Facebook ads have been under a lot of criticism as of late. It’s come to light that Facebook hasn’t been very selective, careful, or conscientious about the kinds of ads that are displayed on its network. Its targeting of these ads is also being heavily criticized and rightly so. That said, not all Facebook ads are evil. A lot of people find useful pages through these ads. The thing with ads on Facebook is that you can’t go back to your timeline and expect the same ad to be there even fifteen minutes later. If you liked something in a Facebook ad, you should definitely tap it. It doesn’t matter if you browse the whole page or not. Tapping/interacting with an ad actually bookmarks it. You can later find a Facebook ad you clicked on and revisit it.
You can find a Facebook ad you clicked on from either the iOS or Android app. It doesn’t matter if you clicked on the ad on your desktop or on your phone. Facebook will keep track of them so you can find them later. This feature is selectively available so not everyone might be able to benefit from it until there is a global roll-out.
Open the Facebook app and tap the more tab. Scroll down and look for the Recent Ad Activity option. Again, not everyone will be able to see it. We’re just speculating here but it’s possible this option is enabled for users who have purchased ads on Facebook. Tap Recent Ad Activity and you’ll get a feed dedicated to all the ads you ever clicked/tapped on.
The ad activity goes as far back as three months at least. Facebook announced this feature in September but it still had details of ads I had tapped on in August. There’s no way to purge this history of ads so be careful what you tap on.
We should point out that only ads you actually visit count and appear under Recent Ad Activity, if you browse the image drawer in an ad, it won’t count as you interacting with an ad.
Facebook means for this to be a simple way for users to find useful ads again and that’s kind of clever. If you want to look at a product you liked but you can’t remember the page or you didn’t save it, this is the most convenient way to find it again. Needless to say, pages that advertise on Facebook will appreciate the feature more since it technically gives their ads a dedicated place inside a user’s feed. More importantly, the user is more likely to make a purchase having already shown interest in the product once.
