Google Ads Domain Checker — Advertiser Lookup

Look up Google Ads advertisers associated with website domains using public Google Ads Transparency Center observations. Get one structured row per domain with advertiser names, dates, source links and a comparison with an earlier observation. For PPC agencies, CRM enrichment and competitor watchlists. No Google login or AI key needed.

Cloud checks include a 50-domain sample, budget handling and interrupted-run recovery. These checks do not establish large-scale or long-term reliability.

Coverage: a sample, not a complete advertiser list

This Actor is a domain screening and observation tool. It reads up to two pages (200 ads) and can miss advertisers, particularly when one account dominates the results. In repeated checks of monday.com, the sample returned fewer advertiser IDs than a competing checker. Do not use it as an exhaustive advertiser inventory or as proof that a company is not advertising.

The default table states whether the sample hit its limit, a continuation failed, or no further page was returned. Even the last case does not certify completeness. Profile enrichment covers at most ten observed IDs per domain. Country describes Google's advertiser disclosure, not where ads were shown. Confirmed domain observations are billable even if the sample or profiles are partial; inconclusive domains are free.

Quick start

1. Paste websites into Website domains or URLs.
2. Keep the 30-day activity window, or select another period.
3. Run and open Domain results. Download JSON, CSV or Excel through Apify.

{"websites": ["buffer.com", "nomadgoods.com"]}

Input settings

Setting	Default	When to change it
websites	Two example websites; required	Paste your own domains or HTTP(S) URLs. Paths and www are normalized; duplicate domains produce one row.
lookbackDays	30	Choose 1–365 days to classify the dates in the ad sample.
previousSnapshotStoreId	Empty	Optional: select an earlier run's storage to compare confirmed observations.

For a first check, only edit the website list. Scope is worldwide (anywhere); country filtering is not implemented. The 1,000-domain input limit is not a verified scale benchmark.

Runtime and list size

Processing is sequential. Before profile enrichment was added, in one selected 50-domain cloud sample, all domains were processed in 85 seconds: 43 had confirmed observations and seven were inconclusive. This is an example, not an accuracy or speed guarantee. Source retries and storage latency can increase runtime substantially.

For larger lists, increase the run timeout in Apify run options before starting. The current 120-second default can interrupt a large list. If interrupted, use Resurrect on the same run to continue from delivered results; do not create a new run with the full list unless you want a fresh observation. A 1,000-domain cloud run has not been validated.

Real output example

Excerpt from a local source check on 25 October 2026. Values can change; this example is not a cloud performance benchmark.

{
  "domain": "buffer.com",
  "status": "recent_ads_observed",
  "recentAdsObserved": true,
  "lookbackDays": 30,
  "advertiserNames": [
    "Buffer Inc"
  ],
  "sampleSize": 25,
  "hasMoreResults": true,
  "latestShownInSample": "2026-10-25T09:59:56+00:00",
  "checkedAt": "2026-10-25T12:16:31.549432+00:00",
  "changeType": "baseline",
  "sourceUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/?region=anywhere&domain=buffer.com"
}

Open Domain results for status and explicit coverage, Advertiser profiles for a flat table of advertiser names, legal names, countries and evidence links, Compare observations for changes, or Evidence and coverage to inspect sampling and source links. These views contain the same domains with different columns; the comparison view is not filtered to changed rows. Full records remain available in the dataset.

What the results mean

Field	Meaning
status	Recent ads observed, historical ads observed, or a clearly identified inconclusive result
recentAdsObserved	Whether at least one sampled ad was shown within the selected window; null when inconclusive
adsCountLower, adsCountUpper	The source's reported count interval for the domain, not a recent-window count
advertisers	Per-advertiser name, observed aliases, sampled ad count, latest sampled date and evidence/profile links. Up to ten profiles are enriched by exact ID with legal name and disclosure country where available; see profile status and limitations below.
advertiserNames, advertiserIds	Advertisers associated with the domain in the observed sample
latestShownInSample	Latest source date among the ads sampled
sampleSize, hasMoreResults	Sample coverage; more results may exist
evidence	Up to three examples with the latest dates in the sample with advertiser IDs, dates and source links
changeType	Baseline, unchanged, newly observed advertiser, activity-observation change, or comparison unavailable
newlyObservedAdvertiserIds	IDs not present in the earlier observation history
checkedAt, sourceUrl	Observation time and the public source page

For example, a local observation of buffer.com on 25 October 2026 found recent ads associated with Buffer Inc, with source count bounds of 76–76. This is an observed snapshot, not a promised current result.

