Google Ads Competitor Tracker: Ads, Formats & Countries

How much is your competitor advertising on Google, where, and which ads do they keep running? Enter competitor websites and get one report each: how many ads they run in a country, the split between text, image and video, how their ad count compares across countries, the ads they launched recently, the ads they have kept running longest, and who else is advertising with their name.

Data comes from Google's public Ads Transparency Center. No login, no API key.

What does this do?

Other Google Ads scrapers hand you a pile of ad rows. This Actor answers the questions a marketer actually asks about a competitor, and gives you the ad rows too.

flowchart LR
    A[Competitor websites] --> B[Google Ads<br/>Transparency Center]
    B --> C[Their own ads,<br/>separated from resellers<br/>and hosted customers]
    C --> D[One report each:<br/>ad count, formats,<br/>countries, new and<br/>long-running ads]
    C --> E[Every ad as a row]

Who is it for?

You are	You use it to
PPC and paid search managers	Size up a competitor's Google Ads effort before a pitch or a budget meeting
Marketing agencies	Show a prospect how their competitors advertise, country by country and format by format
Founders and product marketers	See which ads rivals have kept running for years, the best sign of what works for them
Brand protection teams	Find resellers, affiliates and others running ads that point to your domain
Market researchers	Compare advertising intensity across a whole category, such as CRMs or VPNs

What data do you get?

One row per competitor:

Field	Meaning
ads	The company's own ads that link to its domain, in the country you chose (Google's range, such as "2,000–3,000")
countsBasedOn	What that count measures (see "Three different counts" below)
textAds, imageAds, videoAds, videoSharePercent...	The format split, from Google's own counts
adsByCountry, topCountry	The ad count in each country you compare, and which of them has the most
adsLinkingToDomain	Every ad that links to the domain, whoever ran it
companyAdsAllBrands	Everything the company's advertiser accounts run, other brands included
mainAdvertiser, mainAdvertiserCountry, companyAdvertisers	The company's advertiser account(s) and where they are registered
otherAdvertisers, otherAdvertiserCount	Resellers, agencies, affiliates and hosted customers whose ads link to the domain
newAdsLast7Days, newAdsLast30Days	Recently launched ads among the ads read
longestRunningAds	The ads still running that have been shown the most days, with preview image and link
newestAds, runningNowPercent, medianDaysShown	What they launched last, and how long their ads usually run
transparencyUrl	The same view on Google's site

Plus, with Also return every ad as a row on (the default), a second table with each ad's advertiser, whether it is the company's own, format, first and last shown dates, days shown, preview image and a link to the ad on Google.

Three different counts, and why they matter

Searching Google's ad library by domain returns every ad that links to that domain, which is often not the same as the company's own advertising:

• Hosted customers. 1,000–2,000 US ads link to zendesk.com, but Zendesk itself runs 400–500 of them. The biggest advertiser on zendesk.com in our sample was Depop, most likely because its help centre is hosted there. Squarespace is similar: 3,000–4,000 ads link to squarespace.com and 1,000–2,000 are Squarespace's own; most of the rest come from small businesses, likely ones with Squarespace websites.
• Resellers and affiliates. Among 200 hubspot.com ads read, 35 other advertisers had ads pointing to hubspot.com.
• Other brands and sites. Salesforce, Inc.'s accounts run 7,000–8,000 US ads in total, but only 2,000–3,000 of them link to salesforce.com; the rest link elsewhere.

So the Actor finds the company's own advertiser accounts among the ads it reads and counts their ads that link to the domain. You also get the other two numbers (adsLinkingToDomain, companyAdsAllBrands).

When a company advertises under a legal name that does not look like its domain (ClickUp is "Mango Technologies", 1Password is "AgileBits", HelloFresh US is "Grocery Delivery E-Services USA"), it cannot be picked out by name. The report then counts every ad linking to the domain, says so in countsBasedOn, and names that advertiser as mainAdvertiser. To count one account exactly, enter its advertiser ID (starting "AR"), which is in the mainAdvertiserId field and on Google's site.

Example: CRMs and website builders, US, September 2026

Run from Apify's servers on 19 September 2026:

Competitor	Own ads on its domain	All ads linking to it	Own ads, all brands	Video share	Other advertisers	Median days shown
monday.com	6,000–7,000	7,000–8,000	6,000–7,000	40%	6	128
salesforce.com	2,000–3,000	3,000–4,000	7,000–8,000	1.2%	6	155
pipedrive.com	700–800	1,000–2,000	700–800	1.7%	5	317
hubspot.com	600–700	1,000–2,000	700–800	37%	35	378
zendesk.com	400–500	1,000–2,000	500–600	6.3%	11	430
godaddy.com	10,000–20,000	10,000–20,000	20,000–30,000	9.1%	1	131
wix.com	8,000–9,000	8,000–9,000	10,000–20,000	57.1%	1	280
shopify.com	7,000–8,000	9,000–10,000	9,000–10,000	30.3%	14	612
squarespace.com	1,000–2,000	3,000–4,000	1,000–2,000	7%	51	131
webflow.com	400–500	400–500	400–500	24.6%	6	112

What it tells you:

• monday.com runs the most ads in its group, about ten times as many as HubSpot, and 40% of them are video.
• Wix leans on video (57% of its ads); Salesforce and Pipedrive barely use it.
• Some ads run for years. HubSpot, Zendesk and monday.com each still run ads first shown in October 2021 that have been shown on more than 1,700 days. Those are the ads worth studying.
• Where they advertise differs. Pipedrive and Shopify run more ads in Germany than in the US among the eight countries compared.

