# Google Ads Transparency & Ad Library Scraper (`datalume/google-ads-transparency-scraper`) Actor

Scrape the Google Ads Transparency Center (Google Ad Library) by domain, advertiser ID or name. Get days running, first/last shown, countries per ad and ad copy - even for screenshot-only text ads (OCR) and responsive ads. Filter by country, platform, format, dates and min days running.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/datalume/google-ads-transparency-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Greg](https://apify.com/datalume) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 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.

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

## Google Ads Transparency & Ad Library Scraper

Scrape the **Google Ads Transparency Center** (Google's ad library) for any domain, advertiser ID or advertiser name and get every ad with **days running, first/last shown dates, the countries it ran in and the full text-ad copy** (headline, description, display URL) — including responsive search ads and ads Google only stores as screenshots.

**Why the screenshots matter:** for many big advertisers, Google keeps the text ads only as images — in our tests, 149 of 150 booking.com and 120 of 120 expedia.com text ads had no text version at all. This Actor reads those screenshots, so you still get the headline and description.

Find an advertiser's **long-running winners** in one run: filter by minimum days running and sort by longest running.

### What makes it different

| | This Actor | Typical Ads Transparency scrapers |
|---|---|---|
| Domains, advertiser IDs, advertiser names, Transparency Center links | ✅ any mix | ⚠️ some |
| **Minimum days running filter** (find ads that work) | ✅ | ❌ |
| **Sort by longest running / newest** | ✅ | ❌ |
| Days shown, first & last shown date, active now | ✅ | ⚠️ |
| **Countries per ad** with last shown date per country | ✅ included | ⚠️ extra charge |
| Text-ad copy from Google's text preview | ✅ | ⚠️ |
| **Responsive search ad copy** (headline, description, business name) | ✅ | ❌ |
| **Copy from screenshot-only text ads** (OCR, 10+ scripts) | ✅ | ⚠️ some |
| Country, platform (Search, YouTube, Shopping, Maps, Play), format and date filters | ✅ | ⚠️ |
| Only new ads since the last run (for monitoring) | ✅ | ⚠️ |
| Failed rows are free | ✅ | ❌ |

### Use cases

- **Competitor ad research** — see every ad a competitor runs, where, and for how long.
- **Find winning ads** — `minDaysRunning: 30` + `sortBy: longestRunning` shows the ads an advertiser keeps paying for.
- **Ad copy swipe files** — collect headlines and descriptions across a market, in any language.
- **Market entry & geo research** — which countries a brand advertises in, and since when.
- **Monitoring** — schedule daily runs with `onlyNewAds` to get only fresh creatives.
- **Agencies & SEO/PPC tools** — feed competitor ad data into dashboards, Sheets or your own app.

### Input

| Field | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| `domains` | Advertiser websites, e.g. `nike.com` (subdomains included). Transparency Center links with `?domain=` also work | — |
| `advertiserIds` | Advertiser IDs (`AR…`) or `adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR…` links | — |
| `queries` | Advertiser names, e.g. `Samsung Electronics` — looked up on the Transparency Center | — |
| `region` | Country where the ads were shown (2-letter code) or `anywhere` | anywhere |
| `platform` | `all`, `search`, `youtube`, `shopping`, `maps`, `play` | all |
| `format` | `all`, `text`, `image`, `video` | all |
| `dateFrom` / `dateTo` | Only ads shown in this period (`YYYY-MM-DD`) | — |
| `minDaysRunning` | Only ads shown on at least this many days | 0 |
| `sortBy` | `recentlyShown` (Google's order), `longestRunning`, `newest` | recentlyShown |
| `onlyNewAds` | Return only ads not returned to you in earlier runs (same domain/advertiser) | false |
| `maxAdsPerTarget` | Max ads per domain / advertiser / name | 200 |
| `maxResults` | Hard cap on ads across all targets (0 = no limit) | 0 |
| `includeRegions` | Add countries per ad (same price) | true |
| `includeAdCopy` | Extract text-ad copy (charged as *ad with copy* when found) | true |
| `advertisersPerQuery` | Matching advertisers scraped per name | 1 |
| `maxScanPerTarget` | Ads scanned per target before filtering/sorting (scanning is free) | 1000 |

You can put any input in any list — a domain typed into `queries` or an `AR…` ID typed into `domains` is recognized automatically.

