How KOAD counts K-beauty ads
KOAD numbers come from ads published in the Meta Ad Library that KOAD collects and checks again. Run days are counted from the Meta start date to the last day KOAD confirmed the ad. Ad spend, impressions and sales are not public, so KOAD does not know them.
Where the numbers come from
The source is the KOAD archive (public delivery information from the Meta Ad Library). KOAD collects Meta ads from K-beauty brands every day and checks tracked brands again daily. For TikTok, KOAD collects part of the posts published in the TikTok Creative Center.
Report numbers are copied from the daily snapshots KOAD keeps. A report reads a snapshot once and fixes the numbers on the page. Nothing is recalculated or estimated, except percentages and date differences.
Definitions
- Recently confirmed ad
- An ad KOAD confirmed again within the last 14 days. Ads not confirmed for more than 14 days are kept apart as ads whose status is unknown.
- Run days
- Days from the start date given by Meta to the last day KOAD confirmed the ad. KOAD does not assume the ad is still live today, and caps the count at 180 days.
- New ad
- An ad whose Meta start date falls within the 7 days before the reference date. It is compared with the 7 days before that.
- Ended ad
- Only ads that Meta marks as ended are counted as ended. Ads that disappear from the list are kept apart as "not confirmed".
- Long-running ad
- An ad that ran more than 60 days from its Meta start date to its last confirmed day.
- Early-ended ad
- An ad that Meta marked as ended within 21 days of starting.
- Reconfirmation rate
- Among ads that started 14 to 42 days ago and that KOAD watched for more than 14 days, the share confirmed again within the last 14 days. Ads not confirmed again are not treated as stopped.
- Classification
- Appeals (price and offers, ingredients and evidence, product introduction, reviews and experience), copy structure and offer signals (deadline, coupon and discount, 1+1 and bundles and more) come from rules and classification models applied to ad copy and text inside images. Some ads are not classified, so each item shows the share of ads that were classified.
Small samples are not published
- If a channel has fewer than 30 new ads, KOAD does not publish rankings for that channel.
- If the number of new ads this week and the previous week differ by more than two times, KOAD skips the comparison and says why.
- Each item has a minimum sample: 30 for long-running ads, 200 for media type and number hooks, 300 for ingredients, 500 for offer wording (based on recently confirmed ads). Below that, the item is left empty.
- Category tables only include categories with at least 30 ads.
- If the snapshot for a week was not built, KOAD does not publish that week. Old numbers are never shown as new.
What these numbers cannot tell you
- Ad spend, impressions, clicks and sales are unknown. Meta does not publish spend or impressions for regular commercial ads.
- A long-running ad is not proof of a good ad. Ads that are simply left on, and always-on brand ads, also run for a long time.
- KOAD cannot reconfirm every ad every day. A measurement on 2 October 2026 found that 67% of Korean Meta feed ads (22,490 of 33,453) had not been reconfirmed for more than 60 days. That is why ads whose status is unknown are not counted as ended.
- KOAD only counts the ads it collected. Fewer new ads does not mean the whole market shrank.
Publishing rules
- A weekly report is published only when it has an interpretation paragraph checked by the founder and at least one finding that differs from the previous week. Otherwise the week is skipped and folded into the monthly report.
- Numbers and dates in past issues are not changed. When a mistake is fixed, the page says when and why.
- Numbers are copied from snapshots. AI is used for first drafts of the text, and the founder checks the numbers and sentences before publishing.
- Brand names appear only as text next to numbers. Ad images from other companies are not shown.
Citing and contact
When citing, please include the reference date and the source "KOAD archive (public delivery information from the Meta Ad Library)". Requests from rights holders to correct, hide or remove ad material, and reports of errors in the numbers, go to [email protected].
Definition version v1 (2026-10-26). If a definition changes, this page records the date and the change.
Common questions
Where do KOAD report numbers come from?
From ads published in the Meta Ad Library that KOAD collects and checks again. Numbers are copied from daily snapshots and shown with their reference date.
Is a long-running ad a good ad?
That cannot be said. Run days only show how long an ad stayed live. Spend and sales are not public, so performance is unknown.
Is an ad that disappeared from the list an ended ad?
No. Only ads that Meta marks as ended are counted as ended. Ads KOAD could not confirm again are kept apart as "not confirmed".