How to use it

1. Add your competitors, one website per line (hubspot.com). A company name or an advertiser ID also works.
2. Choose the country to analyse, or Worldwide.
3. Pick the countries to compare ad counts across (free).
4. Run it, then open the Competitor reports tab, or export to CSV, Excel or JSON.

Schedule it weekly with the same competitors to see when they launch new campaigns.

Popular comparisons

Ready-to-run competitor sets, one page per category (US):

• CRM Software Google Ads: HubSpot vs Salesforce vs More — hubspot.com, salesforce.com, zendesk.com, pipedrive.com, monday.com
• Website Builder Google Ads: Wix vs Squarespace vs More — wix.com, squarespace.com, shopify.com, webflow.com, godaddy.com
• VPN Google Ads: NordVPN vs ExpressVPN vs More — nordvpn.com, expressvpn.com, surfshark.com, proton.me, privateinternetaccess.com
• Meal Kit Google Ads: HelloFresh vs Factor vs More — hellofresh.com, factor75.com, blueapron.com, homechef.com, everyplate.com
• Project Management Google Ads: Asana vs ClickUp vs More — asana.com, clickup.com, monday.com, notion.com, atlassian.com
• Email Marketing Google Ads: Mailchimp vs Klaviyo vs More — mailchimp.com, klaviyo.com, constantcontact.com, brevo.com, activecampaign.com
• Online Travel Google Ads: Booking.com vs Expedia vs More — booking.com, expedia.com, airbnb.com, tripadvisor.com, hotels.com
• Sportswear Google Ads: Nike vs Adidas vs More — nike.com, adidas.com, gymshark.com, lululemon.com, underarmour.com
• SEO Tool Google Ads: Semrush vs Ahrefs vs More — semrush.com, ahrefs.com, moz.com, similarweb.com, seranking.com
• AI Writing Tool Google Ads: Grammarly vs QuillBot vs More — grammarly.com, quillbot.com, prowritingaid.com, jasper.ai, writesonic.com
• Fintech Google Ads: Chime vs SoFi vs Wise vs Revolut — chime.com, sofi.com, wise.com, revolut.com
• Accounting Software Google Ads: Intuit vs Xero vs More — intuit.com, xero.com, freshbooks.com, waveapps.com, sage.com
• Password Manager Google Ads: 1Password vs LastPass vs More — 1password.com, lastpass.com, bitwarden.com, dashlane.com, keepersecurity.com
• Online Learning Google Ads: Coursera vs Udemy vs More — coursera.org, udemy.com, skillshare.com, masterclass.com, edx.org
• Car Insurance Google Ads: GEICO vs Progressive vs More — geico.com, progressive.com, statefarm.com, allstate.com, libertymutual.com

Each page is this Actor with a different set of competitors. Open one, put your own competitors in, and run it.

Pricing

Pay per result: $0.03 per competitor report plus $0.0015 per ad row ($1.50 per 1,000). A competitor with the default 200 ads costs $0.33. Turn off Also return every ad as a row to pay only for the reports: 10 competitors for $0.30.

Country comparisons and format counts cost nothing extra. A competitor with no ads at all is reported free.

Where the data comes from

Google's Ads Transparency Center (adstransparency.google.com), the public library of ads shown through Google Ads on Search, YouTube, Display, Shopping, Maps and Play. The Actor makes the same requests the site makes for a visitor who is not logged in.

Google sometimes rate-limits a busy server. When that happens the Actor carries on through Apify Proxy automatically, so the run still finishes. If Google refuses every route, the run stops, stores nothing more, charges nothing for the skipped competitors, and tells you to run again later.

FAQ

Why are ad counts ranges? Google publishes them that way ("1,000–2,000"). The Actor passes them on rather than inventing precision.

Do I get the ad text? Not as text. Google serves most text ads as rendered preview images, so each ad row has a preview image link and a link to the ad on Google's site, where you can read it.

Do I get ad spend or impressions? No. Google publishes spend only for political ads, so it is not available for commercial advertisers.

How are "new ads" counted? Among the ads read. Google lists ads by when they were last shown, not when they started, so newAdsLast30Days counts recent launches in that sample. Read more ads per competitor for a fuller picture; the ad counts by country and format are Google's totals and do not depend on it.

The main advertiser is not the company I entered. Why? Either another advertiser runs most of the ads linking to that domain (a reseller or a customer it hosts), or the company advertises under a different legal name. mainAdvertiserMatchesDomain and countsBasedOn tell you which.

Can I track a company by its advertiser account instead? Yes. Enter the advertiser ID (it starts "AR" and is in the mainAdvertiserId field or on Google's site) and every count covers exactly that account.