# Google Ads Transparency Scraper - Competitor Ads + OCR (`leadproof/google-ads-transparency`) Actor

Scrape the Google Ads Transparency Center by domain or advertiser ID to see competitor ads: text, image and video creatives, optional image-to-text OCR, country filters and observed-change tracking.

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

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 1,000 ad creatives

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 Scraper + OCR

Collect public Google Ads Transparency Center creatives by business domain or advertiser ID. Get advertiser names, creative IDs, ad formats, dates, preview links, available ad text and video URLs. Turn static ad screenshots into searchable text with optional OCR.

Use the results for competitor research, creative archives, reporting and scheduled monitoring. Export the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel through Apify, or run it from an API, integration or AI agent.

### Quick start

1. Enter a business domain such as `shopify.com`, or an exact `AR...` advertiser ID.
2. Choose a country and how many ads to return.
3. Enable preview decoding and image text extraction for richer text results.
4. Run the Actor and open the dataset. Check `SUMMARY` for coverage and errors.

```json
{
  "targets": ["shopify.com"],
  "region": "US",
  "maxAds": 5,
  "maxAdsPerTarget": 5,
  "includeDetails": true,
  "decodePreviews": true,
  "extractImageText": true,
  "ocrLanguages": ["eng"]
}
```

Start with five ads and 512 MB memory for OCR. More ads, variants and OCR take longer. For fast metadata-only collection, disable details, preview decoding and OCR. API defaults keep preview decoding and OCR off unless explicitly enabled.

No Google login or cookies are required. Company names are not accepted because they are ambiguous. Exact advertiser URLs without query filters are also supported.

### Output

| Field | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `advertiserId`, `advertiserName` | Actual advertiser identified by Google |
| `creativeId`, `adUrl` | Creative identity and source link |
| `format` | TEXT, IMAGE, VIDEO or UNKNOWN |
| `headline`, `description` | Text extracted from supported source fields |
| `productTitle`, `merchantName` | Available shopping-renderer fields |
| `ocrText`, `ocrStatus`, `ocrConfidence` | Separately labelled text recognized from images |
| `videoUrl` | YouTube URL when exposed by a supported renderer |
| `previewUrl`, `variants` | Source preview links and recognized variants |
| `firstShown`, `lastShown` | UTC dates from source search results |
| `regionsShown` | Countries/region IDs available in creative details |
| `detailStatus`, `previewStatus` | Whether enrichment worked or was incomplete |
| `changeStatus` | Optional comparison with earlier observations |

Domain searches can include affiliates and resellers. Use an advertiser ID for one specific advertiser. A display URL is not a verified landing-page URL. Preview links can expire.

### Image text and OCR

Google sometimes serves TEXT ads as screenshots with no extractable headline. Enable `extractImageText` to return recognized text in `ocrText`. The Actor does not guess which recognized line is the headline.

Choose up to three models: `eng`, `tur`, `heb`, `fra`, `deu`, `spa`, `ita`, `por`, `nld`. For Turkish and English, use `["tur", "eng"]`. Language detection is not automatic.

OCR reads at most the first two eligible variants and reuses identical images within a creative. It runs inside the Actor without a paid external AI service. It can misread characters, include logo/photo noise or miss small text. Confidence is an engine score, not measured accuracy. Statuses include `ok`, `low_confidence`, `partial`, `failed`, `no_text` and `no_eligible_image`.

Preview scripts are parsed as text, never executed. Video transcription, landing-page scraping and image-pixel change detection are not included. Some renderers remain unsupported.

### Filters and coverage

Supported country filters: US, GB, DE, FR, IL, CA, AU, NL, BE, ES, IT, or ANYWHERE.

`startDate` and `endDate` apply an inclusive overlap filter to the source first/last dates after collection. They do not prove daily or continuous activity. Page limits can leave incomplete coverage.

`SUMMARY` reports returned rows, requests, duplicates, date-filtered rows, failures and the reason collection stopped. `complete=false` means the scan was capped or interrupted. A capped sample is not all ads for an advertiser. A failed source request is never reported as proof that no ads exist.

Use `maxAds`, `maxAdsPerTarget`, `maxPagesPerTarget`, `maxRequests` and `maxRunSeconds` to bound work. Image downloads and retries count against requests; OCR respects the runtime limit. When per-result pricing is active, the Actor also stops at the customer's spending limit.

### Optional observed-change monitoring

Reuse `monitorStoreName` with identical targets, region, dates and enrichment settings. Run only one job at a time per named store.

- `baseline`: first observations in a new store.
- `newly_observed`: not previously seen by this monitor; the ad may have existed earlier.
- `unchanged` / `content_changed`: comparison of supported extracted source text, format and video fields.
- `unverified`: insufficient or uncertain source content. OCR-only text does not prove unchanged content.

