Google Ads Transparency Center Scraper — Fast, No Browser

Get every ad a brand runs on Google — Search, YouTube, Shopping, Display, Maps, Play — straight from the Google Ads Transparency Center, as clean JSON, CSV or Excel. Search by domain or advertiser ID, filter by country and format, and get for each ad: format, first and last day shown, days active, preview (image or renderer link), advertiser name, landing domain and the ad's Transparency Center page.

The Transparency Center has no public API. This Actor calls the same internal endpoint as the website, over plain HTTP — no headless browser — so 1,000 ads take about 30 seconds. Call it from the Apify API, Python, JavaScript, Make, Zapier, n8n or any MCP client.

Price: from $0.60 per 1,000 ads ($1.00 on the Free plan). Searches that return nothing, fail or are cut by your cost limit are free and listed in the dataset.

This Actor is an independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. It reads the public Ads Transparency Center only.

Why this scraper

• Cheap: $0.60–$1.00 per 1,000 ads, against $2.00 or more for the most-used alternatives (public Store data, October 2026).
• Fast and light: HTTP only, 40 ads per request, several searches in parallel, 256 MB of memory.
• Fair billing: you pay per ad delivered. A brand without ads, a failed request or a search cut by your cost limit leaves a free row that says why.
• Reliable: Google allows about 90 requests per IP, then blocks it for hours; each search starts on a direct connection and moves to its own residential IP (included in the price) as soon as Google rate-limits it, taking a new IP on every 429. If a search runs out of time, the ads already fetched are delivered and the row says so.
• Complete: domains and advertiser IDs in the same run; newest ads first; one row per creative (sponsored repeats are removed).
• AI-agent ready: usable from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients through the Apify MCP server.

What you can use it for

• Competitive ad intelligence: what a competitor advertises right now, in which formats, and for how long each creative has been live (shownForDays).
• Creative research: collect image and video previews of a sector's ads before writing your own.
• Ad-check and lead generation: which companies in a list run Google Ads at all, and since when.
• Market monitoring: schedule a daily run per brand and compare creativeId lists to spot new campaigns.
• Agency reporting: a client's live ads by country, exported to Excel in one click.

Quick start

1. Click Try for free (or Start) on this page.
2. In Domains, type one website domain per line, e.g. nike.com or hellofresh.fr.
3. Pick a Region (ANYWHERE or a country code such as US) and, if you want, an Ad format.
4. Click Start. Ads appear in the Output tab in seconds and download as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML.

Input

Field	Type	Default	What it does
queries	list of strings	—	Website domains (nike.com), one search each: every ad pointing to that domain, from any advertiser account. Brand names alone are not accepted (Google's search needs a domain or an advertiser ID).
advertiserIds	list of strings	—	Advertiser IDs (AR…), copied from the end of an advertiser page URL on adstransparency.google.com. One search each.
region	string	ANYWHERE	Two-letter country code (US, FR, DE…) to keep only ads shown in that country, or ANYWHERE.
adFormat	string	ALL	ALL, TEXT, IMAGE or VIDEO.
maxAdsPerQuery	integer	100	Ads collected per search, newest first (1 to 10,000).
maxConcurrency	integer	3	Searches run in parallel, each on its own proxy IP (1 to 10).
maxRetries	integer	4	Retries per request, each on a new IP, when Google rate-limits or the network fails.
proxy	object	Apify Proxy, residential	Used after Google rate-limits the direct connection. Residential proxies are included in the price; datacenter IPs get blocked by Google for hours, so they are not recommended.

At least one of queries or advertiserIds is required.

Example

{
  "queries": ["nike.com", "hellofresh.fr"],
  "region": "US",
  "adFormat": "VIDEO",
  "maxAdsPerQuery": 500
}

Example: ad-check a list of companies

{
  "queries": ["acme-tools.com", "bricorama.fr", "example.org"],
  "maxAdsPerQuery": 1
}

One ad per company that advertises, a free no-data row for each company that does not.

Output

One row per ad (type: "ad", charged) and one free row per search that returned nothing, failed, was cut by your cost limit or is partial (type: "search"). Filter on type to separate them; the Ads and Search status views show the columns that matter for each.

