Ad Previews

Updated: Jun 16, 2026

Copy for LLM

Ads in WhatsApp Status are available via the Marketing API. Learn more about ads in WhatsApp Status.

Preview existing ads and generate previews of ads you want to create. Generated previews are based on your ad creative. For ad preview provide a user access token, not a Page access token. For example, preview existing ad creative:

curl -X GET \
  -d 'ad_format="DESKTOP_FEED_STANDARD"' \
  -d 'access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
https://graph.facebook.com/v26.0/<CREATIVE_ID>/previews

Or preview using creative spec for a domain ad for an external website:

curl -X GET \
  -d 'creative="<CREATIVE_SPEC>"' \
  -d 'ad_format="<AD_FORMAT>"' \
  -d 'access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
https://graph.facebook.com/v26.0/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/generatepreviews

Generating previews

There are a few ways to generate a preview, using:

Ad ID

Ad Creative ID

Supplying a creative spec

To use an ad ID for an existing ad, use ad’s previews.

https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/<AD_ID>/previews

To use an existing ad creative’s ID, use the ad creative’s previews.

https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/<AD_CREATIVE_ID>/previews

To use an ad creative spec, you have two endpoint options:

/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/generatepreviews, or

/generatepreviews — The creative passed in this call should not be associated with a specific ad account.

For Advantage+ catalog ads, pass the entire object_story_spec into the /generatepreviews endpoint, and also use product_item_ids described in Advantage+ Catalog Ads, Preview.

Previews from an ad account are only visible to people who have a role on the ad account. Previews generated using generatepreviews edge are visible to anyone.

https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/generatepreviews
https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/generatepreviews

Each of these endpoints returns an ad preview object.

Examples

Create a preview using object_story_spec:

curl -G \
  --data-urlencode 'creative={
    "object_story_spec": {
      "link_data": {
        "call_to_action": {"type":"SIGN_UP","value":{"link":"<URL>"}},
        "description": "Description",
        "link": "<URL>",
        "message": "Message",
        "name": "Name"
      },
      "page_id": "<PAGE_ID>"
    }
  }' \
  -d 'ad_format=DESKTOP_FEED_STANDARD' \
  -d 'access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
https://graph.facebook.com/v26.0/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/generatepreviews

Create a multi-product ad preview using object_story_id. To get object_story_id, first create a Multi-Product Ad.

curl -X GET \
  -d 'creative={
       "object_story_id": "<PAGE_ID>_<POST_ID>"
     }' \
  -d 'ad_format="DESKTOP_FEED_STANDARD"' \
  -d 'access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
https://graph.facebook.com/v26.0/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/generatepreviews

Create an app ad preview using object_story_spec. This is the only way to generate a preview for an app ad.

curl -X GET \
  -d 'creative={
       "object_story_spec": {
         "link_data": {
           "call_to_action": {
             "type": "USE_APP",
             "value": {
               "link": "<URL>"
             }
           },
           "description": "Description",
           "link": "<URL>",
           "message": "Message",
           "name": "Name",
           "picture": "<IMAGE_URL>"
         },
         "page_id": "<PAGE_ID>"
       }
     }' \
  -d 'ad_format="MOBILE_FEED_STANDARD"' \
  -d 'access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
https://graph.facebook.com/v26.0/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/generatepreviews

Instagram Explore home Ad Previews using INSTAGRAM_EXPLORE_GRID_HOME ad format

curl -X GET \
  -d 'ad_format="INSTAGRAM_EXPLORE_GRID_HOME"' \
  -d 'access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
  https://graph.facebook.com/v26.0/<AD_ID>/previews

The request returns a response similar to the following:

{
  "data": [
    {
      "body": "<iframe src=\"https://www.facebook.com/ads/api/preview_iframe.php?d=AQKuwYcWpyFgVKLORPWQi52_uTud4v8PpMoDtyBfntL65i0iFtgkiXWN5S4JMBhq-UMKQmvxXFexVxu-5l5Xbf4WWRP48sCAtn3ArQAXwbdrD5qH0EL2z34K-gAgYyENd80cOGAdhVreKGJZvPkLbjDS3iDkdqdNNJQ6yaAFTmUpaz__cjgmhVVCUW68wU3UOZwqlv376mkijYR57Sm2OlyES4U6ivMPNGDx4xnZEd5d8kWyagDD-lPbCaGEk0nnQF5mnyeV9pFqdByhq-IqN6n0ZhSWjCPXZQa84wu5GNQ70YR2w7QxEYoiWCgI2WP0Z2OPeUMiNOf9bhYB-TBZJZ7G6HylsOnzzII9FQ8-0K-b_Q&t=AQJws9t-TtIGrKoFtCM\" width=\"274\" height=\"213\" scrolling=\"yes\" style=\"border: none;\"></iframe>"
    }
  ]
}

Instagram search results Ad Previews using INSTAGRAM_SEARCH_CHAIN ad format

curl -X GET \
  -d 'ad_format="INSTAGRAM_SEARCH_CHAIN"' \
  -d 'access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
  https://graph.facebook.com/v26.0/<AD_ID>/previews

The request returns a response similar to the following:

{
  "data": [
    {
      "body": "<iframe src=\"https://www.facebook.com/ads/api/preview_iframe.php?d=AQKVMPdwuorP3mliXRaOi0TCSvsGRfucEzBTnB4jghArle84f8kBjvJmX3gmdjniUjohKA3GUppDZqljStZwxxRRxkQl9Y4R1o5wV4zRGE3xO3NHf1_qBbFM_uEIGAnAvptMWo_DLpbiIqIYFMjxbXNELzmZQsR0gnbBjaXM9i6gkI29dnHPqnm4xGvPxo2w8RWeXfWvmik2C96_2PrhrRhh4NKL3SOmFC9JDVsTp9Z6SYDlLVcLJWwpRKmciAZqEMOnMEFgepVTZ39yJ4ZiAMRo76RK9XNVGcornsUBtxI8cZHKtdW7nmj3ivq09_NGGUnFiJdJaPm-Mk-obM3K0QyOvgHKwnmLn7wvMiizJeXPEWAcSBa4DPUFLAO1mSuaKla0VQ6tzAM4BqFU9LJOG1-zZmPec7wKxQGDcrXoCOKfv2xkLyzECc-oDS0JJgvxxlo&t=AQI8ECKvkemIoVDaDrs\" width=\"274\" height=\"213\" scrolling=\"yes\" style=\"border: none;\"></iframe>"
    }
  ],
  "__www_request_id__": "AzCC2RoeSL0rMbSPTYDyDHa"
}