Google Ads Transparency Scraper

📊 What does Google Ads Transparency Scraper do?

Google Ads Transparency Scraper collects public ad creatives from the Google Ads Transparency Center. Enter an advertiser name, website domain, advertiser ID, advertiser URL, or creative URL. The Actor returns clean rows with public creative media or previews, stable IDs, dates, formats, and advertiser details.

Use it for competitor ad research, creative libraries, brand audits, ad history checks, market research, scheduled monitoring, and data pipelines.

With Google Ads Transparency Scraper, you can:

• 🔎 Find public ads by advertiser name or website domain.
• 🆔 Collect an exact advertiser or creative by its public ID or URL.
• 🖼️ Export creative media and public preview URLs.
• 📅 Track first-shown, last-shown, and observation dates.
• 🌎 Filter by region, Google platform, ad format, and date range.
• 🧾 Add public payer, served region, and served platform details when needed.
• ♻️ Remove duplicate creatives within each run.
• 📦 Download results as JSON, JSONL, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or HTML.
• 🚦 Understand empty, partial, and failed results through clear statuses and the run summary.

One saved row means one observed public ad creative. The Actor does not save a metadata-only row when no usable media or preview is available.

This Actor uses logged-out public Google Ads Transparency Center data. It does not use Google accounts, customer sessions, private campaign data, or challenge solving.

📦 What Google Ads Transparency data can I extract?

Each dataset row represents one public ad creative observed during one Actor run.

Data group	Example fields
🔎 Input context	input, inputType, requestedRegion, requestedPlatform, requestedFormat
🏢 Advertiser	advertiserId, advertiserName, advertiserLegalName, advertiserDomain, advertiserCountryCode, advertiserVerified
🆔 Creative	creativeId, creativeUrl, format
📅 Ad dates	firstShownAt, lastShownAt, approxDaysShown
🖼️ Creative media	mediaUrl, previewUrl, variationCount, variations
🌐 Delivery	payerName, servedRegions, servedPlatforms
📌 Observation	observedAt
🚦 Row status	status, statusReason

Each item in variations uses this fixed field order: mediaUrl, previewUrl, width, and height.

Missing public values stay null. They are not guessed. Zero appears only when the public source gives an explicit zero.

Rows are saved as soon as they are ready. Repeated runs create new observations with a new observedAt value.

⚙️ Can I use this Actor through an API?

Yes. You can run Google Ads Transparency Scraper manually in Apify Console or use it through:

• Apify API
• Python SDK
• Node.js SDK
• Webhooks
• Scheduled runs
• Make, Zapier, and n8n
• Other Apify integrations

This makes the Actor useful for creative databases, competitor monitors, research pipelines, reporting tools, and automated alerts.

🎯 Why scrape Google Ads Transparency creatives?

Public ad creative data helps you study how advertisers present products, offers, messages, and formats across markets and over time.

Use case	How the data helps
🕵️ Competitor research	Review public creatives used by other advertisers.
🖼️ Creative libraries	Save media, previews, dates, formats, and stable creative IDs.
📈 Ad monitoring	Compare observed creative inventories across scheduled runs.
🌎 Market research	Filter public ads by region, platform, format, and date.
🧾 Brand audits	Check public advertiser identity and creative history when available.
🧱 Data products	Feed clean creative rows into databases, dashboards, and AI workflows.

💵 Pricing Event

Google Ads Transparency Scraper uses pay-per-result pricing. One google-ad-creative event means one useful creative row saved to the default dataset.

Failed targets, empty searches, duplicate creatives, and public creatives without usable media or previews do not create paid result rows.

Use maxItems to control the largest possible number of paid rows. Start with 10 creatives. Increase the limit only after the small run gives the data you need. The current price appears in Apify Console before you start the run.

🚀 How do I use Google Ads Transparency Scraper?

1. Create or log in to your Apify account.
2. Open Google Ads Transparency Scraper.
3. Enter one advertiser name, domain, ID, or URL.
4. Select the region where the ads were shown.
5. Keep all platforms and formats for your first run.
6. Keep payer and delivery details off for your first run.
7. Set the maximum saved creatives to 10.
8. Click Start.
9. Open the Output tab to inspect the dataset and run summary.
10. Download the results or connect the Actor to your workflow.