#### Example: a competitor's long-running search ads in the US

```json
{
  "domains": ["booking.com"],
  "region": "US",
  "platform": "search",
  "format": "text",
  "minDaysRunning": 30,
  "sortBy": "longestRunning",
  "maxAdsPerTarget": 100
}
```

### Output

One row per ad:

```json
{
  "input": "nike.com",
  "inputType": "domain",
  "advertiserName": "Nike, Inc.",
  "advertiserId": "AR16735076323512287233",
  "domain": "nike.com",
  "creativeId": "CR13173014960004923393",
  "format": "text",
  "firstShown": "2022-11-30",
  "lastShown": "2026-10-30",
  "daysShown": 1383,
  "isActive": true,
  "headline": "Nike® Official Site",
  "description": "Explore new Nike® sportswear and find your next everyday essential.",
  "displayUrl": "nike.com",
  "businessName": "Nike",
  "copySource": "text",
  "copyConfidence": null,
  "imageUrl": "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/...",
  "previewUrl": "https://displayads-formats.googleusercontent.com/ads/preview/content.js?...",
  "regions": [
    { "country": "US", "countryName": "United States", "lastShown": "2026-10-30" }
  ],
  "regionCount": 1,
  "variations": 2,
  "transparencyUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR16735076323512287233/creative/CR13173014960004923393?region=anywhere",
  "detailStatus": "ok",
  "copyStatus": "ok",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-30T12:44:01+00:00"
}
```

- `daysShown` — number of days the ad was shown (from Google). `isActive` — last shown today or yesterday (UTC).
- `regions` — every country the ad ran in, with the last date shown there.
- `copySource` — `text` (read from Google's text preview, exact) or `ocr` (read from the ad screenshot; `copyConfidence` 0–100).
- `copyStatus` — `ok`, `noCopy` (no text available, e.g. image-only template), `lowConfidence` (OCR confidence below 90 — text kept but may contain errors, charged as a plain ad), `failed`, or `null` for image/video ads.
- `headline` is `null` for Dynamic Search Ads, where Google generates the headline from the landing page.
- `{Keyword:…}` in a headline is the advertiser's keyword-insertion placeholder, kept as written.

### Pricing

Pay per event — you pay only for the ads you get, **no platform usage fees**:

- **Ad** — $2.00 per 1,000 (all fields above, countries included)
- **Ad with copy** — $3.50 per 1,000 (text ads where the headline/description was extracted — charged instead of the plain ad)

Image and video ads, and text ads without extractable copy, are plain ads ($2.00 per 1,000). Rows where the ad details could not be loaded (`detailStatus: "failed"`) are **free**.

Examples:

- 1,000 ads, mixed formats, 40% text ads with copy → 400 × $0.0035 + 600 × $0.002 = **$2.60**
- 1,000 image/video ads → **$2.00**
- Daily monitoring of 10 competitors with `onlyNewAds` (≈ 20 new ads/day) → ≈ **$0.05 per day**

Set a **maximum cost per run** in the run options — the Actor stops before exceeding it and does not request ads it cannot charge for. The exact number of charged events is saved in the run's key-value store as `RUN_STATS`.

### Reliability

Requests are spread over residential proxies where Google rate-limits, retried with a fresh IP when Google answers with "too many requests", and the run **stops by itself** instead of hammering Google if blocking becomes frequent — you keep (and pay only for) the ads already saved. CAPTCHAs are never solved or bypassed.

In our tests on large advertisers (booking.com, expedia.com, samsung.com, hubspot.com, nike.com):

- **602 of 603 ads** loaded with full details (countries, variations) — the one failed row was free.
- **High-confidence copy for 127 of 150 text ads (85%)** in a Nov 1, 2026 test (30 text ads each) — 29 from Google's text preview, 98 by OCR of screenshot-only ads. Another 19 got OCR text marked `lowConfidence` (returned, but charged as a plain ad) and 2 had no copy. Only the high-confidence ads are charged as *ad with copy*.

### Monitoring with Schedules

Use **Schedules** in Apify Console with `onlyNewAds: true` to get only new creatives every day. Results can be downloaded as JSON, CSV or Excel, or sent to Google Sheets, Slack, webhooks and other apps via Apify integrations.

### Good to know

- A domain search returns what Google returns for that domain on the Transparency Center: ads that link to the domain **or its subdomains** — sometimes from other advertisers (e.g. landing pages hosted on a platform's subdomains). Use `advertiserIds` for one exact advertiser, or filter by `advertiserName`.
- Data comes from Google's public Ads Transparency Center. Ad counts shown there are ranges (e.g. "50,000+"); this Actor returns the ads themselves.
- Many big advertisers' text ads are stored by Google only as screenshots — the Actor reads them with OCR. OCR text can contain small errors (e.g. "Al" vs "AI", currency symbols) and words cut off where Google's screenshot crops the ad; check `copyConfidence` and `copySource`.
- `firstShown` can't go back further than Google's own records: in our tests the oldest ads all showed **2021-10-25**, which looks like where the Transparency Center's history starts. Read that date (and the `daysShown` it implies) as "running since at least then".
- OCR is the slowest step: expect ~50 text ads with copy per minute (image/video ads are much faster). Turn off `includeAdCopy` if you don't need copy.
- Shopping ad product titles and political ad spend are not included yet.
- Only public ad information about advertisers (companies) is collected. No personal data.

