Google Ads Transparency Center Scraper — Competitor Google Ads, Creatives & Run Dates

Extract structured data from Google's Ads Transparency Center (adstransparency.google.com): every ad an advertiser runs across Google Search, YouTube, Display, Shopping and Maps — ad format, creative preview URLs, decoded text-ad copy (headline, description, destination URL), first/last shown dates and regions. No login, no API key, public transparency data only.

Built for media buyers, PPC agencies and competitor-intel teams: see which Google ads your competitors run, which creatives they keep alive (the winners), and when new campaigns launch — on a schedule, in bulk.

Why this Actor?

• API-level reliability — talks directly to the Transparency Center's own JSON endpoints instead of driving a browser against a JavaScript shell. No brittle CSS selectors, no half-loaded pages, no missing ads.
• Bulk advertiser lists — monitor 1 or 100 competitors in a single run: mix domains (nike.com), advertiser IDs (AR…) and company names freely.
• Text ads decoded — Google hides search-ad copy inside encoded preview URLs; this Actor decodes it into clean headline / description / destinationUrl fields.
• Date intelligence — first/last shown timestamps per creative, so you can spot long-running (i.e. profitable) ads and diff new launches between scheduled runs.
• Fast & cheap — plain HTTP, 256 MB memory, no browser. Hundreds of ads per minute.

What data does it return?

One dataset item per ad:

• Advertiser name + Google advertiser ID (AR…)
• Creative ID (CR…) + permanent Transparency Center URL
• Ad format: text, image or video
• Creative preview URLs (image file, video preview, rendered-ad iframe)
• Decoded text-ad copy: headline, description, destination URL
• First shown / last shown dates (ISO timestamps)
• Regions (best-effort, plus your region filter)
• Which query found the ad + scrape timestamp

Sample output

{
  "type": "ad",
  "advertiserId": "AR14188379519798214657",
  "advertiserName": "Nike, Inc.",
  "creativeId": "CR10813648716908961793",
  "format": "text",
  "headline": "Shop the New Air Max Collection",
  "description": "Free shipping and returns on every order. Find your perfect fit today.",
  "destinationUrl": "nike.com/airmax",
  "previewUrl": "https://displayads-formats.googleusercontent.com/ads/preview/content.js?...",
  "previewUrls": ["https://displayads-formats.googleusercontent.com/ads/preview/content.js?..."],
  "imageUrl": null,
  "videoUrl": null,
  "firstShownAt": "2025-01-01T00:00:00.000Z",
  "lastShownAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00.000Z",
  "regions": ["GB", "US"],
  "detailsUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR14188379519798214657/creative/CR10813648716908961793?region=anywhere",
  "query": "domain nike.com",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-12T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Fields Google doesn't expose for a given ad come back as null / [] — the Actor never fails a run over a missing field.

How to use it

Input	What it does
queries	Bulk list of advertisers — domains (nike.com), advertiser IDs (AR…, most reliable), Transparency Center URLs, or company names
region	Two-letter country filter (US, GB, IL, …) or anywhere (default). Google enforces this loosely for some advertisers — treat as a hint
maxAdsPerQuery	Cap per advertiser query (default 100)
fetchAdDetails	Per-creative lookup for preview URLs, decoded copy, dates and regions (default on)
proxyConfiguration	Apify RESIDENTIAL proxy recommended for scheduled runs

Tip: the advertiser ID is the AR… segment in any adstransparency.google.com URL — grab it once and your scheduled monitoring never depends on name/domain matching.

Use cases

• Competitor ad monitoring — schedule a weekly run over your competitor list; diff creative IDs to catch new campaigns and retired ads automatically.
• Winning-ad detection — sort by firstShownAt: ads that stay live for months are paying for themselves.
• Search-ad copy research — decoded headlines/descriptions for every text ad in your category, ready for a swipe file.
• Creative swipe file — image/video preview URLs for competitor display and YouTube ads.
• Agency reporting — attach a client-vs-competitor Google Ads snapshot to monthly reports via the API.

Pricing (pay per event)

Event	Price	Meaning
ad-scraped	$0.002	One ad record in the dataset

Example: monitoring 20 competitors × 100 ads each = 2,000 ads = $4.00 per run. The Actor respects your maximum cost per run and stops cleanly when the limit is reached.

Fair use & limitations

• Only public Ads Transparency Center data is accessed — the same ad-transparency information Google shows any visitor, published by Google specifically for public scrutiny. No login, no personal data.
• Political ads carry extra fields in Google's UI (spend, impressions) that are not extracted in v1.
• Google's region filter is enforced loosely server-side for some advertisers; the regions output field is best-effort.
• Video ads return Google's preview URL; final googlevideo.com file URLs are short-lived by design.

Integrations

Standard Apify platform features apply: export to JSON/CSV/Excel, API access, webhooks, and scheduled runs for continuous competitor monitoring.

Development

npm install
npm test           # parses the saved RPC fixtures, 61 assertions
apify run          # local run (uses ./storage)