Google Ads Transparency Scraper - Decoded Creatives

Google Ads Transparency Scraper - Decoded Creatives

Scrape the Google Ads Transparency Center for any advertiser and get every creative back with the copy decoded: headline, description, call to action, display and landing URLs, image, YouTube video id, first and last shown dates, days served, served regions, EU impression bands and political spend. No login, no cookies, no API key. Pay per creative; creatives your memory already knows are free.

Google publishes the ads of every verified advertiser at adstransparency.google.com, but the site is built for browsing one advertiser at a time and hides the ad copy inside a rendered preview. This Actor calls the same endpoints the site uses, pages through an advertiser's creatives at 100 per request, decodes the preview payloads and returns flat rows you can filter, schedule and export.

Quick start

1. In Advertisers, enter a website domain (nike.com), an advertiser name, an AR id, or paste a Transparency Center URL. One line per advertiser.
2. Pick a Region (or leave Anywhere), and any Platforms, Formats or date window. Filter by platform (Google Search, YouTube, Shopping, Maps, Play) and format (text, image, video), or leave both empty for every creative.
3. Set Max creatives per advertiser and Max creatives per run.
4. Keep Decode creatives on to get the copy, media and EU data; turn it off for metadata and preview URLs only.
5. Run. Rows land in the dataset (JSON, CSV, Excel, API). For a scheduled competitor watch, set a Memory name and every later run returns only new creatives.

What you get

One row per creative. The columns in the table view are the ones most people use; the JSON row carries everything.

Measured on 180 live creatives (2026-09-22); percentage of rows where the field is filled.

field	text ads	image ads	video ads
headline	73%	0%	43%
description	73%	0%	38%
callToAction	0%	5%	43%
displayUrl	73%	0%	37%
landingUrl	0%	27%	0%
businessName	7%	0%	37%
storeLocations	62%	0%	0%
productTitle	0%	27%	0%
merchantName	0%	27%	0%
imageUrl	72%	92%	50%
youtubeVideoId	0%	0%	52%
videoUrls	0%	0%	18%
appName	0%	0%	7%
firstShown	100%	100%	100%
lastShown	100%	100%	100%
daysServed	100%	100%	100%
regionStats	100%	100%	100%
payerName	47%	70%	57%
category	0%	23%	0%

field	meaning
advertiserName, advertiserId, advertiserRegion, advertiserVerified, payerName	the advertiser as Google verified it, its AR id, home region, verification flag and the legal payer name from the creative detail
creativeId, format, transparencyUrl, previewUrl	Google's CR id, TEXT / IMAGE / VIDEO, the link to the creative in the Transparency Center, the raw preview URL
headline, description, callToAction, displayUrl, businessName, businessCategory, storeLocations, phone	decoded search, local and companion copy; location extensions with store name, address and city
ocrStatus, ocrConfidence, ocrText, ocrLanguage, sitelinks	with OCR on: how the render was read, the recognition confidence, the full recognised text, the language pack used, the sitelinks visible in the render
productTitle, merchantName, offerId, landingUrl, cssPartner	Shopping creatives: product, merchant, GTIN or offer id, product landing URL, comparison shopping partner
appName, appId, appIconUrl, developerName	App install creatives (Google Play)
imageUrl, imageUrls, width, height	the creative image (Google's archived render for text ads, the display image otherwise) and its size
youtubeVideoId, youtubeUrl, videoUrls	video creatives: YouTube id and watch URL where the rendering embeds YouTube; signed playback URLs (they expire within hours, fetch what you keep)
firstShown, lastShown, daysServed, servedCountries, matchedDomain	dates as ISO timestamps, number of days served, ISO country codes the creative was shown in
regionStats, eeaImpressions, usImpressions	EU transparency: per region impression bands with per surface breakdown (Search, YouTube, Shopping, Maps, Play) and dates; aggregate EEA and US bands
impressionsLower, impressionsUpper, spendLower, spendUpper, spendCurrency, targeting, politicalRegions	political ads: impression and spend ranges, age, gender and location targeting, audience selection categories
category, vertical, containsSyntheticMedia	topic provided by the advertiser, vertical, Google's synthetic media disclosure
isNew, memoryStatus, decodeStatus, decodeSources, query, scrapedAt	provenance: memory result, how the row was decoded (detail, overlay, bundle), which input line produced it

A run-summary row closes every dataset: per advertiser requested, found (Google's size band), delivered, known skipped, pages fetched and stop reason; decode statistics; request counts and proxy mode; charges attempted and confirmed; memory state.

