Ad Library Scraper

Extract ads from four transparency libraries — Meta Ad Library, Google Ads Transparency Center, TikTok and LinkedIn — with one query, into one unified dataset: ad copy, headlines, CTAs, destination URLs, creative assets, run dates and publisher platforms, at $2 per 1,000 ads.

Built for:

• Competitor ad research and creative intelligence
• Tracking which offers and angles rivals are running
• Agency reporting and market-monitoring dashboards
• Ad compliance and brand-safety checks across platforms
• Building an ads database for a brand, keyword or domain

Research Competitor Ads Across Meta, Google, TikTok & LinkedIn

Enter one brand, keyword or domain (e.g. nike, nike.com, or a Google AR... advertiser id) and choose the platforms to scrape — all four by default. Each platform paginates until it reaches maxItems, and every ad lands as one row with a platform tag plus normalized fields: advertiser, title, body, CTA, destination URL, image/video URLs, first/last shown dates and the ad-library URL. Platform extras come along too: Meta publisherPlatforms, EU spend/reach ranges and isActive; TikTok performance metrics (CTR, likes, objective, industry) outside the EU/UK/CH library; Google AR... advertiser ids; LinkedIn format labels.

How It Works

Each library is read through its own public, unauthenticated surface — no developer app, no access token, no approval queue:

Platform	Access path
Meta	Direct HTTP: server-rendered first page + GraphQL cursor pagination (no browser; residential proxy for pages 2+)
Google	Internal JSON RPC executed inside the transparency site's own page context
TikTok	Signed HTTP for keyword search (EU/UK/CH: the Commercial Content Library via page search; elsewhere: Creative Center Top Ads)
LinkedIn	Headless browser, server-rendered result cards parsed from the DOM

Meta serves its first page from any IP, but its GraphQL pagination needs a residential-class exit; Google and TikTok throttle anonymous datacenter traffic, and LinkedIn throttles datacenter ranges. A residential proxy is therefore strongly recommended for runs above 30 Meta ads and for repeated or large runs (proxyConfiguration). No private account data is read; the optional TikTok cookie session is used only to reach the same public Creative Center results, and no CAPTCHA solving is performed.

Input Parameters

Field	Type	Required	Default	Notes
query	string	Yes	—	Brand, keyword or domain: nike, nike.com, meal prep, or a Google AR... advertiser id.
platforms	array	No	all four	Subset of meta, google, tiktok, linkedin.
country	string	No	US	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code (US, GB, DE, FR, RS…). TikTok uses its full Commercial Content Library for EU/UK/CH countries and Top Ads elsewhere.
maxItems	integer	No	10	Max ads per platform; each platform paginates until it is reached. Raise it for full exports.
metaActiveOnly	boolean	No	true	Only currently running Meta ads; turn off to include inactive ones.
metaMediaType	string	No	all	all, image, video, meme, none.
tiktokOrderBy	string	No	for_you	for_you, ctr, like (Top Ads countries only).
tiktokPeriodDays	integer	No	30	7, 30 or 180 — anonymous Top Ads sweep only.
tiktokIndustry	string	No	—	Creative Center industry key, e.g. label_23110000000.
tiktokObjective	string	No	—	Creative Center objective key, e.g. campaign_objective_conversion.
proxyConfiguration	object	No	—	Apify proxy. Recommended: Meta pagination needs a residential exit, and Google, TikTok and LinkedIn throttle anonymous traffic.

Output Fields

One dataset row per ad, with platform marking the source:

• Common: platform, id, advertiser, advertiserId, domain, title, body, cta, destinationUrl, format, imageUrl, videoUrl, videoPreviewUrl, firstShown, lastShown, scrapedAt, adLibraryUrl
• Meta: pageUrl, publisherPlatforms, countries, isActive, spend / reachEstimate (EU transparency data when Meta publishes it; null for US commercial ads)
• TikTok: metrics (ctr, likes, costBucket, objective, industry outside EU/UK/CH; auditStatus / showMode inside the library), metrics.matchMethod (keyword, top-ads-filter, top-ads)
• Google: advertiserId in AR... form, firstShown / lastShown from the transparency feed
• LinkedIn: format derived from the card label (image/video/carousel/text)

Example Input

{
  "query": "nike",
  "platforms": ["meta", "google", "tiktok", "linkedin"],
  "country": "US",
  "maxItems": 10
}

Example Output

{
  "platform": "meta",
  "id": "3928550510773109",
  "advertiser": "VYBS",
  "advertiserId": "431524636713229",
  "pageUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/61566942027285/",
  "domain": "play.google.com",
  "title": "Get paid to play. Cash out daily.",
  "body": "Why aren't you getting paid to game yet? ...",
  "cta": "Install now",
  "destinationUrl": "http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.vybs.app",
  "format": "image",
  "imageUrl": "https://scontent...",
  "videoUrl": null,
  "firstShown": "2026-06-30T07:00:00.000Z",
  "lastShown": "2026-10-17T19:00:00.000Z",
  "isActive": true,
  "publisherPlatforms": ["FACEBOOK", "INSTAGRAM", "AUDIENCE_NETWORK"],
  "countries": ["US"],
  "spend": null,
  "reachEstimate": null,
  "adLibraryUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?id=3928550510773109",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-18T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Automate Competitor Ad Monitoring With Schedules & Webhooks

• New-ads alerts: schedule a daily run per competitor brand and diff rows by id against the previous run — flag anything new.
• Launch tracking: run with metaActiveOnly: false weekly to see when ads start and stop (firstShown / lastShown).
• Cross-platform reporting: one scheduled run with all four platforms feeds a single dashboard dataset; attach a dataset webhook to Slack or a warehouse.
• Scheduled, recurring runs also improve this actor's Store recommendation signals.