Increasing the sample from earlier 25-ad builds to 100 ads can reveal additional advertiser IDs. Such changes reflect expanded observation, not necessarily new advertising activity.

Compare two runs

Select the earlier run's storage in Compare with an earlier run, or copy the earlier run's Input for the next comparison into the JSON input editor. Keep the same observation window. The earlier storage remains unchanged; the new run produces a new snapshot.

The first confirmed observation creates a baseline. A later identical observation is unchanged. A previously unseen advertiser is new_advertiser_observed. Missing IDs are not reported as removed: samples may differ. Inconclusive observations preserve the last confirmed baseline.

This version compares explicitly selected snapshots. It does not automatically discover the previous run, create schedules or send notifications. To build a scheduled workflow, pass the previous successful run's storage through your integration.

Use cases

• PPC agency prospecting: add evidence of observed advertising to an existing domain list.
• CRM enrichment: keep advertiser names and dated source links beside company records.
• Competitor watchlists: compare observations without processing a dataset containing every ad.

The dataset and snapshots can be read through the Apify API and used in n8n, Make or spreadsheet workflows. No external workflow has been created for you.

Coverage and limitations

• Ads are associated with a domain. This does not verify that the website owner paid for them. Affiliates, agencies and unrelated advertisers can appear.
• This is a bounded sample, not a complete advertiser inventory. Historical-only results mean no recent ad was found in that sample, not proof that a business has stopped advertising.
• Empty source responses are inconclusive. They are never converted to a definitive “no ads” result.
• No spend, revenue, campaign performance or purchase-intent estimates are produced.
• Up to 1,000 input websites per run; duplicates are normalized. This input limit is not a verified cloud scale benchmark.
• A run with no confirmed observations fails after saving diagnostics. A mixed run exposes partial coverage in SUMMARY.

Pricing and release status

The Actor is configured at $2.50 per 1,000 confirmed domain observations ($0.0025 each). Both recent and historical confirmed observations count. Inconclusive results and source errors do not trigger the event. No startup event is configured; run platform usage is included in the event price. Apify storage access after the run may incur platform charges under your plan.

One event is sent only after a confirmed result has been delivered. A repeated check in a new run is a new observation and can be charged again; resurrecting the same run does not intentionally charge delivered observations again. If the API response is lost, the ledger reserves that event and does not automatically retry it.

Set a maximum cost in Apify run options to cap a run. Once another confirmed result cannot fit, collection stops and SUMMARY lists remainingDomains with stopReason: budget_exhausted. Some domains may therefore remain unprocessed. Without an explicit cap, the internal maximum is one event per unique input domain. To process remaining domains with a different budget, start a new run with those domains; changing a billed run's budget during resurrection is not supported.

Private owner-run checks verified event counts, exclusion of one inconclusive result, budget stopping and resurrection without extra events. These are not external customer invoices, proof of payout or the official Store test.

Frequently asked questions

Can this check whether a website runs Google Ads?

It reports ads associated with the domain in Google's public transparency source. recentAdsObserved: true means at least one sampled ad has a date inside your chosen window. It does not prove that the website owner purchased those ads or that a campaign is live at this instant.

Is this a Google Ads pixel detector?

No. Results come from advertising transparency observations, not tracking tags installed on a website. A pixel alone would not prove advertising activity.

Does an empty result mean the company does not advertise?

No. empty_response_unconfirmed means the source returned no usable observations after a bounded retry. Keep it separate from confirmed historical observations. Recheck later or inspect the public source manually.