Sample creative row:

{
  "type": "creative",
  "advertiserName": "株式会社ナイキジャパン",
  "advertiserId": "AR01437837420136497153",
  "advertiserRegion": null,
  "advertiserVerified": true,
  "payerName": "株式会社ナイキジャパン",
  "creativeId": "CR15429817122099822593",
  "format": "TEXT",
  "headline": "【ナイキ公式】オンラインストア",
  "description": "季節のオススメやベストセラー、クリアランスが勢揃い。ジブンだけのカスタマイズも。",
  "displayUrl": "nike.com",
  "businessName": "ナイキジャパン",
  "imageUrl": "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/13803053261096263349",
  "imageUrls": [
    "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/13803053261096263349",
    "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/1021467459010002479",
    "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/3595071776370173829"
  ],
  "storeLocations": [
    {
      "name": "Nike Factory Store",
      "address": "土岐ヶ丘１丁目２, 土岐プレミアムアウトレット 210",
      "city": "土岐市",
      "region": "岐阜県",
      "postalCode": "509-5127",
      "country": "JP"
    }
  ],
  "width": 380,
  "height": 400,
  "firstShown": "2025-08-04T07:03:47.000Z",
  "lastShown": "2026-09-22T14:16:58.000Z",
  "daysServed": 415,
  "matchedDomain": "nike.com",
  "categoryId": 10021,
  "impressionsLower": null,
  "impressionsUpper": null,
  "spendLower": null,
  "spendUpper": null,
  "spendCurrency": null,
  "regionStats": [
    {
      "region": "KR",
      "impressionsLower": null,
      "impressionsUpper": null,
      "firstShown": null,
      "lastShown": "2026-09-17",
      "dataAvailableFrom": null,
      "surfaces": []
    },
    {
      "region": "JP",
      "impressionsLower": null,
      "impressionsUpper": null,
      "firstShown": null,
      "lastShown": "2026-09-22",
      "dataAvailableFrom": null,
      "surfaces": []
    }
  ],
  "targeting": {
    "age": null,
    "gender": null,
    "geoCriteriaIds": null,
    "audienceSelection": {
      "demographics": {
        "included": true,
        "excluded": false
      },
      "geographicLocations": {
        "included": true,
        "excluded": false
      },
      "contextualSignals": {
        "included": true,
        "excluded": true
      }
    }
  },
  "politicalRegions": null,
  "reportedByUser": false,
  "previewUrl": "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/13803053261096263349",
  "transparencyUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR01437837420136497153/creative/CR15429817122099822593?region=anywhere",
  "variantCount": 4,
  "creativeType": 102,
  "decodeStatus": "decoded",
  "decodeSources": [
    "detail",
    "bundle"
  ],
  "isNew": true,
  "memoryStatus": "NO_MEMORY",
  "query": {
    "input": "nike.com",
    "kind": "domain",
    "value": "nike.com",
    "region": "ANYWHERE",
    "format": "all"
  },
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-22T14:52:07.041Z"
}

How much does it cost to scrape the Google Ads Transparency Center?

Pay per event, nothing per month. The Store card shows the same prices per 1,000 events.

event	price	when it is charged
Creative	$0.40 per 1,000	one creative row delivered (Silver 10 percent off, Gold 20 percent off)
Creative decoded	$0.30 per 1,000	the detail and rendering decoded on top of a creative row, only when the decode returned data (same tiers)
OCR read	$0.50 per 1,000	with "Read image-only text ads (OCR)": the copy read out of a text ad Google publishes only as an image, only when a headline was recognised (same tiers)
Actor start	$2.50 per 1,000 runs (0.25 cents per run)	once per run, so a monitoring run that finds nothing new costs a fraction of a cent

Worked example: 1,000 decoded creatives of one advertiser cost $0.70 plus one start fee. A weekly watch of five competitors that finds 40 new creatives costs 40 x ($0.40 + $0.30) / 1,000 plus the start fee, about 4 cents. Known creatives, filtered rows, run summaries, status rows and failed runs are free.

Input

field	notes
advertisers	domains, names, AR ids or pasted adstransparency.google.com URLs (advertiser page, ?domain= search, or one creative). Names are resolved through Google's own suggestions; a domain is the most exact key.
region	one of 244 regions or ANYWHERE
platforms	search, youtube, shopping, maps, play (empty = all)
formats	text, image, video (empty = all)
lastShownAfter, lastShownBefore	YYYY-MM-DD, applied by Google
topic	all or political
sort	lastShown (default) or impressions
maxCreativesPerAdvertiser, maxTotal	caps; the run summary says why each advertiser stopped
decodeCreatives	on in the Console by default, off for API callers who do not send it
ocrImageOnlyText	read image-only text ads with the built-in OCR engine (needs decodeCreatives and a run memory of 512 MB or more); off by default
memoryName, emitKnown, resetMemory	cross-run memory
concurrency	advertisers paged in parallel (1 to 8)
proxyConfiguration	Apify datacenter by default with automatic residential fallback for the small RPC calls