⬇️ Input

The main input is targets. Enter one to 100 advertiser names, domains, advertiser IDs, advertiser URLs, or creative URLs.

Use this small first run:

{
  "targets": ["nike.com"],
  "region": "US",
  "platform": "ALL",
  "adFormat": "ALL",
  "includeDeliveryDetails": false,
  "maxItems": 10
}

🔎 Advertiser targets

Target type	Example	Behavior
Advertiser name	Nike, Inc.	Uses the closest public advertiser match.
Website domain	nike.com	Finds public creatives connected to the domain.
Advertiser ID	AR16735076323512287233	Uses one exact public advertiser account.
Advertiser URL	https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR16735076323512287233	Uses the advertiser ID in the URL.
Creative URL	A full Ads Transparency Center creative URL	Collects that exact public creative.

An advertiser ID or advertiser URL gives the safest account match. A name uses the closest public match. Check targetOutcomes in OUTPUT to confirm the resolved advertiser.

Broad domain searches can match more than one advertiser account. Legal name, advertiser country, and verification can be unavailable for these searches. Use an advertiser ID when you need those fields.

🌎 Region, platform, format, and dates

Search one advertiser ID with narrow filters:

{
  "targets": ["AR16735076323512287233"],
  "region": "CA",
  "platform": "GOOGLE_SEARCH",
  "adFormat": "IMAGE",
  "dateFrom": "2026-07-01",
  "dateTo": "2026-08-16",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Search more than one advertiser:

{
  "targets": ["nike.com", "adidas.com"],
  "region": "GB",
  "maxItems": 100
}

The 100-row limit is shared across both targets.

🧾 Optional payer and delivery details

Turn on includeDeliveryDetails when you need the payer name, regions shown, or platforms shown for each creative. This check can increase run time. Keep it off when you need only the creative, media, dates, and advertiser details.

{
  "targets": ["AR10641703725577535489"],
  "region": "US",
  "platform": "ALL",
  "adFormat": "ALL",
  "includeDeliveryDetails": true,
  "maxItems": 10
}

Google does not publish all three values for every creative. payerName can be different from advertiserName. servedPlatforms can be incomplete for older ads. A missing value stays null.

🎛️ Settings

Setting	What it controls
targets	One to 100 advertiser names, domains, advertiser IDs, advertiser URLs, or creative URLs.
region	Country where the public source shows the ads. Use ANYWHERE for wider results. Default: US.
platform	All platforms, Google Search, YouTube, Google Shopping, Google Maps, or Google Play. Default: ALL.
adFormat	All public formats, image, text, or video. Default: ALL.
dateFrom	Optional real date from 2000-01-01 through today. Blank keeps the earliest available date.
dateTo	Optional real date from 2000-01-01 through today. Blank keeps the latest available date.
includeDeliveryDetails	Optional payer, served region, and served platform details. Default: false.
maxItems	Shared saved-row and pricing-event cap. Range: 1 to 5,000. Default: 10.

⬆️ Output sample

Results are stored in the default dataset. This sample follows one tested row:

{
  "input": "Nike, Inc.",
  "inputType": "advertiser_name",
  "requestedRegion": "ca",
  "requestedPlatform": "google_search",
  "requestedFormat": "image",
  "advertiserId": "AR16735076323512287233",
  "advertiserName": "Nike, Inc.",
  "advertiserLegalName": "Nike, Inc.",
  "advertiserDomain": null,
  "advertiserCountryCode": "US",
  "advertiserVerified": true,
  "creativeId": "CR07777348434821906433",
  "creativeUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR16735076323512287233/creative/CR07777348434821906433?region=CA",
  "format": "image",
  "firstShownAt": "2026-07-17T10:02:02.000Z",
  "lastShownAt": "2026-08-16T16:04:17.000Z",
  "approxDaysShown": 31,
  "mediaUrl": "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/4414980705340742578",
  "previewUrl": null,
  "variationCount": 1,
  "variations": [
    {
      "mediaUrl": "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/4414980705340742578",
      "previewUrl": null,
      "width": 734,
      "height": 192
    }
  ],
  "payerName": null,
  "servedRegions": null,
  "servedPlatforms": null,
  "observedAt": "2026-08-16T21:24:56.083Z",
  "status": "ok",
  "statusReason": "The public creative and its media were collected."
}

📌 Run summary

The OUTPUT and RUN_SUMMARY key-value-store records include:

• targets received and resolved;
• one outcome for each processed target;
• duplicate and unusable creatives skipped;
• useful creatives saved;
• row status counts;
• the final run status and stop reason;
• the schema version and run times.

