# Ad updates that are about your competitors, not about our checking

> The ads half of "What changed" was busy without being useful. It now reports what a competitor did, and stays quiet when they did nothing.

Version: v1.590
Date: 2026-09-23
Source: https://doc.checkgrow.com/changelog/v1-590-ad-updates-that-are-about-your-competitors-not-about-our-checking

## What this solves

- **Entries that were really about us.** "Running 24 ads we had not seen before" counted what our check had newly recorded. Each check reads a limited, varying sample, so the same advertising could be announced as new over and over while nothing had actually changed. Across a month, the typical entry claimed about three quarters of a competitor's whole account was new — while their ad count was unchanged nine times out of ten.
- **The same event twice.** A batch of new ads produced one entry counting them and a second saying the total had risen — the first restated as arithmetic.
- **Everything was "major".** Any competitor adding five ads earned the label, so routine activity at a large advertiser looked as urgent as a small one doubling their output.
- **A total that promised more than it knew.** "Running 77 active ads" read as an exact live count.

## What changed

- **A launch is reported only where a launch can be shown.** Meta publishes the date an ad started, so an entry now means "they started these since we last looked" — each ad counted once, not a rolling figure re-announced on every check.
- **LinkedIn publishes no start dates**, so it no longer claims a competitor launched anything. It reports what it can stand behind: their ad count went up.
- **One entry per change**, carrying how many are new, the total, and what it was before.
- **"Major" is judged against that competitor's own advertising** — ten ads is routine for someone running five hundred, and a big move for someone running twenty.
- **The total says what it can defend**: "at least 77 running" where a check reached its sampling limit.
- Entries already recorded have been re-labelled, de-duplicated, and the ones describing our own checking removed.

## Where to find it

**Competitors** → **What changed**, and each competitor's window → **History**.

## Useful for

Anyone scanning the feed for what rivals actually did. The entries that stand out are now the ones that earned it.