# Changelog of Google Ads Scraper (`dz_omar/google-ads-scraper`) Actor

- **URL**: https://apify.com/dz_omar/google-ads-scraper/changelog.md
- **Full Actor documentation**: https://apify.com/dz_omar/google-ads-scraper.md

## Changelog

### 2026-09-08

#### 💰 Lower prices across every plan

Extraction is now cheaper for everyone, at every plan level — a substantial cut from the
previous rate, with the biggest savings for high-volume users. Billing is unchanged in shape:
still **one charge per successfully extracted ad**, nothing else to calculate.

#### ✍️ New: extract the ad's actual text

A new **Extract Ad Copy** switch returns the creative messaging itself — the headline, long
headline, description, call-to-action label, click and display URL, plus a clean thumbnail
image, channel name, and video length. This is the wording competitors are actually running,
which the Ads Transparency Center doesn't hand out directly. Off by default; turn it on when
you want the message, not just the metadata.

#### 📅 Run dates now on every ad, in every mode

**First shown**, **last shown**, and **days ran** are now returned for every ad — including
ordinary commercial ads and including the fast mode — instead of only on the slower, detailed
runs. No extra requests, no extra cost.

#### 🖼️ Cleaner preview links

Preview values are now always real URLs. Some previously came back as raw HTML image markup,
which broke spreadsheets, Make/n8n flows, and anything trying to display the image.

#### ⚡ Faster and lighter runs

Requests are now compressed in transit, cutting the data each run transfers by roughly 79%.
Runs are quicker and more reliable, especially large ones.

#### 🔎 General Ad Search is live

Search by brand name, advertiser, or domain — no URL required. Previously this section
accepted input but returned nothing; it now resolves advertisers and returns their ads,
with the platform, format, region and date filters applied.

#### 🧭 Clearer output and honest limits

- The Overview table now shows the run dates and ad copy, not just IDs and previews.
- Input descriptions now state plainly that spend, impressions and demographics are published
  by Google for **political and election ads only** — for ordinary commercial ads the detailed
  mode mainly adds the regional breakdown.
- The results limit is now documented as applying **per matched advertiser**, so a search
  matching several advertisers returns (and bills) accordingly.

#### 🛟 Never fails on empty input

Starting a run with every field cleared no longer errors out. It returns a small sample
result set so you can see the output shape immediately.

#### Verified against the real thing

Every field was re-checked against live advertiser creatives, and the output was compared
side by side with a competing scraper on identical ads to confirm the data matches or exceeds
it — including the political-ad spend, impression and demographic data that competitors don't
return at all.

***

### Initial release

Extract ad creatives, spend ranges, impression estimates, and delivery regions straight from
Google's official Ads Transparency Center — for everyday commercial advertising and
political/election ads alike.

#### Search your way

- **Search by URL** — paste any Ads Transparency Center link and the scraper respects every
  filter already built into it (advertiser, region, date range, format).
- **General Ad Search** — find ads by advertiser name, ID, or domain, filtered by platform
  (YouTube, Search, Shopping, Maps, Google Play), format, region, and date range.
- **Political & Election Ads** — a dedicated search mode for political advertising, with the
  region, spend-range, and impression-range filters Google's Ads Transparency Center exposes
  specifically for Restricted Content.

#### Choose your depth

One switch — **Fetch Full Ad Details** — controls how much comes back with each result:

- **Off** (default): fast, lightweight results — advertiser, creative, format, and preview,
  in a fraction of the time.
- **On**: the complete picture — spend range, impression range, delivery countries, and, for
  political ads, the demographic targeting an advertiser selected (age, gender, and location
  — both included and excluded).

#### Built for reliability

Paying users are automatically routed through a dedicated proxy network for a faster, more
consistent run, with automatic fallback so a run never stalls on a single bad connection. For
even deeper access, an optional authenticated-session field lets you log in with your own
Google account to lift the result cap Google applies to anonymous requests — retrieving
significantly more ads per advertiser than an anonymous run ever could.