Competitor check · 3 September 2026

What ads does YM Careers run?

YM Careers (now “Careers powered by Momentive”) advertises only its own software to associations. It does not advertise its clients’ job boards. Where ads for those boards exist, the associations buy them themselves — about 60 of ~1,000 confirmed clients.

Use → / ← or the buttons to move between slides. Press P to print.

Sources: Google Ads Transparency Center, Meta Ad Library, LinkedIn Ad Library, DataForSEO, ymcareers.com1 / 12

The question

“Is there a way to see what ads a competitor runs?” — YM Careers

Working hypothesis: YM promotes its clients’ boards rather than itself, so the clients had to be found first. Every YM board links back to ymcareers.com from its footer — that link is the fingerprint.

STEP 1

Build the client list

Reverse-IP of YM hosting, certificate logs, passive DNS, DataForSEO backlinks to ymcareers.com, plus a 6-agent web sweep (press releases, reviews, URL patterns, association-by-association). Each host checked for the YM code fingerprint (SiteId, shared tag container GTM-MQ4769R).

STEP 2

Google Ads Transparency

All 1,237 root domains scanned. For the 284 that advertise at all, every creative (up to 120 per domain, 8,835 in total) was downloaded and its text recognised (OCR) to find ads that lead to the career center.

STEP 3

Meta, LinkedIn, YM’s own site

~24,000 Meta Ad Library cards for job-board phrases matched against board domains and names; all ads of candidate pages reviewed. LinkedIn Ad Library by advertiser. YM’s marketing pages for what they promise clients.

Every finding was challenged by a panel of adversarial verifier agents; the numbers in this deck are after their corrections.

Method2 / 12

Step 1 · the client list

1,672 YM-powered boards found

1,672

board hostnames found

1,028

confirmed by page code (SiteId / YM footer)

1,237

root domains (associations)

644

backlink-only (includes junk and ex-clients)

How the boards are hosted

1,322 on the association’s own domain — jobs.shrm.org, careers.acjs.org, careercenter.asme.org
350 on YM hosting — <name>.careerwebsite.com (older: associationcareernetwork.com)
Fingerprint: SiteId = N in the HTML, shared GTM-MQ4769R + GA4 G-MLS8R7Z9DZ, footer link to ymcareers.com
A client that left shows as a redirect to momentivesoftware.com

Where the list came from

Reverse-IP + certificate logs + passive DNS → ~2,700 names, ~800 with the YM fingerprint
DataForSEO backlinks to ymcareers.com → 1,088 linking domains, 864 boards
Agent sweep (press, reviews, URL patterns, associations, social) → 862 boards, 251 new
Full list with per-board results: ym-careers-boards-2026-09-03.csv

YM claims “3,000+ associations”; ~1,000 confirmed here3 / 12

Finding 1 · YM itself

YM advertises only its own software — to association staff

Google · advertiser “YourMembership.com Inc.” · 454 ads since 2021, all reviewed

GiveSmart (fundraising)

29%

Membership systems (AMS)

25%

Event software

12%

MIP accounting

12%

Learning platforms

11%

YM Careers job-board software

8%

YM Careers: 37 ads, last shown 15 Apr 2026, nothing new created since May 2024. 13 ads are live today — all MIP / membership / GiveSmart. Zero ads point to a client board; zero target employers or job seekers.

LinkedIn

“Momentive Careers Network”: 30 ads (payer Community Brands), all employer-facing — hiring reports, webinars, recruitment guides. No client board promoted. Web Scribble has 199 ads in the same library.

“YM buys ads for its clients’ boards” — not supported

Under the YM / Momentive / Community Brands name there is not a single ad — on Google, Meta or LinkedIn — that leads to a client’s board.

What the data shows

The 61 clients that do advertise their board have 61 different payers, each in its own account (ACJS runs its journal and conference ads in the same account).
Identical ad copy across associations (“<Org> offers the top jobs available in <field>…”) is literally the board template’s meta description — Google’s automated ads pull it from the page. Not a sign of one operator.
YM’s shared tag container (GTM-MQ4769R, on every board) fires only GA4 — no Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn or Bing tags. Clients add their own tags through a “Partner GTM” slot.

