# Google Ads Transparency Center Scraper — Fast, No Browser (`datafabrik/google-ads-transparency-scraper`) Actor

Every ad a brand runs on Google (Search, YouTube, Shopping, Display) from the Ads Transparency Center: format, first and last shown, days active, preview, advertiser and domain. Search by domain or advertiser ID, filter by country and format. HTTP-only. Pay per ad, from $0.60 per 1,000.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/datafabrik/google-ads-transparency-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Data Fabrik](https://apify.com/datafabrik) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, SEO tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.60 / 1,000 ads

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

Get **every ad a brand runs on Google** — Search, YouTube, Shopping, Display, Maps, Play — straight from the [Google Ads Transparency Center](https://adstransparency.google.com/), 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

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

#### Example: ad-check a list of companies

```json
{
  "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.

```json
{
  "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

```bash
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}'
```

```python
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"])
```

```javascript
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](https://apify.com/datafabrik/google-trends-scraper) — interest over time, by region, related queries.
- [Google Flights Scraper](https://apify.com/datafabrik/google-flights-scraper) and [Google Hotels Scraper](https://apify.com/datafabrik/google-hotels-scraper).
- [YouTube Transcripts](https://apify.com/datafabrik/youtube-transcripts), [YouTube Search](https://apify.com/datafabrik/youtube-search) and [YouTube Channel Videos](https://apify.com/datafabrik/youtube-channel-videos).

### Support

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

# Actor input Schema

## `queries` (type: `array`):

One search per line: the brand's website domain ("nike.com", "hellofresh.fr"). Every ad pointing to that domain is returned, whoever the advertiser account is. Brand names alone are not accepted: Google's search needs a domain or an advertiser ID.

## `advertiserIds` (type: `array`):

Optional. Advertiser IDs from adstransparency.google.com (they start with "AR", e.g. the end of an advertiser page URL). One search per ID.

## `region` (type: `string`):

Two-letter country code ("US", "FR", "DE"…) to keep only ads shown in that country, or ANYWHERE for all ads.

## `adFormat` (type: `string`):

Keep only one creative format.

## `maxAdsPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Newest ads first. 40 ads per request; 10,000 at most.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Searches fetched in parallel, each through its own proxy IP.

## `maxRetries` (type: `integer`):

How many times a request is retried (on a new IP) when Google rate-limits it or the network fails.

## `proxy` (type: `object`):

Used when the direct connection is rate-limited. Residential proxies are recommended (Google blocks datacenter IPs for hours) and included in the price.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "queries": [
    "nike.com"
  ],
  "region": "ANYWHERE",
  "adFormat": "ALL",
  "maxAdsPerQuery": 100,
  "maxConcurrency": 3,
  "maxRetries": 4,
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `ads` (type: `string`):

No description

## `searches` (type: `string`):

No description

## `summary` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "queries": [
        "nike.com"
    ],
    "proxy": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "RESIDENTIAL"
        ]
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("datafabrik/google-ads-transparency-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "queries": ["nike.com"],
    "proxy": {
        "useApifyProxy": True,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("datafabrik/google-ads-transparency-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "queries": [
    "nike.com"
  ],
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}' |
apify call datafabrik/google-ads-transparency-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,datafabrik/google-ads-transparency-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/1g9vjMaQH0S9nwmnF/builds/nXEo3CM7pKOiswFta/openapi.json