AI turns it into an ad for your brand: click “Clone”, and Flow, the app's assistant, reuses the ad's idea and mechanics with your product, your colors and your message, never the original visual (cloning competitors' ads). You get ads ready to test, as images or videos (cloning a video ad is included from the Growth plan), on ideas the market has already validated. All the details are in the CreaSpy help article.
Launch your next ad from the ones that last
Open FlowAI, choose your brand, and write to Flow:
“Find the ads in my niche that have been running for more than 60 days and clone the best one for my product.”
Flow searches the library for ads in your niche that have run past 60 days, shows them to you, and adapts the one you pick to your product. You can also browse them yourself in CreaSpy, sorted by “Longest active”. CreaFlow AI can be tried for free, with no credit card: plans are on the pricing page.
Study carried out on October 27, 2026 on 237,138 Meta ads from the CreaSpy library (238,396 collected), based on the run dates published in the Meta Ad Library. Run times are observed minimums, and differences between groups are correlations, not cause and effect. You can quote these numbers by citing “CreaFlow AI study, October 2026” with a link to this page.