Google Ads Transparency Scraper – Competitor Ad Spy

What does Google Ads Transparency Scraper & API do?

Google Ads Transparency Scraper extracts active and historical ad creatives directly from the official Google Ads Transparency Center by competitor domain, brand name, or Google Advertiser ID (AR...) across 30+ countries — without requiring a Google Ads account, cookies, or login.

Built as a fast, reliable Google Ads Spy API and MCP-ready agent tool, it captures Search (Text), Display (Image), and YouTube (Video) ad creatives, active date windows, preview assets, and direct verification links in clean JSON, CSV, or Excel format.

• Transparent Pay-Per-Event pricing: $1.00 per 1,000 ads ($0.001 per ad creative). Zero platform compute surcharges.
• Generous Free Tier: With Apify's $5.00/month free plan credit, you can extract up to 5,000 competitor Google & YouTube ads every month at $0 cost.
• Built-in anti-rate-limit resilience: Browser TLS fingerprint impersonation + automatic session rotation keep multi-domain ad intelligence pipelines running reliably.

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Why scrape Google Ads Transparency Center?

Competitors spend thousands of dollars split-testing headlines, landing pages, YouTube hooks, and seasonal offers. Monitoring their live ad library lets you see what is actively running right now — and most importantly, which creatives stay live the longest (your strongest signal of profitable ROAS).

Top business use cases

1. Competitor Ad Spy & Creative Intelligence: Track every new Search, Display, and YouTube video ad launched by rival SaaS companies, DTC e-commerce brands, or local service leaders.
2. PPC & Paid Media Agency Audits: Walk into client pitches with a complete breakdown of their competitors' active ad formats, regional targeting, and creative velocity.
3. AI Marketing Agents (Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT via MCP): Let your AI assistant pull a competitor's live Google Ads before writing counter-positioning copy or landing page variants.
4. Automated Brand Protection & Trademark Monitoring: Schedule daily runs in n8n, Make, or Apify Schedules to detect unauthorized affiliates or competitors bidding on your brand terms.
5. B2B Sales Prospecting Enrichment: Verify whether target accounts are actively spending on Google Paid Search or YouTube Ads before pitching agency, CRO, or attribution services.

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What data can Google Ads Transparency Scraper extract?

Every item in the output dataset represents one verified ad creative with normalized fields ready for BI dashboards, spreadsheets, or LLM prompts:

Field Name	Type	Description
advertiserId	string	Official Google Advertiser ID (e.g., AR01625195283841286145).
advertiserName	string	Legal verified entity name registered with Google Ads.
creativeId	string	Unique Google Creative ID (CR...) for deduplication and tracking over time.
domain	string	Queried domain, brand, or advertiser identifier.
format	string	Normalized ad format: TEXT (Search), IMAGE (Display/PMax), or VIDEO (YouTube).
country	string	ISO-2 country code where the ad impression was served (e.g., US, ES, GB, DE).
firstShownAt	string	ISO-8601 UTC timestamp when Google first recorded the creative.
lastShownAt	string	ISO-8601 UTC timestamp when the creative was most recently served.
activeDaysCount	integer | null	Number of active days reported — filter for 30+ days to isolate winning evergreens.
previewImageUrl	string | null	Direct image thumbnail/creative asset URL when available.
previewEmbedUrl	string | null	Interactive preview/embed URL for rendered ad inspection.
transparencyUrl	string	Direct permalink to the official Google Ads Transparency Center creative page.

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How to scrape competitor Google & YouTube Ads (Step-by-Step)

1. Click Try for free to open Google Ads Transparency Scraper in Apify Console.
2. Enter a competitor domain (e.g., shopify.com), brand name (Nike), or Advertiser ID (AR...) in Domain, Brand Name, or Advertiser ID (query).
3. Choose your Target Country (US, GB, ES, DE, FR, BR, MX, CA, AU, etc.) and optional Ad Format Filter (ALL, TEXT, IMAGE, or VIDEO).
4. Set Max Ads to Extract (maxItems, e.g., 50 or 500) and click Start.
5. Preview creatives visually in the Ad Creatives Overview table or download your dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML.