### FAQ

**Can't I just use Google's free BigQuery dataset?** It covers only ads shown in the EEA and Turkey, has no ad copy or images, and can lag behind the website. This Actor works worldwide, returns headlines and descriptions, and reads the live site.

**Can I get all ads of a very large advertiser?** Yes — raise `maxAdsPerTarget` (up to 10,000 per target). For very large advertisers, narrow with `region`, `platform`, `format` or dates.

**How do I find winning ads?** Set `minDaysRunning` (e.g. 30 or 90) and `sortBy: longestRunning`. Ads that run for months are usually the ones that convert.

**Why is the headline empty for some ads?** Dynamic Search Ads have no fixed headline (Google writes it from the landing page), and some ad templates are image-only.

**Which languages does ad-copy OCR support?** Latin-script languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Turkish, Vietnamese…), Korean, Japanese, Simplified & Traditional Chinese, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic and Thai. The script is chosen from the advertiser name and the countries the ad ran in.

**What does `onlyNewAds` remember?** The creative IDs returned to you before for the same domain/advertiser, stored in your own Apify account. The first run returns all ads.

### Tutorial

[How to Export Google Ads Transparency Center Data (with Ad Copy) in Python](https://dev.to/datalume/how-to-export-google-ads-transparency-center-data-with-ad-copy-in-python-2h4a) — why most text ads exist only as screenshots, how to OCR them yourself, and a worked example finding a competitor's long-running ads.

***

*This Actor is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Google. It only collects publicly available ad information from the Google Ads Transparency Center.*

# Actor input Schema

## `domains` (type: `array`):

Websites whose ads you want, e.g. nike.com, booking.com (one per line). You can also paste an adstransparency.google.com link with ?domain=…. Subdomains are included.

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

Optional. Advertiser IDs (AR…) or adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR… links — the most exact way to target one advertiser.

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

Optional. Advertiser names, e.g. 'Samsung Electronics'. Each name is looked up on the Transparency Center and its top match is scraped (see 'Advertisers per name').

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

Only ads shown in this country. 'Anywhere' = all countries.

## `platform` (type: `string`):

Only ads shown on this Google platform.

## `format` (type: `string`):

Only ads of this format.

## `dateFrom` (type: `string`):

Optional, YYYY-MM-DD. Only ads shown on or after this date.

## `dateTo` (type: `string`):

Optional, YYYY-MM-DD. Only ads shown on or before this date.

## `minDaysRunning` (type: `integer`):

Only ads shown on at least this many days. Long-running ads are usually the ones that work — use e.g. 30 to find an advertiser's winners. 0 = no filter.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Order of the ads you get. 'Longest running' and 'Newest' scan up to 'Max ads to scan per target' and keep the best.

## `onlyNewAds` (type: `boolean`):

For scheduled monitoring: return only ads this Actor has not returned to you before for the same domain/advertiser. The first run returns everything.

## `maxAdsPerTarget` (type: `integer`):

Maximum ads returned for each domain, advertiser ID or advertiser name.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Hard cap on ads across all targets — use it to control cost.

## `includeRegions` (type: `boolean`):

Add the list of countries where each ad was shown, with the last date per country (1 extra request per ad, same price).

## `includeAdCopy` (type: `boolean`):

For text ads, extract the headline, description, display URL and business name — from Google's text preview when available, otherwise by OCR of the ad snapshot image (most big advertisers' text ads are stored only as images). Ads with copy are charged as 'ad with copy'.

## `advertisersPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

How many matching advertisers to scrape for each advertiser name (in Transparency Center search order).

## `maxScanPerTarget` (type: `integer`):

With minimum days, 'Longest running' / 'Newest' sorting or 'Only new ads', this many ads are scanned per target before filtering. Scanning is free; only returned ads are charged.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

How many domains/advertisers are scraped at the same time.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "domains": [
    "nike.com"
  ],
  "region": "anywhere",
  "platform": "all",
  "format": "all",
  "minDaysRunning": 0,
  "sortBy": "recentlyShown",
  "onlyNewAds": false,
  "maxAdsPerTarget": 20,
  "maxResults": 0,
  "includeRegions": true,
  "includeAdCopy": true,
  "advertisersPerQuery": 1,
  "maxScanPerTarget": 1000,
  "concurrency": 3
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

One row per ad: advertiser, format, first/last shown, days shown, countries.

## `adCopy` (type: `string`):

Headline, description and display URL of text ads.

## `runStats` (type: `string`):

Requests, retries, blocked requests and charged events for this run.

# 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 = {
    "domains": [
        "nike.com"
    ],
    "maxAdsPerTarget": 20
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("datalume/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 = {
    "domains": ["nike.com"],
    "maxAdsPerTarget": 20,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("datalume/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 '{
  "domains": [
    "nike.com"
  ],
  "maxAdsPerTarget": 20
}' |
apify call datalume/google-ads-transparency-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,datalume/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/WSo78P5zHC4RBUjzz/builds/H8xVErcXuILfzLLtd/openapi.json