Does the activity window filter all ads from the past 30 days?

No. The window classifies dates in a bounded sample of up to 200 ads across two pages per domain. Source count bounds describe the source's domain result set, not the number of ads inside that window.

Can I get ad spend, keywords or campaign performance?

No. This Actor provides observed advertisers, dates, evidence links and comparisons. It does not estimate budgets, conversions or search keywords, or download a complete creative archive.

Do I need OpenRouter, a Google account or an AI API key?

No. The collector uses public observations and deterministic comparison rules. It does not send data to an LLM. Running it on Apify requires an Apify account; programmatic platform access uses your Apify credentials.

Can I monitor competitors automatically?

The comparison code accepts an earlier snapshot explicitly. Automatic selection of the preceding run and scheduled workflows are not implemented. A saved input with a fixed storage ID will keep comparing against that same baseline.

What should I do if a run is incomplete?

Read Coverage and errors, then inspect each domain's status. Source errors and empty responses remain inconclusive; they do not erase the last confirmed baseline. A successful run can still contain inconclusive domains: processingComplete means all requested domains were processed, while complete also requires confirmed observations for every domain.

Reading results and handling interrupted runs

Open example ad is a clickable link to one dated creative; the full evidence array remains in the dataset. Meaning of comparison explains why an observed ID or activity-class change is not proof of a campaign launch or stop.

SUMMARY and SNAPSHOT are saved before collection and after every delivered row. processed, processingComplete and remainingDomains distinguish interrupted collection from completed collection with inconclusive results. complete additionally requires every domain to have a confirmed observation.

If a run times out or is aborted, use Resurrect on that same run. The collector reads its existing dataset, rebuilds progress and skips domains already delivered. It keeps the original observations, including inconclusive rows; retry those domains in a new run if you want a fresh check. Request counters in SUMMARY describe only the current process; domain and result counts cover the full run.

Keep the input and earlier comparison snapshot unchanged. If either changes, or the dataset contains duplicate, unexpected or malformed rows, the run stops with an explanatory error. Runs created before resume support cannot be upgraded by resurrection; start a new run on the new build.

Dataset delivery and progress writes are separate operations. On restart, delivered rows are the recovery source, so a stale checkpoint does not by itself cause a repeated domain. This assumes a single writer and the original dataset/storage remain available and unmodified. Storage responses are bounded at 8 MB; oversized recovery data fails explicitly. A new run uses a new dataset and does not automatically merge previous runs. No schedule or automatic retry loop is created.

An error while saving progress fails the run rather than silently continuing with missing history. Earlier-run snapshots remain read-only. Progress writes add storage cost per processed domain; the technical price benchmark is based on small cloud samples, not a guaranteed cost at scale.

Bounded pagination

The checker reads up to two pages of 100 ads per domain and removes repeated creative IDs. pagesRead counts validated pages, paginationStatus is source_exhausted, page_limit, or partial, and paginationError explains an unsuccessful continuation. A failed second page preserves the confirmed first-page observations and is still one billable confirmed domain. No extra pagination fee applies. source_exhausted only means no continuation token was returned; it does not certify a complete advertiser inventory. Unknown results remain uncharged.

Recovery reads dataset state in pages of 100 rows and fetches only the fields required to rebuild comparison and billing state. Existing detailed output stays in the dataset. This avoids downloading all advertiser profiles on restart; it does not certify a 1,000-domain scrape within the default timeout.

Advertiser profile details

For up to ten advertisers per domain, prioritizing those with more ads in the sample, the checker retrieves Google's public profile by exact advertiser ID. Each nested advertiser includes profileName, legalName, disclosureCountryCode, identityVerified, profileStatus, and profileError. Country is the disclosure country reported by Google, not targeting geography or an inferred headquarters. Missing values stay null. Identity verification stays null when the source omits the flag; it is distinct from ownership of the searched domain. limit_reached and unavailable distinguish profiles not fetched from unsuccessful requests. These optional details do not change the confirmed observation or add a separate fee. The run caches at most 200 compact profiles.