An empty dataset does not always mean the Actor failed. A target can have no public ads for the selected region, platform, format, or date range. The run summary separates no_results from an unavailable public source.

🎯 Status and quality fields

Use status, statusReason, and the run summary to interpret each result.

Status or field	Meaning
status: "ok"	The public creative, usable media or preview, and format were collected.
status: "partial"	The creative has usable media or a preview, but its format was unavailable.
statusReason	Gives the buyer-facing reason for the row status.
targetOutcomes	Shows how each target resolved and how many rows it saved.
observedAt	Shows when this Actor observed the creative.
firstShownAt	Shows the first date reported by the public source when available.
lastShownAt	Shows the last date reported by the public source when available.

requestedRegion records the selected filter. It does not claim that the row contains every region where the ad ran.

🔒 Source boundary

Google Ads Transparency Scraper reads logged-out public data from the Google Ads Transparency Center.

It does not:

• sign in to a Google account;
• use customer sessions or cookies;
• solve access challenges;
• read private campaign data;
• provide bid keywords, spend, targeting, or conversion data;
• claim to be an official Google API.

⚠️ Limits and interpretation

• The Google Ads Transparency Center is a changing public source.
• maxItems is a cap. It is not a promise that the source has that many matching creatives.
• Advertiser names can be similar. Use an advertiser ID or exact URL when identity matters.
• A domain can match more than one advertiser account.
• Broad domain searches can leave legal name, advertiser country, and verification as null.
• Some creatives provide a preview instead of a direct media file.
• A video creative can provide a public preview without a reusable video file.
• Landing pages are not a promised field.
• Creative media links can change or stop working after collection.
• Platform filters can exclude older ads that have no supported platform data.
• Delivery details can increase run time. Google can omit the payer, region, or platform breakdown for some creatives.
• The Actor does not claim a complete ad history.

❓ FAQ

Does this Actor need a Google API key, login, or cookies?

No. It reads logged-out public Google Ads Transparency Center data.

Why did I get fewer rows than maxItems?

The public source can have fewer matching creatives. Filters, duplicate creatives, and public creatives with no usable media or preview can also reduce the result. Read targetOutcomes and the counters in OUTPUT.

Why is mediaUrl null?

Some formats use an interactive public preview instead of one media file. In that case, previewUrl can contain the creative.

Why is a row partial?

The Actor saved a usable public creative, but the public source did not give its format. The row keeps the available media or preview and sets format to null.

Can I search ad text or paid keywords?

No. Search targets identify advertisers. This Actor does not search bid keywords or all ad copy.

Does it return impressions, clicks, spend, CPM, or conversions?

No. The public source does not give standard campaign performance data for these ads. The Actor does not estimate these values.

Why is the payer different from the advertiser?

Google can show a different entity that paid for the creative. The Actor keeps that value in payerName. It does not replace advertiserName.

Does it return landing pages or reusable video files?

No stable landing-page or direct video-file field is promised. Public previews can contain links or video playback, but those forms are not consistent enough for a stable row field.

How does duplicate removal work?

The Actor uses the advertiser ID and creative ID as the unique creative key within a run. The same creative can appear again in a later run because that later row is a new observation.

⚖️ Legal and responsible use

This Actor collects public data. Public data can still be subject to source terms, privacy rules, intellectual property rights, and laws in your country. Use the data only for a lawful purpose. This section is general information and is not legal advice.

This Actor is independent. Google and Google Ads are trademarks of Google LLC.

🛟 Support

For support, include:

• the Actor run ID;
• a small input example;
• the advertiser or creative you expected;
• the row or field that looks wrong;
• the OUTPUT summary;
• whether the issue affects one row or the whole run.

Do not send account cookies, passwords, private campaign data, or other secret values.

🔗 Related Actors

Continue the same research workflow with:

• Google Search Scraper — collect public web results from Google, Bing, Brave, and DuckDuckGo.
• Google Jobs Scraper — collect public job listings from Google Jobs searches.