How YM actually drives traffic (their own site)

Job Flash e-mail to the association’s members, SEO, the association’s social channels, job aggregators, the Momentive Careers Network.
Programmatic distribution of individual jobs plus retargeting — a paid upgrade bought by the employer per job, not by YM for the board.
No mention of Google Ads, paid search, PPC or Ad Grants anywhere on ymcareers.com; their 28 Aug 2026 article tells associations to do SEO and e-mail themselves.

Caveat: campaigns run from separate accounts under a client’s verified name would be indistinguishable from the association’s own ads.

Verified by 7 adversarial checks5 / 12

Finding 3 · ads for YM boards

Ads for YM boards exist — bought by the associations, and by few of them

Root domains of YM clients scanned

1,237

Run any Google ads at all

284

Ads that lead to the career center

61

…with impressions in Aug–Sep 2026

40

279

ads pointing at a YM board (159 live now)

~6%

of confirmed YM clients advertise their board

80 / 12

% aimed at job seekers / at employers (of 118 reviewed by eye)

Who pays

The association’s legal name in almost every case (ACJS, ALA, ACP, AVMA, Council on Foundations, FASEB…). A few intermediaries: Adcellerant for HFMA, Wiley for ACVIM. Commercial niche boards on YM pay for themselves: actuary.com and financialjobsweb.com (Rollins Search Group), manufacturingjobs.com, NPO.net (Lumity).

Ads to boards that no longer exist

IIA (jobs.theiia.org now redirects to momentivesoftware.com; ad still shown 3 Sep 2026), NMSDC (10 ads until 6 May 2026, board closed), PDA (until 20 Mar 2026). A visible sign of client churn at YM.

All text ads in Google Search; nonprofits may use free Google Ad Grants — not visible from outside6 / 12

Finding 3 · who advertises their YM board

Largest advertisers among YM clients (Google)

Organisation	Board	Ads	Status	Audience
Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences	careers.acjs.org	22	live	job seekers
American Library Association — JobLIST	joblist.ala.org	12	live	job seekers
American College of Physicians	careers.acponline.org	11	live	job seekers
NMSDC	careercenter.nmsdc.org	10	ended May 2026, board closed	job seekers (career advice)
ABILITY Jobs	career.abilityjobs.com	8	live	job seekers
AISES	careers.aises.org	10	live	job seekers
NPO.net (Lumity)	careers.npo.net	7	live	both
SafetySource (SPAN Publishing)	jobs.safetysource.com	7	ended Sep 2025	job seekers
Council on Foundations	jobs.cof.org	6	live	both
SIAM	jobs.siam.org	6	ended Oct 2025	both
AVMA	jobs.avma.org	4	live	job seekers
HFMA (via Adcellerant)	jobbank.hfma.org	4	live	job seekers
Actuary.com (Rollins Search Group)	actuary.com	4	live since ≥2021	both
American Welding Society	jobsinwelding.com	3	Apr–Jun 2026	both
American Alliance of Museums — jobHQ	aam-us-jobs.careerwebsite.com	3	live	job seekers

All 61 organisations with dates, advertisers and example ad text are in the CSV (columns root_advertises_its_board_on_google, board_ads_active_aug_sep_2026).

Google Ads Transparency Center, creatives reviewed by eye7 / 12

Finding 3 · what the ads look like

Real examples

ACJS — job seekers, live

ALA JobLIST — job seekers, live

Council on Foundations — employers, live

American Welding Society — employers, Apr–Jun 2026

Actuary.com — employers, live since ≥2021

NMSDC — career advice pages of the YM board; board since closed

Previews from Google Ads Transparency Center8 / 12

Finding 4 · Meta Ad Library

On Facebook / Instagram: membership ads mention the career center, none promote a YM board

What was found

ASME — membership carousel “Level Up with ASME”, one card “Visit ASME’s Career Center” → careercenter.asme.org; 4 ads, May 2025 – Feb 2026, all off.
New York State Bar Association — “membership includes free Career Center access”, live since 6 Mar 2026.
AMTA — “Job Bank” listed among free member resources, live since 6 Aug 2026.
CoreNet Global, American IV Association, NBAA — membership ads with the career center as a benefit.