API example:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation_craft~google-ads-transparency-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"advertisers": ["nike.com"], "region": "US", "maxCreativesPerAdvertiser": 200, "decodeCreatives": true}'

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation_craft/google-ads-transparency-scraper').call({ advertisers: ['nike.com'], platforms: ['youtube'], formats: ['video'], maxCreativesPerAdvertiser: 100, decodeCreatives: true, memoryName: 'weekly-watch' });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run = client.actor("automation_craft/google-ads-transparency-scraper").call(run_input={"advertisers": ["nike.com"], "lastShownAfter": "2026-09-01", "decodeCreatives": True})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items

What this Actor does NOT do

• Keyword search across commercial ads: the Transparency Center only searches ad text within political ads. Keywords are resolved to advertisers (what the website does).
• Read the copy out of image-only text ads unless you turn on "Read image-only text ads (OCR)": without it those rows carry the image URL and decodeStatus: image_only. With it, about 8 percent of renders still come back without a headline (a product photo across the text, a truncated render, Google's placeholder templates) and are not billed.
• Download media files: it returns image and video URLs; the signed video playback URLs expire within hours.
• Exact match counts for commercial searches: Google gives a size band (foundLower, foundUpper in the run summary); political searches get exact counts.
• Show impressions or spend for commercial ads outside the EU: Google publishes none. EU rows carry regionStats; political rows carry spend and impression ranges.
• Reach ads older than what Google keeps for an advertiser.

FAQ

Does the Google Ads Transparency Center have an API?

No public API exists. This Actor reads the same JSON endpoints the Transparency Center website calls, with no login, no cookies and no key, and bills per creative delivered. The BigQuery datasets Google publishes cover only political ads and, since 2025, EU ads.

How do I see all the ads a competitor is running on Google?

Put the competitor's website domain (the most exact match) or name in "Advertisers", leave the filters empty and set your caps. Every creative comes back with format, first and last shown dates, days served and, with "Decode creatives" on, the headline, description, image, YouTube id and EU impression bands.

Why do some text ads come back with an image but no headline?

Google publishes many text ads only as a rendered image (the "simgad" PNG you see in the Transparency Center). The Actor delivers that image URL and marks the row decodeStatus: image_only. Where Google also serves the rendering script, the copy is decoded and the row says decoded.

Can I filter by region, platform, format and date?

Yes, and every filter is applied by Google itself: region (244 regions), platforms (Search, YouTube, Shopping, Maps, Play), formats (text, image, video) and a shown-between date window. The run summary reports the size band Google gave for each query.

How do I monitor new Google ads automatically?

Set a "Memory name" and schedule the run. Creatives delivered under that name are remembered; every later run returns only the creatives you have not received yet, and known creatives are never charged again.

How does the OCR for image-only text ads work and how accurate is it?

Google publishes about a quarter of text ads only as a rendered PNG. With "Read image-only text ads (OCR)" on, the Actor runs the open source Tesseract engine inside the run (no key, no third party) on Google's own clean render, masks the logo and product photo, and recovers headline, description, display URL and sitelinks from the line layout. Measured on 66 live renders where Google also exposed the real copy: the headline was recovered on 92 percent of Latin-script renders; Japanese reads at about 90 percent per character. Every OCR row carries ocrConfidence, and a render with no real copy (Google's placeholder templates) is never billed.

Why does this Actor run with limited permissions?

Least privilege: it only needs its own dataset, its own key-value store and the Apify proxy. The cross-run memory is a named key-value store the Actor creates itself, so nothing outside its own storages is touched.

More data tools by Automation Craft

• Google Ads Library Scraper - Competitor Ads, No Login
• YouTube Ads Scraper - Video Ads by Advertiser
• Facebook Ads Library Scraper - Page Ads, No Login
• Meta Ad Library Scraper - All Placements, Filters
• Instagram Ads Library Scraper - Creatives, Video
• LinkedIn Ad Library Scraper
• Google Trends Scraper
• Google News Scraper

Changelog

• 0.2.0 (2026-09-23): OCR for image-only text ads (opt in, priced per read).
• 0.1.0 (2026-09-22): first release. Advertiser resolution by name, domain, id or URL; region, platform, format, date and topic filters applied by Google; decode of search, local, shopping, app and video creatives; EU impression bands; political spend; cross-run memory; per run ledger.