YouTube Ad Creative & Advertiser Tracker

Pull the ad creatives a brand is actually running on YouTube, straight from Google's public Ads Transparency Center. Hand it a keyword, an advertiser name, or an advertiser AR-ID and get back every matching ad creative with its thumbnail, format, country, and the dates it was first and last shown.

What this actor does

• Two ways in: pass advertiser names/AR-IDs directly, or give keywords and let the actor discover matching advertisers first
• YouTube-scoped: every creative returned was served on YouTube, not Google's wider display network
• Country and date filters: narrow by ISO-2 country code and by first-shown date window
• Multiple export formats: dataset JSON always, plus optional CSV, Excel, or HTML written to the key-value store
• Empty fields are omitted — a record only carries the values Google actually returned for that creative

Output per ad creative

• adId — the creative's unique ID (e.g. CR09196456782480801793)
• advertiserId — the advertiser's AR-ID
• advertiserName — advertiser display name
• countryCode — ISO-2 country this creative was matched under (omitted when advertisers were passed directly by AR-ID)
• format — VIDEO or IMAGE
• mediaType — video or image
• imageUrl, imageWidth, imageHeight — the creative's thumbnail/preview image and its dimensions
• videoUrl — resolved playable video URL, only present when includeVideoDetails is enabled and Google exposes it
• firstShown, lastShown — timestamps the creative was first and most recently observed running
• adCount — total creative count Google reports for the advertiser at query time
• searchTerm — the keyword that surfaced this advertiser (present only for keyword-discovered results)
• sourceUrl — the Ads Transparency Center page for this exact creative
• scrapedAt — when the actor fetched the record

When no ad creatives match the input at all, the dataset instead gets a single status row (recordType: "status", status: "no_ads_found") echoing back the searchTerms/countries/dateFrom/dateTo that were tried, so an empty dataset always comes with an explanation.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
advertisers	array	—	Advertiser names or AR-IDs to pull ads for directly (e.g. Nike, Inc., AR16735076323512287233).
searchTerms	array	–	Keywords used to discover advertisers before pulling their ads.
countries	array	–	ISO-2 country codes to match advertisers against. Leave empty for all countries.
dateFrom	string	—	Keep only creatives first shown on or after this YYYY-MM-DD date.
dateTo	string	—	Keep only creatives first shown on or before this YYYY-MM-DD date.
includeVideoDetails	boolean	false	Also fetch each creative's detail page to try to resolve a playable video URL.
maxAdvertisersPerTerm	integer	5	Advertisers to pull per keyword in searchTerms (1–50).
maxItems	integer	100	Hard cap on total ad creative records returned (1–5000).
maxConcurrency	integer	2	Advertisers processed in parallel (1–5).
outputFormat	string	json	Also export to the key-value store as OUTPUT.csv, OUTPUT.xlsx, or OUTPUT.html.
proxyConfiguration	object	—	Optional Apify proxy for higher-volume runs.

At least one of advertisers or searchTerms is required.

Example: discover advertisers by keyword

{
  "searchTerms": ["electric car"],
  "countries": ["US"],
  "maxAdvertisersPerTerm": 5,
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: pull a known advertiser's creatives directly

{
  "advertisers": ["AR16735076323512287233"],
  "countries": ["US", "GB"],
  "maxItems": 40
}

Example: narrow window with resolved video URLs

{
  "searchTerms": ["nike"],
  "dateFrom": "2026-01-01",
  "dateTo": "2026-03-31",
  "includeVideoDetails": true,
  "outputFormat": "csv"
}

Use cases

• Competitive ad monitoring — see which creatives a rival brand is currently running on YouTube
• Creative swipe files — collect thumbnails and formats from an industry to spot creative trends
• Flight tracking — watch firstShown/lastShown to know when a competitor's campaign started or stopped
• Agency reporting — export a client's or competitor's ad library to CSV/Excel for a deck
• Market scans — run a keyword across multiple countries to see who is advertising where

FAQ

Where does this data come from? Google's own public Ads Transparency Center, filtered to creatives shown on YouTube — the same tool anyone can browse at adstransparency.google.com.

Do I need an API key, login, or cookies? No. The Transparency Center is public and the actor reads it without any authentication.

Why is there no YouTube video ID or embeddable video for most ads? Google's Transparency Center does not publish the underlying YouTube video ID for most creatives, only a thumbnail and the ad's detail page. Enabling includeVideoDetails resolves a playable video URL when Google's detail page exposes one.

Why is countryCode missing on some records? It's only populated when an advertiser was found through keyword search. When you pass an advertiser AR-ID directly, Google's API doesn't expose that advertiser's country, so the field is left out.

How far back does the data go? Google's Transparency Center indexes ads from September 2023 onward, and it isn't a complete archive — older or very low-volume creatives may not appear.

Is there a limit on how many creatives one advertiser can return? Yes, Google's own library caps each advertiser's results at roughly 40 creatives per query; the actor returns the most recent ones and deduplicates by adId across repeated queries.

What's the difference between the advertisers and searchTerms inputs? advertisers goes straight to a known advertiser's ad library. searchTerms runs a keyword search first to find matching advertisers, then pulls each one's ads — useful when you don't already know the advertiser's exact name or AR-ID.

Is this affiliated with Google or YouTube? No. This is an independent actor that reads Google's publicly available Ads Transparency Center data.