Ads Lighthouse vs Use Poach in 2026: brand-search evidence vs a personal Meta swipe file

Ads Lighthouse monitors paid results on a defined brand-search plan. A project specifies the brand, domains, keywords, markets, devices, and schedule; the service then checks Google and Bing paid text ads, with sponsored Google Shopping listings available from Growth. Each saved observation ties an appearance to a specific keyword, location, device, engine, and time. That makes it useful for a brand-protection, trademark, or affiliate manager who needs more than a copied screenshot. It does not cover Meta, TikTok, display, native, Amazon, or a general ad library.

The product is strongest where the observation needs to become a working record. Paid Results groups domains found on monitored searches, advertiser and keyword drilldowns preserve appearance counts and copy history, and policy rules can assess saved copy, positions, and destinations. Teams can declare affiliate URL parameters and known IDs, open non-compliance cases, trace eligible destinations, and issue email, Slack, or webhook alerts. Observed visibility is the share of saved monitored searches where a domain appeared, not Google impression share, spend, proof of a purchased keyword, or proof of infringement.

Pricing is unusually explicit. Starter costs $49 per month, includes a seven-day trial, and allows one project, 20 keywords, two locations per project, 7,500 scheduled checks, and 100 on-demand checks. Growth adds Shopping at $99 per month. Scale costs $299 per month and is where REST API access, API keys, and client-branded PDFs begin. Saved observations and related history are retained for three UTC calendar months, so it is a current evidence workflow rather than an unlimited historical archive.

Use Poach begins after discovery, not before it. A researcher opens an ad in the public Facebook Ad Library and uses the Chrome extension to retain that selected example. Free saves the ad image or video and a metadata screenshot card to local disk. The company describes that card as including the headline, primary copy, CTA, advertiser, landing URL, dates, and researcher-applied tags, with metadata embedded in the PNG for ExifTool reading. It is a compact way to make a personal reference collection durable without subscribing to a hosted ad-spy product.

Pro changes storage rather than research coverage. For a one-time $67 lifetime payment, Use Poach creates a 13-column database in the customer’s Notion workspace and saves each capture as a native row with its screenshot. The published workflow supports niche, awareness-stage, and lead-type tags, searchable records, and deduplication in Notion. Its privacy policy says captured ads, screenshots, Notion content, and Notion tokens are not sent to the licensing service. Researchers who already organise briefs and references in Notion have a concrete reason to pay; a team seeking a shared intelligence platform does not.

The boundaries are important. Use Poach does not publish its own advertiser search, saved-search alerts, automatic competitor watchlists, TikTok, Google Ads, display, or native coverage. It also does not publish an API, multi-user workspace, approvals, reporting, or a broader integration catalogue. It cannot tell a researcher whether the captured ad performed well, how much it spent, or how long a commercial campaign will remain visible. Use it to preserve evidence you found, not to replace the initial Meta search or an account-management system.