Every long-running ad NYTimes runs on Facebook & Instagram — pulled from the public Meta Ad Library, x-rayed by the same system that runs ad accounts autonomously.
Active ads
946
Winning set
182
30+ days live
Longest live
136d
App rating
4.79★
778K ratings
Brand palette
The short version
Key facts
- As of September 14, 2026, NYTimes runs 946 active ads in Meta's Ad Library across Facebook and Instagram; 182 of them have survived 30 or more days of continuous delivery.
- Its longest-running ad has been live for 136 days.
- The winning set splits 73% video, 20% static, 7% carousel.
- The most common message angle is value proposition, carried by 51% of the winning set.
- All winning copy runs in English.
- In App Store reviews, the loudest praise goes to content quality & trust (18% of mentions) and the loudest complaint is editorial bias (18%).
- The App Store listing holds 4.79 stars across 777,524 ratings.
The winning set
Live Meta ads gallery
182 ads have survived 30+ days of continuous delivery, out of 946 currently active. Below: 29 creatives picked to span every angle and buyer the account runs; the ×N badge counts the ads running each one. Tap any card for its Meta Ad Library record. Sorted by longest live: the account's most proven creatives lead, podium first.
136d image EN
A hand-drawn illustration depicting a person sitting on top of a box filled with people looking at their phones.
129d video ×2 ads EN
The New York Times headline 'South Korea's City of Books' appearing over a slow zoom-out of a bookshelf.
129d image EN
A group of three people standing in a sunlit, arched stone corridor looking out into a lush garden courtyard.
129d image EN
An infographic illustration showing an alarm clock, a cyclist, a DNA capsule, and a runner connected to a central biological pathway.
129d image EN
A wide, static shot of a massive, multi-story wooden bookshelf bathed in dramatic, directional sunlight.
128d image EN
A wide shot of a university campus with students walking on paths between historic stone buildings.
124d dco EN
A group of friends enjoying a vibrant brunch with Tabasco sauce.
123d video EN
Good evening. Time to relax with a puzzle.
123d video ×3 ads EN
Who's in your crew? Here's who made the cut for my Times family subscription.
123d video EN
I'm a be the best that you ever done saw
115d image ×2 ads EN
A woman stretching on outdoor stairs in a green windbreaker and white cap.
115d image EN
A vibrant Mexican tin heart ornament centered on a white background surrounded by colorful flower petals.
108d video ×3 ads EN
No-sweat meals.
108d video ×4 ads EN
Chill meals for warm days.
108d video ×3 ads EN
108d video ×3 ads EN
108d video ×5 ads EN
108d video ×5 ads EN
97d video EN
94d video ×2 ads EN
93d video ×2 ads EN
90d video EN
90d video ×2 ads EN
57d image ×2 ads EN
51d image EN
51d image EN
47d video ×2 ads EN
43d image EN
38d video ×2 ads EN
+90 more winning creatives in the full set, with every hook and persona call — free with a Google account.
The x-ray — every winner analyzed frame by frame
What the winning set is actually doing
Language distribution — where the winning set actually runs
Share of the winning set per copy language. Translation is a deliberate spend decision: a language earning survivors is a market the money already believes in.
English
100% · 182 ads
Format split — statics vs video in the winning set
What survives 30+ days by medium.
video 132 ads · 73%
static 37 ads · 20%
carousel 13 ads · 7%
Angle mix — what the money says works
Every winner tagged with the message angle it leads with, and the languages it runs in — longevity under spend is the only public vote that counts.
value proposition
51% · 93 ads
unclassified
20% · 37 ads
hype discovery hook
7% · 12 ads
content library variety
5% · 9 ads
aspirational lifestyle imagery
4% · 7 ads
price promo offer
2% · 4 ads
content library tease
2% · 3 ads
personal life use cases
2% · 3 ads
cost savings claim
2% · 3 ads
problem callout
1% · 2 ads
common mistake callout
1% · 2 ads
product positioning brand
1% · 2 ads
ai capability showcase
1% · 2 ads
hidden risk callout
1% · 2 ads
contrarian reverse hook
1% · 1 ads
The winning set, read from the creatives themselves — the top 15 analyzed winners, hook by hook.
