Google Ads Creative & Competitor Monitor

Monitor public Google Ads creatives by competitor domain, advertiser name, or direct Google Ads Transparency Center URL. The Actor turns ad-library pages into structured competitive intelligence and compares scheduled runs to surface new, changed, and removed creatives.

This is an independent scraper. It does not call another Apify Actor or require a third-party data API.

Use this Actor for

• competitor creative monitoring for agencies and in-house marketing teams;
• detecting new and removed Google Ads across scheduled runs;
• comparing hooks, offers, CTAs, visible copy, formats, and destinations;
• identifying duplicate or reused creative concepts;
• tracking landing-page changes for campaign and CRO research;
• exporting stable JSON rows to workflows, dashboards, webhooks, or MCP clients.

Do not use it for

• Google Ads account management, spend, impressions, clicks, or conversion data;
• automated ad creation, campaign editing, or bidding;
• bypassing login gates, CAPTCHAs, regional restrictions, or Google access controls;
• guaranteed OCR or video transcription in version 0.1;
• treating a missing top result as definitive proof that an ad stopped running.

What each result contains

• advertiser and creative IDs;
• ad format, public detail URL, first/last shown dates when exposed;
• visible headline, supporting copy, destination, image/video URLs;
• heuristic hook, CTA, offer, and message-theme analysis;
• creative and landing-page fingerprints for duplicate/change detection;
• BASELINE, NEW, CHANGED, UNCHANGED, or REMOVED history status;
• transparent competitor activity score and readable activity signals;
• data-quality state and per-row limitations.

Quick start

{
  "competitorDomains": ["nike.com"],
  "advertiserNames": [],
  "transparencyUrls": [],
  "regions": ["US"],
  "maxAdsPerCompetitor": 5,
  "maxTotalAds": 5,
  "adFormats": ["TEXT", "IMAGE", "VIDEO", "OTHER"],
  "analyzeLandingPages": false,
  "compareWithPreviousRun": true,
  "historyKey": "nike-us-weekly"
}

Using competitor domains is the most reliable discovery method. Advertiser-name searches select the exact name when possible and otherwise use the first public suggestion. Direct URLs can point to an advertiser, domain search, or individual creative.

Monitoring workflow

1. Run a small baseline with the final competitor list and regions.
2. Review dataQuality, creative URLs, and the run summary.
3. Save the input as an Apify Task with a stable historyKey.
4. Schedule it daily or weekly.
5. Later clean runs compare against the private key-value-store snapshot.
6. Filter snapshotStatus for new, changed, or removed creative events.

Removed rows are emitted only when discovery and creative-detail collection finish without failures. The Actor labels removal confidence as MEDIUM because a creative can disappear from a limited result set due to ranking or the configured maximum. Increase maxAdsPerCompetitor for stronger coverage.

Landing pages

Enable analyzeLandingPages to fetch detected public destinations and record the final URL, HTTP status, title, description, canonical URL, and content fingerprint. Use maxLandingPages as a hard global limit.

Some ad frames do not expose a direct clickable destination. In that case the Actor preserves the visible display destination and records the limitation instead of inventing a URL.

Cost and runtime controls

• maxTotalAds caps creative-detail pages and billable output;
• pay-per-event runs automatically reduce maxTotalAds to the number of results still allowed by the user's maximum cost per run;
• collection stops before paid work when the remaining budget cannot cover another result, and output stops immediately when the event limit is reached;
• maxAdsPerCompetitor caps coverage per input source;
• default concurrency is 2 and is capped at 5;
• landing-page visits are disabled by default and separately capped;
• failed sources are recorded in OUTPUT diagnostics;
• the default input analyzes five Nike creatives in one region and is designed to finish within the Apify Store five-minute auto-test window under normal site conditions.

Monetization note

Use apify-default-dataset-item as the primary pay-per-event event, titled Analyzed Google Ads creative. Every charged item remains visible in the dataset. Version 0.1.8 reads the user's maximum cost per run before collection and limits paid work and output accordingly.

Demand Radar suggested a market anchor of $0.0007–$0.001 per raw ad, $0.02–$0.05 per advertiser analysis, and $0.01 per detected change. This Actor opens individual creative details and performs monitoring analysis, so do not copy the raw-ad price blindly. Run production tests first, calculate platform cost per returned row at small and large limits, and set a price with a healthy margin before publishing.

Data source and responsible use

The Actor reads public pages in Google Ads Transparency Center. Google describes the service as a way to find active ads published through Google. Page structure, availability, regional coverage, creative previews, and labels can change.

The Actor does not sign in, solve CAPTCHAs, or collect private Google Ads account data. Users remain responsible for lawful use, intellectual-property rights, privacy requirements, and the applicable platform terms.

Suggested public Tasks

Track Nike and Adidas US creative launches

{
  "competitorDomains": ["nike.com", "adidas.com"],
  "regions": ["US"],
  "maxAdsPerCompetitor": 10,
  "maxTotalAds": 20,
  "compareWithPreviousRun": true,
  "historyKey": "sportswear-us-weekly"
}

Monitor DTC skincare offers

{
  "competitorDomains": ["glossier.com", "drunkelephant.com"],
  "regions": ["US"],
  "maxAdsPerCompetitor": 10,
  "maxTotalAds": 20,
  "compareWithPreviousRun": true,
  "historyKey": "dtc-skincare-offers"
}

Compare SaaS competitor messaging

{
  "competitorDomains": ["notion.so", "monday.com"],
  "regions": ["US", "GB"],
  "maxAdsPerCompetitor": 8,
  "maxTotalAds": 30,
  "analyzeLandingPages": true,
  "maxLandingPages": 10,
  "historyKey": "saas-messaging"
}

Watch ecommerce holiday campaigns

{
  "competitorDomains": ["bestbuy.com", "target.com"],
  "regions": ["US"],
  "maxAdsPerCompetitor": 15,
  "maxTotalAds": 30,
  "compareWithPreviousRun": true,
  "historyKey": "holiday-offers-us"
}

Audit one advertiser from a direct Transparency URL

{
  "competitorDomains": [],
  "transparencyUrls": ["https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR16735076323512287233?region=US"],
  "regions": ["US"],
  "maxAdsPerCompetitor": 20,
  "maxTotalAds": 20,
  "compareWithPreviousRun": true,
  "historyKey": "direct-advertiser-audit"
}