Related Actors

• Facebook Ads Library Scraper — the most-used ad-library actor on the Store, focused on Meta.
• Facebook (Meta) Ads Library Scraper — Meta-focused alternative with a large install base.
• Google Ads Transparency Center Scraper & API — Google transparency coverage as a standalone tool.
• LinkedIn Ads Scraper — LinkedIn ad-library coverage on its own.
• TikTok Ads Scraper — TikTok advertising data as a standalone tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why use this actor instead of the official APIs?

Each platform's official route is limited or gated. Meta's official Ad Library API requires a Meta developer app plus identity confirmation, and outside the EU/UK its keyword search effectively covers only political and issue ads — ordinary commercial ads in most countries are not returned. Google publishes no official API for the Ads Transparency Center (its official google_political_ads feed is political-only). LinkedIn does expose an official Ad Library API, but access is requested through its developer portal under approval. This actor reads the public surfaces of all four platforms — the optional TikTok cookie session only unlocks the same public Creative Center keyword search — with no developer app, no access token and no approval step, including commercial ads in countries the official APIs do not cover.

Is there an official Google Ads Transparency API?

Not for general use. Google's transparency data can be browsed in the Ads Transparency Center (it exists because of EU transparency rules), and Google publishes a google_political_ads BigQuery dataset, but there is no documented API for arbitrary commercial-ads lookup. This actor reads the transparency center's own data directly — no login, no key — by advertiser name, domain or AR... id.

Do I need a login, cookies or an API key?

Not to run. Meta, Google, LinkedIn and the TikTok EU/UK/CH library work without any account, cookie or API key. Optionally, the Actor owner can store TikTok cookies (TIKTOK_COOKIES secret) to unlock server-side keyword search on Creative Center outside the EU/UK/CH, where the anonymous API has no keyword search. The cookies are used only by the TikTok adapter, are never written to the dataset, and the Actor falls back to anonymous Top Ads when they expire.

How long does the TikTok keyword session last?

TikTok's sid_guard cookie is valid for about 180 days (6 months) from login. TikTok does not issue a refresh token, so the only way to extend it is to log in again and re-import the cookies; the Actor cannot renew it silently. It reads the expiry date and notifies the owner 7 days before it lapses, then falls back to anonymous Top Ads if it expires. The other three platforms never need cookies.

Which countries are covered?

Meta, Google and LinkedIn filter by country natively, and TikTok uses its full Commercial Content Library for the EU/UK/CH countries and Creative Center Top Ads elsewhere (e.g. the US). Set country as an ISO alpha-2 code; Google maps it to its numeric region enum and drops the filter for unknown codes.

How is this different from a Facebook-only ads scraper?

It runs Meta, Google, TikTok and LinkedIn in one run and returns one normalized schema, so a single query gives you a competitor's whole visible ad footprint instead of four separate scrapes with four different output shapes.

Can I track when a competitor launches new ads?

Yes — schedule the actor daily per brand, then diff new rows by id (or adLibraryUrl). firstShown / lastShown and isActive tell you flight dates; metaActiveOnly: false keeps historical Meta ads in the mix.

For AI Agents & LLM Apps

Purpose: returns ad rows from the Meta Ad Library, Google Ads Transparency Center, TikTok and LinkedIn for one query — unified schema, keyless.

Minimal input:

{ "query": "nike", "country": "US", "maxItems": 50 }

Single-platform variant:

{ "query": "nike.com", "platforms": ["google"], "maxItems": 100 }

Output fields: platform, id, advertiser, advertiserId, domain, title, body, cta, destinationUrl, format, imageUrl, videoUrl, videoPreviewUrl, firstShown, lastShown, isActive, publisherPlatforms, countries, spend, reachEstimate, adLibraryUrl, metrics, scrapedAt.

Behaviors an agent should know:

• query is required; platforms defaults to all four — restrict it to cut cost and runtime.
• maxItems is a per-platform cap (default 10), so four platforms can return up to 4 × maxItems rows. The default is intentionally small for quick test runs; raise it for exports.
• metaActiveOnly defaults to true; set it to false for historical Meta ads.
• tiktokOrderBy / tiktokPeriodDays apply only to Creative Center countries (e.g. US), not to EU/UK/CH library search.
• Set proxyConfiguration for Meta pagination and repeated or large runs — Meta's GraphQL pages need a residential exit, and Google, TikTok and LinkedIn throttle anonymous datacenter traffic.
• spend / reachEstimate are populated only where the platform publishes them (political/issue ads and EU transparency data); null is normal.

Billing: pay-per-event — ad-scraped at $0.002 per saved ad, plus a run-start event.

Legal & Compliance Disclaimer

This actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Meta, Google, TikTok or LinkedIn. It reads publicly visible ad-library pages; when the owner configures optional TikTok cookies, those are used only to query the public Creative Center keyword search. No private account data is collected, and no CAPTCHA solving is performed. Ad libraries can contain personal data (e.g. payer names in political ads), which may be subject to GDPR or similar regimes; users are responsible for their own compliance with each platform's Terms of Service and applicable data-protection law when storing, redistributing or automating access to the collected data.

SEO Keywords

ad library scraper, meta ad library api, facebook ads library scraper, google ads transparency center scraper, google ads transparency api, tiktok ad library, linkedin ad library api, scrape facebook ads, ad library api alternative, competitor ad research, ad transparency data, creative intelligence tool, competitor ads database, social media ads dataset, ad campaign monitoring, ad library without api key, commercial ads database, instagram ads scraper, ad library data export, competitor advertising research, ad spy data, multi-platform ad scraper