| Days live | Ads | Lang | Angle | Persona | Opening hook | On-screen headline | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 129d | ×1 | en | hype discovery hook | reader_listener | The New York Times headline 'South Korea's City of Books' appearing over a slow zoom-out of a bookshelf. | South Korea's City of Books | 9s |
| 123d | ×7 | en | value proposition | gamer_casual | Good evening. Time to relax with a puzzle. | Good evening. Time to relax with a puzzle. | 10s |
| 123d | ×1 | en | personal life use cases | budget_conscious_shopper | Who's in your crew? Here's who made the cut for my Times family subscription. | Who's in your crew? | 28s |
| 123d | ×1 | en | aspirational lifestyle imagery | sports_fan | I'm a be the best that you ever done saw | MAKE THE PERFECT GETAWAY | 6s |
| 121d | ×3 | en | value proposition | gamer_casual | A Wordle-style game board appearing on screen with the word CRANE already filled in. | Happy weekend. | 10s |
| 108d | ×5 | en | content library variety | home_cook | No-sweat meals. | No-sweat meals. | — |
| 108d | ×6 | en | value proposition | home_cook | Chill meals for warm days. | Chill meals for warm days. | — |
+105 more winners, hook by hook, with per-ad angle and persona calls — free with a Google account. Browse the full set ↗ or claim the workspace
Creative strategy
The dissection
The New York Times just rotated a third of its Meta ad set in a week: winners jumped from 132 to 149, with 46 new ads and 29 retirements since July 27. The engine driving that growth is still recipes: the seasonal recipe hook angle now covers 48 of 149 winning ads, all video, zero on-camera humans, feeding one persona, the Weeknight Meal Decider.
The Recipe Loop Is The Engine
48 of 149 winning ads run the seasonal recipe hook angle across 26 x-rayed creatives, every one straight video with no on-camera talent, just product and app footage of recipe content on screen. The primary text 'Warm weather? We have options.' alone carries 47 ads. All 48 recipe-angle ads map to the Weeknight Meal Decider, the single largest persona in the account.
Fast DCO Sells Local Sports
32 winning ads run the comprehensive coverage claim angle across 24 x-rayed creatives, built almost entirely as ~6-second dco units with no human cast, pure product and app footage of bylines and team coverage. 30 of those ads carry the Hometown Team Diehard persona tag, the second-largest buyer segment behind recipes and a distinct crowd from the puzzle and lifestyle audiences.
Ten-Second Puzzle Videos Persist
21 winning ads run the evening puzzle reset angle across 17 x-rayed creatives, cut as ~10-second videos with no presenters, just app footage of the puzzle interface. Add the puzzle maker authority angle (20 ads) and the Daily Puzzle Break Seeker persona now covers 41 ads total, the second-biggest buyer group after Weeknight Meal Decider's 48.
Ads Promise Calm, App Crashes
Across 8,071 reviews (4.79★ lifetime), dark mode and UI complaints top the list at 47 mentions, just ahead of editorial bias (46) and content quality/trust (45). The disconnect: recipe and puzzle creative sells frictionless daily use, but 41 reviews cite app crashes or freezes, 25 flag iOS/device compatibility issues (pre-iOS 16 devices locked out), and 17 report charges continuing after subscribers cancel.
46 New Winners, 29 Retired
The winning set grew from 132 to 149 ads this week: 46 new entrants, 29 retirements since July 27. Casting stays thin across the refresh, only 24% of x-rayed creatives use an on-camera presenter (mostly female 25-34, 9 appearances), while hook mechanics spread thin too: demo (8), value proposition headline (7), headline-led value proposition (7), testimonial (6).
What we'd test next
- Video, no-people, product/app-footage creative reusing the seasonal recipe hook angle with a cooler-season variant ('Cozy dinners? We have options.'), aimed at the Weeknight Meal Decider persona already carrying 48 of 149 ads.