What that means

Associations on YM use the career center as a membership argument, not as a product to advertise on Meta. No ad in ~24,000 cards promotes a YM board to job seekers or employers.

Caveat: Meta’s exact-phrase search misses ads (verified: a live AARC ad is not found by its own text). Links and text on images are not searchable. Treat “0” as “not found”, not “none”.

~24,000 Ad Library cards · 13 job-board phrases · all ads of 6 candidate pages reviewed9 / 12

Side findings

Clients that left YM for Web Scribble advertise their new board themselves

AARC

American Association for Respiratory Care. jobs.aarc.org moved from YM to Web Scribble between Sep and Nov 2025. Since 18 Feb 2026 it runs a Facebook / Instagram ad for job seekers: “Find your new job on AARC’s Career Center” — live today.

now on Web Scribble

AFP

Association of Fundraising Professionals. careers.afpglobal.org left YM after May 2024; 4 Google ads for the board, 3 live (“Remote Fundraising Manager Jobs – AFP Career Center”).

left YM

Others that left YM

AANP, ACAAI, AOAC, CAI, MBA, Outdoor Industry Association, SF Bar, SWE, InsuranceJobs — their boards no longer carry the YM fingerprint. Ads still running to closed YM boards: IIA, NMSDC, PDA.

churn signal

Share of voice on LinkedIn

LinkedIn Ad Library: Web Scribble 199 ads vs Momentive Careers Network 30 (employer-facing only). YM Careers as a brand: 0.

Wayback Machine snapshots, Meta Ad Library, Google Ads Transparency, LinkedIn Ad Library10 / 12

Answering the original question

How to see any competitor’s ads

Google Ads Transparency Center

adstransparency.google.com — search by advertiser name or root domain. Ads are stored under the root domain: a query for careers.example.org always returns nothing; query example.org and read the display URLs. Only the newest ~120 creatives per query. Earliest date shown (25 Oct 2021) is the start of the archive, not the campaign.

Meta Ad Library

facebook.com/ads/library — search by page (most reliable: open the page’s “all ads”) or by exact phrase. Phrase search misses ads and ignores links and image text. Shows active and inactive ads, dates, platforms; spend only for political/EU ads.

LinkedIn Ad Library

linkedin.com/ad-library — search by advertiser (accountOwner) or payer. Holds ads created after Sep 2025 only; no dates or impressions for US ads; first 24 results without a browser session.

For YM Careers specifically: only B2B ads for their own software (Google, LinkedIn); no ads for client boards; about 60 associations advertise their YM board themselves, mostly to job seekers.

Free public sources; DataForSEO used only to bypass Google’s rate limit11 / 12

Limitations & data

What this check cannot see

Google returns at most 120 newest creatives per root domain — 11 large clients (SHRM, IEEE, PMI, CFA Institute, Heart.org…) hit that cap; older board ads may be hidden.
Meta exact-phrase search is a lower bound; page-level review was done only for candidate pages.
Job-level programmatic ads (Indeed, ZipRecruiter, aggregators), retargeting and e-mail are not in any ad library.
644 of the 1,672 hosts come from backlinks only — some are junk or former clients.

Data behind this deck

ym-careers-boards-2026-09-03.csv — all 1,672 boards: host, root domain, SiteId, evidence, Google advertisers, career-center ads, activity.
Google: 1,237 roots scanned, 8,835 creatives OCR’d; false-positive rate of the method 3–6% (checked by eye on 118 ads).
Meta: 13 phrases, ~24,000 cards; LinkedIn: advertiser searches; YM site: 12 pages.
Prepared 3 Sep 2026.

12 / 12