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How much does it cost to scrape Google Ads Transparency Center?

This Actor uses transparent Pay-Per-Event (PAY_PER_EVENT) pricing — you only pay for actual ad creatives delivered to your dataset, with platform compute included:

Volume	Cost ($1.00 / 1,000 ads)	Covered by Apify $5/mo Free Credit?
100 ads (quick competitor audit)	$0.10	Yes ($0 out of pocket)
1,000 ads (agency benchmark)	$1.00	Yes ($0 out of pocket)
5,000 ads / month	$5.00	100% Free on Starter Free Plan
25,000 ads (market-wide tracker)	$25.00	Scales automatically on paid plans

If a competitor has 0 active ads in the selected country, 0 items are pushed and your event charge is $0.00.

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Use with AI Assistants & MCP (Claude, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT)

Connect this Actor directly to Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, or VS Code via the official Apify MCP Server so your AI agent can spy on competitor ads in real time:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google-ads-spy": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=ramgoxxx/google-ads-transparency-scraper",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

Once connected, ask your AI assistant:

• "Check what YouTube video ads monday.com is currently running in the US and summarize their main angles."
• "Compare the format mix (Search vs Video vs Image) of hubspot.com in US, GB, and DE."

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Input parameters & JSON examples

See the Input tab for interactive controls. Below are ready-to-copy JSON payloads for API, CLI, n8n, and Make workflows:

Example 1: Spy on all active ads for a competitor domain

{
  "query": "shopify.com",
  "country": "US",
  "adFormat": "ALL",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example 2: Extract only YouTube Video Ads in Spain (ES)

{
  "query": "revolut.com",
  "country": "ES",
  "adFormat": "VIDEO",
  "maxItems": 50
}

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Output example

You can download the dataset in JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or HTML formats. Each record follows a clean, predictable schema:

[
  {
    "advertiserId": "AR01625195283841286145",
    "advertiserName": "Shopify Inc.",
    "creativeId": "CR10482910482019482112",
    "domain": "shopify.com",
    "format": "VIDEO",
    "country": "US",
    "firstShownAt": "2026-09-14T00:00:00+00:00",
    "lastShownAt": "2026-11-01T21:15:00+00:00",
    "activeDaysCount": 48,
    "previewImageUrl": "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/1092837465019283",
    "previewEmbedUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR01625195283841286145/creative/CR10482910482019482112",
    "transparencyUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR01625195283841286145/creative/CR10482910482019482112?region=US"
  }
]

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Integrate with Python, Node.js, n8n & Make

Python (apify-client)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("ramgoxxx/google-ads-transparency-scraper").call(
    run_input={
        "query": "notion.so",
        "country": "US",
        "adFormat": "ALL",
        "maxItems": 100,
    }
)

for ad in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(ad["format"], ad["lastShownAt"], ad["transparencyUrl"])

cURL / REST API (n8n & Make HTTP Request node)

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/ramgoxxx~google-ads-transparency-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"figma.com","country":"US","adFormat":"VIDEO","maxItems":25}'

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Do I need a Google Ads account or cookies?

No. The Actor queries public Google Ads Transparency Center records directly — zero cookies, zero login credentials, and zero risk to your own ad accounts.

How do I track only new ads launched by a competitor?

Schedule a daily or weekly run using Apify Schedules (or n8n / Make) and deduplicate on the immutable creativeId field in Google Sheets, Airtable, Supabase, or Slack alerts. Any previously unseen creativeId is a newly launched ad test.

Which countries are supported?

Over 30 ISO-2 country storefronts including US, GB, CA, AU, DE, FR, ES, IT, NL, PT, SE, PL, CH, AT, BE, IE, BR, MX, AR, CO, CL, IN, SG, JP, and ZA.

Legal & GDPR Disclaimer

Our Actors are ethical and do not extract any private user data, such as personal email addresses, gender, or private location. They only extract public ad transparency disclosures that Google and verified advertisers publish openly for public accountability. However, you should be aware that business records may occasionally reference public entity names. Personal data is protected by the GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. If you have questions or feature requests, open a ticket in the Issues tab.