- ~6-second dco creative extending the comprehensive coverage claim angle into college-sports territory with a direct-address hook, aimed at the Campus-Stage Young Adult persona currently sitting at just 2 ads.
- On-camera presenter video using a testimonial hook to sell the NYT Games bundle ('Get in on the fun with New York Times Games,' 13 ads), targeting the Household Subscription Organizer persona, a casting mechanic this account uses in only 24% of creatives overall.
- Non-English video reproducing the evening puzzle reset angle and a demo hook for the Daily Puzzle Break Seeker persona (41 ads), opening language whitespace in a set that runs 100% English across all 149 winning ads.
The HyperScale batch
New ad concepts, generated for NYTimes
HyperScale agents are producing an original round of ad concepts for NYTimes, built from the winning angles above, the brand's real App Store assets, and what reviewers actually say. This page updates when the batch drops.
This analysis lives in a ready-made HyperScale workspace. If you work on NYTimes, it's yours: we hand it over personally, usually within a day.
Customer voice — 4202 recent reviews analyzed
What reviewers actually say
Objections the ads must pre-empt
- Requiring iOS 16+ locks out otherwise-working older devices
- Ads still appear despite paid subscription
- Cancelling/refunding subscriptions is described as very difficult
- Coverage seen by some as biased/one-sided on major issues
- App frequently crashes, freezes, or fails to load after updates
Review-theme mix
Share of analyzed review mentions per theme — ＋ praise, − complaint, ~ mixed. Themes, not individual reviews.
− editorial bias
18% · 46
+ content quality & trust
18% · 45
− app crashes & performance
16% · 41
− ios/device compatibility
10% · 25
− ad overload
5% · 14
− subscription & cancellation friction
7% · 17
~ dark mode & UI requests
18% · 47
− pricing & paywall
8% · 21
“every day for now 20 years, the best app from the best newspaper & brilliant clique of fact-checking troublemakers in the world”
“every day for now 20 years, the best app from the best newspaper & brilliant clique of fact-checking troublemakers in the world”
“One of the last places where truth matters”
“One of the last places where truth matters”
“The depth and breadth of reporting makes the NYT essential”
“The depth and breadth of reporting makes the NYT essential”
“NYTimes News are reliable and trustworthy, which are based on truth data & fact reporting plus investigative & detail analysis”
“The new tab is too much work, scrolling through ads and selecting each one”
“I need to have honest, unbiased, up to the minute, quality reporting on events around the world, as they happen. The New York Times delivers that consistently and in spades.”
“Being a regular listener and reader of the New York Times for two years now has made me a better, smarter, more thoughtful person”
“Being a regular listener and reader of the New York Times for two years now has made me a better, smarter, more thoughtful person”
“It's written for people with a functioning brain”
“It's written for people with a functioning brain”
“NYTimes News are reliable and trustworthy, which are based on truth data & fact reporting plus investigative & detail analysis”
“the one-sided narrative around politics and the Middle East has pushed me to cancel my subscription”
“I need to have honest, unbiased, up to the minute, quality reporting on events around the world, as they happen. The New York Times delivers that consistently and in spades.”
“I'll find a source for news that doesn't publish such blatant propaganda.”
“not creating false premises with click bait article headlines the times provide a tremendous source of knowledge to the public in a clear and concise manner”
“What used to be a newspaper of news is now a left wing propaganda sheet”
“the one-sided narrative around politics and the Middle East has pushed me to cancel my subscription”
“What it seems to be recording these days is cognitive dissonance, flailing reactions, of the establishment elite”
“I'll find a source for news that doesn't publish such blatant propaganda.”
“NYT has adopted Israeli version of news without sharing Palestinian side of the story.”
“What used to be a newspaper of news is now a left wing propaganda sheet”
“the app basically doesn't load. It stall out and crashes about 90% of the time”
“NYT has adopted Israeli version of news without sharing Palestinian side of the story.”
