Google Ads Transparency Center Scraper

Scrapes ads from the Google Ads. Returns creative content, advertiser info, ad format, dates, and asset URLs.

Features

• No login required — Google's Transparency Center is publicly accessible
• Search by query — find ads by advertiser name, domain, or keyword (e.g. Tesla, nike.com, insurance)
• Filter by region — 65+ countries supported
• Filter by platform — Search, YouTube, Play, Maps, Shopping
• Filter by format — text, image, video ads
• Date range filtering — custom date range or preset timeframes
• No browser needed — pure HTTP API calls with undici, fast and lightweight

How It Works

The actor reverse-engineers Google's internal "anji" RPC API that powers the Transparency Center frontend. It:

1. Establishes session cookies via a simple HTTP GET (no Playwright/browser required)
2. Searches for creatives using SearchService/SearchCreatives
3. Optionally fetches per-ad detail via LookupService/GetCreativeById
4. Normalizes the proto-JSON response into clean JSON output

Input

Field	Type	Description	Default
query	string	Search term to look up ads for (e.g. Tesla, nike.com, insurance). Leave empty to browse all ads.	""
region	select	Country to filter ads by.	anywhere
platform	select	Platform filter: all, search, youtube, play, maps, shopping.	all
creativeFormat	select	Ad format: all, text, image, video.	all
dateStart	string	Start date in YYYY-MM-DD format (optional).	(empty)
dateEnd	string	End date in YYYY-MM-DD format (optional).	(empty)
timeframe	select	Preset date range (used when dateStart/dateEnd not set).	365d
limit	integer	Maximum number of ads to collect (up to 100 per page).	20
scrapeAdDetails	boolean	Fetch full ad detail for each result (format, assets, dates).	true
proxyConfiguration	object	Standard Apify proxy configuration.	{ useApifyProxy: true }

Output

Each ad in the dataset has this structure:

{
  "id": "CR14652493479645544449",
  "advertiserId": "AR12403294217118416897",
  "advertiserName": "Brett Batie",
  "domain": "filerev.com",
  "adFormat": "image",
  "firstShownDate": 1669406775,
  "lastShownDate": 1777852223,
  "totalDaysShown": 1256,
  "assets": {
    "images": [
      {
        "url": "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/10420209803227999867",
        "width": 380,
        "height": 503
      }
    ],
    "videos": []
  },
  "landingPage": null,
  "regions": null,
  "detail": null
}

When scrapeAdDetails is enabled, the detail field contains additional metadata from the detail endpoint.

Example Inputs

Search for Tesla ads in the US:

{
  "query": "tesla.com",
  "region": "US",
  "limit": 50,
  "scrapeAdDetails": true
}

Browse all video ads from any region:

{
  "query": "",
  "creativeFormat": "video",
  "limit": 20,
  "scrapeAdDetails": false
}

Search with custom date range:

{
  "query": "amazon.com",
  "region": "anywhere",
  "dateStart": "2024-01-01",
  "dateEnd": "2024-06-30",
  "limit": 100
}

Proxy

On the Apify platform, the actor uses Apify Proxy automatically. Configure proxyConfiguration to use residential proxies or custom proxy URLs.