Missing creatives are never labelled stopped, removed or inactive. Partial scans retain earlier observations. OCR text, image pixels, signed URLs and date updates are excluded from the hash. Use a new store when changing query/enrichment settings. Stores are limited to 50,000 creatives.

### Pricing

The active price is shown in Apify's Pricing tab. With per-result pricing, one result is one unique advertiser/creative pair saved in the run's default dataset. Details, preview decoding and optional OCR do not create additional result charges. A base record may have missing text or failed enrichment; inspect its statuses.

No result event is charged for a filtered duplicate, date-filtered item or source failure producing no record. Any configured Actor-start fee still applies. Each separate monitoring run charges for its returned records, including unchanged records. Reports in the key-value store are not result rows.

Start a fresh run after interruption. Resurrecting a run with an existing dataset is refused to preserve output and avoid duplicate charges. Automatic continuation is not supported in this version.

### Validation and support

Private validation covered 1,000 metadata records, two-page detailed collection, country filters, monitoring and image OCR. In one 29-row US sample, source text was available on 5 rows and source/OCR text on 28. This is sample-specific availability, not a guarantee of accuracy or coverage.

For support, include the run ID, input and `SUMMARY`. Never include passwords, cookies or API tokens. Google can change its endpoints or restrict requests. Bounded retries and redirect diagnostics help explain failures but cannot guarantee access.

This is an independent tool, not a Google product. Protocol attribution is in `THIRD_PARTY.md`.

# Actor input Schema

## `targets` (type: `array`):

Bare domains, AR advertiser IDs, or exact advertiser URLs without query strings. Domain results can include resellers and other advertisers. Company-name resolution is not supported in this prototype.

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

Source-side country filter. Regional detail is only returned when Google publishes it.

## `maxAds` (type: `integer`):

Global output cap, after deduplication and date filtering.

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

Maximum new unique rows returned for each target.

## `maxPagesPerTarget` (type: `integer`):

Bounds collection even when all rows are duplicates or outside the date window.

## `maxRequests` (type: `integer`):

Includes detail calls, preview requests, and retries. Partial coverage is reported.

## `maxRunSeconds` (type: `integer`):

Bounds HTTP collection; output storage may add overhead.

## `includeDetails` (type: `boolean`):

One extra request per ad for variants and available regions. Failures retain the base record with an explicit status.

## `decodePreviews` (type: `boolean`):

Read at most two public Google preview scripts per ad to extract named text fields and video IDs. Scripts are parsed as text, never executed. More requests; not all formats are supported.

## `startDate` (type: `string`):

Optional YYYY-MM-DD. Applied after collection using Google's first/last shown dates; does not prove continuous activity.

## `endDate` (type: `string`):

Optional YYYY-MM-DD. Local overlap filter, not a source-side date filter. Page limits can leave incomplete coverage.

## `monitorStoreName` (type: `string`):

3-63 letters/digits/hyphens. Reuse with identical targets/filters and run only one job at a time per store. Labels observed changes; never reports removed ads or stopped campaigns.

## `extractImageText` (type: `boolean`):

Local Tesseract OCR of at most two static Google archive images per ad. Returns separate ocrText and confidence fields, never guessed headlines. Adds image downloads and CPU time; best with 512 MB or more memory.

## `ocrLanguages` (type: `array`):

Choose 1-3 language models matching your ads: English, Turkish, Hebrew, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch. No automatic language detection.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "targets": [
    "shopify.com"
  ],
  "region": "ANYWHERE",
  "maxAds": 5,
  "maxAdsPerTarget": 5,
  "maxPagesPerTarget": 3,
  "maxRequests": 100,
  "maxRunSeconds": 180,
  "includeDetails": true,
  "decodePreviews": true,
  "extractImageText": true,
  "ocrLanguages": [
    "eng"
  ]
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `ads` (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 = {
    "targets": [
        "shopify.com"
    ],
    "maxAds": 5,
    "maxAdsPerTarget": 5,
    "decodePreviews": true,
    "extractImageText": true
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("leadproof/google-ads-transparency").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 = {
    "targets": ["shopify.com"],
    "maxAds": 5,
    "maxAdsPerTarget": 5,
    "decodePreviews": True,
    "extractImageText": True,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("leadproof/google-ads-transparency").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 '{
  "targets": [
    "shopify.com"
  ],
  "maxAds": 5,
  "maxAdsPerTarget": 5,
  "decodePreviews": true,
  "extractImageText": true
}' |
apify call leadproof/google-ads-transparency --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/vJQa5BQNfQHGTYdU1/builds/V9Vgi21lKrjApZWcH/openapi.json