“This app only works about 50 percent of the time”
“What it seems to be recording these days is cognitive dissonance, flailing reactions, of the establishment elite”
“All the other apps manage to load photos and stories just fine. NYT: circles of death about 50%.”
“the app basically doesn't load. It stall out and crashes about 90% of the time”
“My NYT app constantly freezes on my iPhone 11. The app has been updated several times, and still the problem persists”
“This app only works about 50 percent of the time”
“as of about 3 months ago the app is getting very laggy and is..very..slow..to..load”
“All the other apps manage to load photos and stories just fine. NYT: circles of death about 50%.”
“App has been updated for use with iOS16 and up, which isn't supported on my old IPhone 6S Plus. Useless”
“Sign in. Then asks you to pick alerts. But there is no save. Or back. Or anything. Deleted app. Reinstalled. Still doesn't let me get past this point”
“The new version has made my NYTimes subscription useless on my iPad Air 2 as ios 16 is required”
“the new app fails to open 2 out of 3 times. It then tells me I have no internet connection when I do.”
“the NYT policy is to encourage planned obsolescence, working hand in glove with Apple. This is an anti-customer, anti-environment and anti-earth policy”
“App has been updated for use with iOS16 and up, which isn't supported on my old IPhone 6S Plus. Useless”
“every 2 seconds a full-screen Amazon Web Services takes over the screen and has to be dismissed. Literally it is only AWS and happens up to 10 times when reading a single article.”
“I'm going to have to buy a new iPad because I can't download the new updates because they require iOS 16.0 +”
“the pop up add comes up every 5 seconds. I can't even read a headline before another ad pops up.”
“the NYT policy is to encourage planned obsolescence, working hand in glove with Apple. This is an anti-customer, anti-environment and anti-earth policy”
“the in-article ads have become so excessive that I've had to switch back to reading the web version with an ad blocker”
“the pop up add comes up every 5 seconds. I can't even read a headline before another ad pops up.”
“when these take up almost 50% of an article as of recent, a reasonable reading experience is no longer possible”
“Why am I paying a subscription fee if you're still going to show me ads on the app”
“the in-article ads have become so excessive that I've had to switch back to reading the web version with an ad blocker”
“They make it impossible to cancel your subscription”
“They make it impossible to cancel your subscription”
“I've been trying to cancel my subscription for 2 years and have an email which confirms cancellation, however these fraudsters keep charging my card a couple of times a month.”
“I've been trying to cancel my subscription for 2 years and have an email which confirms cancellation, however these fraudsters keep charging my card a couple of times a month.”
“Give us dark mode and I'll give you 5 stars”
“Give us dark mode and I'll give you 5 stars”
“j'ai du plaisir à lire le NYT, mais je trouve votre tarif $$$ vraiment cher”
The market around it
Brands competing for the same feed
Keep exploring the radar
More Meta ads teardowns
More News advertisers on the radar
Also winning with the value proposition angle
The biggest ad sets on the radar
Quick answers
FAQ
How many ads is NYT running on Meta right now?
683 active ads sit in the Meta Ad Library, with the x-ray covering the top 649 by impressions. 149 of those have survived 30+ days to qualify as winners, the longest-running ad hitting 95 days.
What languages and angles dominate NYT's Meta ads?
All 149 winning ads run in English. The seasonal recipe hook leads at 48 ads, followed by comprehensive coverage claim (32), evening puzzle reset (21), puzzle maker authority (20), aspirational lifestyle imagery (10), and curiosity deep dive (9).
What creative pattern is actually working?
Across 96 Gemini-x-rayed creatives, video runs 67% versus image 23% and dco 10%. Only 24% use an on-camera presenter (mostly female 25-34, 9 appearances); the rest lean on product and app footage alone, the pattern behind the 48-ad recipe angle.
What do reviewers complain about most?
Of 8,071 reviews (4.79★ lifetime), dark mode/UI requests lead at 47 mentions, then editorial bias (46), content quality (45), and app crashes (41). Reviewers also flag cancellation friction (17) and ads appearing for paying subscribers (14 ad-overload mentions).