Google Ads Transparency Scraper

Look up any brand, domain or advertiser in Google's public Ads Transparency Center and get its ad creatives as clean rows. No login, no API key.

What data can you extract?

For each ad creative:

• Advertiser name and ID, with a link to the advertiser page
• Ad format: TEXT, IMAGE or VIDEO
• First and last shown date
• Image URL (text ads are rendered as an image) and the creative preview URL
• Destination domain (domain searches)
• The name, domain or advertiser ID that found the ad, plus the region filter used
• Direct link to the creative in the Transparency Center

By default (includeAdDetails on) you also get the headline, description and display URL, the image and video links, the number of variations and the countries the ad was shown in. This needs extra lookups per ad and takes about 2-3 seconds per ad; switch it off for faster runs with list fields only. Not every ad shows text: many classic text ads are only published as an image, in which case headline stays empty and image_urls has the picture. Sitelinks and ratings shown in the Transparency Center are part of that image and cannot be read as text.

Use with AI Agents (MCP)

Connect this actor to any MCP-compatible AI client, including Claude Desktop, Claude.ai, Cursor, VS Code, LangChain and LlamaIndex.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=santamaria-automations/google-ads-scraper",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Example prompt: "Use google-ads-scraper to get the latest 50 US ads from Nike and show advertiser, format and last shown date as a table."

Example input

{
  "searchTerms": ["nike"],
  "region": "US",
  "maxAds": 50
}

With ad details:

{
  "searchTerms": ["nike"],
  "region": "US",
  "maxAds": 50,
  "includeAdDetails": true
}

An empty input {} also works and runs the defaults (nike, 50 ads, all regions).

How searches work

• Brand or advertiser names (searchTerms): the name is looked up in the Transparency Center's advertiser search. The closest name match wins (legal suffixes like Inc or GmbH are ignored), and among equal matches the advertiser with the most ads. maxAdvertisersPerTerm (default 1) controls how many matches are scraped. Free-text keyword search for ad content is not supported by Google's endpoint, only advertiser names.
• Domains (domains, or a name like tesla.com): ads whose destination domain matches, from any advertiser. Domains are searched directly because the advertiser lookup does not resolve them.
• Advertiser IDs (advertiserIds): all ads of one advertiser, for example AR17828074650563772417.

A creative found by several searches is returned once.

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
searchTerms	array	["nike"]	Brand or advertiser names. Used only when domains and advertiserIds are empty too
domains	array	none	Domains such as nike.com
advertiserIds	array	none	Advertiser IDs (AR plus 20 digits)
region	string	empty	Two-letter country code to only get ads shown there (US, GB, DE, FR, CH, ...)
maxAdvertisersPerTerm	integer	1	Advertisers to scrape per name (1-10)
maxAds	integer	50	Total ads across all searches (1-100,000)
maxAdsPerQuery	integer	0	Optional cap per name, domain or advertiser (0 = only the total cap)
includeAdDetails	boolean	true	Load the ad content (headline, description, display URL, images, video, variations, countries). Slower: about 2-3 seconds per ad

What you get

One row per ad creative:

Field	Type	Description
creative_id	string	Unique creative ID
advertiser_id	string	Advertiser ID (matched advertiser for name searches)
advertiser_name	string	Advertiser display name
advertiser_url	string	Advertiser page in the Transparency Center
ad_format	string	TEXT, IMAGE or VIDEO
first_shown_date	string	First date the ad was shown (YYYY-MM-DD)
last_shown_date	string	Last date the ad was shown (YYYY-MM-DD)
image_url	string	Ad image URL (text ads render as an image)
preview_url	string	Google preview script URL of the creative (image and video ads)
domain	string	Destination domain (domain searches only)
search_term	string	Name, domain or advertiser ID that found this ad
search_type	string	keyword, domain or advertiser_id
region	string	Region filter applied, empty for all regions
source_url	string	Direct link to the creative
scraped_at	string	ISO 8601 scrape time
headline	string	Ad headline (with ad details)
description	string	Ad description text (with ad details)
display_url	string	Display URL shown with the ad (with ad details)
destination_url	string	Landing page, when the ad exposes it (with ad details)
sitelinks	array	Extra links shown under a text ad, as {title, url}. Empty if none could be read (with ad details)
variations_count	integer	Number of variations of this creative (with ad details)
image_urls	array	Image URLs of the ad variations (with ad details)
video_url	string	Video link for video ads (with ad details)
regions_shown	array	Countries the ad was shown in, as two-letter codes (with ad details)
detail_status	string	not_requested, ok, partial (ad text could not be loaded) or failed (list fields only)

The ad detail fields are always present. With includeAdDetails switched off they are empty and detail_status is not_requested. If the ad content cannot be loaded for an ad, the row is still returned with detail_status set to failed (list fields only) or partial (ad text missing, other details present). Each ad is billed once either way.

Output example (with ad details)

{
  "creative_id": "CR00033613616649338881",
  "advertiser_id": "AR16735076323512287233",
  "advertiser_name": "Nike, Inc.",
  "advertiser_url": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR16735076323512287233",
  "ad_format": "TEXT",
  "first_shown_date": "2023-11-17",
  "last_shown_date": "2026-10-21",
  "image_url": "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/6766108139373326992",
  "preview_url": "",
  "headline": "Nike® Official Site",
  "description": "Shop the official Nike® store for the latest shoes, apparel & gear.",
  "display_url": "nike.com",
  "destination_url": "",
  "sitelinks": [],
  "variations_count": 5,
  "image_urls": ["https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/6766108139373326992"],
  "video_url": "",
  "regions_shown": ["US"],
  "detail_status": "ok",
  "domain": "",
  "search_term": "nike",
  "search_type": "keyword",
  "region": "US",
  "source_url": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR16735076323512287233/creative/CR00033613616649338881",
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-21T10:30:00Z"
}

Pricing

Pay per event:

Event	When	Price
actor-start	Once per run, only if at least one ad was saved	$0.005
google-ads-result	Per ad saved to the dataset	$0.001

$0.001 per ad means $1.00 per 1,000 ads. Runs that find nothing cost nothing.

Data protection

This actor returns only data that is publicly visible on the source pages. Results can include personal data, such as names, phone numbers, email addresses and addresses of private persons, sole traders or contact persons. Where the source labels an entry type, it is included so you can filter the results yourself.

You are responsible for using the data lawfully, including the GDPR/DSGVO, national data-protection laws and unfair-competition rules (e.g. UWG) for marketing and outreach.

Related actors

• Facebook Ad Library Scraper - the same competitor research for Meta ads.
• Google Search Scraper - organic and paid results for your keywords.
• SimilarWeb Scraper - traffic and channel data for the advertisers you find.
• Website Contact Extractor - contact details from advertiser websites.

Notes

• The Ads Transparency Center is a public database that Google publishes by law, no login required.
• If a search finds no ads, the run ends with a clear status message and a failed exit, so you are not billed.
• Google limits heavy use. Blocked requests are retried automatically; if a run still reports being blocked, try again later.