{
  "type": "ad",
  "query": "decathlon.fr",
  "searchedAdvertiserId": null,
  "region": "FR",
  "adFormat": "ALL",
  "advertiserId": "AR15666691663760195585",
  "creativeId": "CR14667966159458926593",
  "advertiserName": "Decathlon France SASU",
  "domain": "decathlon.fr",
  "format": "TEXT",
  "firstShown": "2026-01-21",
  "lastShown": "2026-10-22",
  "shownForDays": 270,
  "previewUrl": "https://displayads-formats.googleusercontent.com/ads/preview/content.js?…",
  "imageUrl": null,
  "adUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR15666691663760195585/creative/CR14667966159458926593?region=FR",
  "status": "ok",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-22T20:15:03.000Z"
}

Output fields

Field	Meaning
type	ad or search.
status	ok (ad), or for search rows no-data, partial, failed, skipped-cost-limit, invalid.
query, searchedAdvertiserId	What you searched.
region, adFormat	The filters of the run.
advertiserId, advertiserName	Google's advertiser ID and verified name.
domain	The domain the ad points to. Google fills it for brand-name and domain searches only: null when you search by advertiser ID.
creativeId	Google's creative ID, stable over time: compare runs to find new ads.
format	TEXT, IMAGE or VIDEO.
firstShown, lastShown, shownForDays	Dates (YYYY-MM-DD) and days active, as published by Google.
previewUrl	Google's renderer of the creative (text and video ads). Open it in a browser to see the ad.
imageUrl	The creative image (image ads).
adUrl	The ad's page on the Transparency Center.
adsDelivered, adsFetched, errors, notes	Search rows: what was delivered and why the rest is missing.
scrapedAt	When the row was produced (UTC).

Fields are only ever added, never renamed or removed.

Pricing

Event	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold and above
ad — one ad delivered	$0.0010	$0.0008	$0.0007	$0.0006

That is $0.60 to $1.00 per 1,000 ads. Nothing else is charged: no start fee, nothing for empty, failed or cut searches. Apify platform usage (compute, proxy) is covered by the price.

Set Maximum cost per run in the run options to cap a run: the Actor stops at the limit and lists, free of charge, the searches it did not finish.

Good to know

• Newest first: Google returns the most recently shown ads first; maxAdsPerQuery keeps the newest.
• Region: ANYWHERE lists every ad of the advertiser; a country code keeps only ads shown there. The region does not change the ad data itself.
• Why domains: Google's free-text search matches landing domains, not brand names (a bare name returns nothing). The domain catches every advertiser account behind a brand, including resellers; to target one account only, use its advertiser ID.
• Previews: image ads give a direct image URL; text and video ads give Google's renderer URL, which displays the ad in a browser.
• Not included (yet): per-country impression ranges and A/B variations of an ad (the "ad detail" page). Tell us if you need them.
• Rate limits: Google allows about 90 requests per IP, then answers HTTP 429 for hours. Each search uses its own residential proxy session and the Actor takes a new IP on every 429, so runs of tens of thousands of ads go through.

Use it as an API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/datafabrik~google-ads-transparency-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"queries": ["nike.com"], "region": "US", "maxAdsPerQuery": 50}'

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("datafabrik/google-ads-transparency-scraper").call(run_input={"queries": ["nike.com"], "region": "US"})
for ad in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    if ad["type"] == "ad":
        print(ad["format"], ad["lastShown"], ad["adUrl"])

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('datafabrik/google-ads-transparency-scraper').call({ queries: ['nike.com'], region: 'US' });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items.filter((i) => i.type === 'ad').length, 'ads');

Use it from an AI agent (MCP)

Add the Apify MCP server to Claude, Cursor or any MCP client and ask for "the Google ads of nike.com in the US": the agent calls this Actor and reads the ads back.

FAQ

Is this legal? The Ads Transparency Center is a public website Google created so that anyone can see who advertises what. The Actor reads that public data; it does not log in and uses no personal data.

Why do I get fewer ads than the website shows? maxAdsPerQuery (100 by default) and the region filter. Set region to ANYWHERE and raise the limit.

A domain returns no ad. Try the country-specific domain the ads point to (brand.fr, brand.de), or the advertiser ID from the Transparency Center page.

How do I find new ads only? Schedule the Actor and compare creativeId values between runs (or keep the dataset in a Google Sheet and remove duplicates).

Does it need residential proxies? Yes, after the first ~90 requests: Google blocks datacenter IPs for hours. They are included in the price, nothing to configure.

More from Data Fabrik

• Google Trends Scraper — interest over time, by region, related queries.
• Google Flights Scraper and Google Hotels Scraper.
• YouTube Transcripts, YouTube Search and YouTube Channel Videos.

Support

Something missing or wrong? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab: answered within two working days.