Google Ads Transparency Scraper – Competitor Ads, Dates & Creatives | $0.70 per 1,000

Get every ad a company is running on Google Search, YouTube, Display and Shopping, straight from Google's public Ads Transparency Center. Type a website, a company name, an advertiser ID or paste a Transparency Center link, and you get one row per ad: advertiser, format, first and last shown dates, image, a link to the ad, and optionally the ad text: the headline and description, read straight from the picture when Google only stores the ad as an image.

Every search also gets a free status row that says exactly what happened: how many ads were delivered, how many Google says exist, and why if anything is missing. You only pay for ads you actually receive. A search that comes back empty, gets blocked, or only finds ads you already have costs nothing.

Why this scraper?

Most complaints about Transparency Center scrapers are about runs that "succeed" with nothing in them, or results that don't match what you see on Google's site. This one is built around those problems.

Problem	Typical scrapers	This scraper
Empty results	Often an empty dataset with no explanation, sometimes still billed	A status row for every search explaining why (age-restricted ads, region, filters, no such advertiser). Empty searches are re-checked on a fresh connection before being reported, and never charged
What to type	Often need the advertiser ID (AR...) found by hand	Websites, company names, advertiser IDs and Transparency Center links, mixed in one list
Company name searches	Can quietly pick the wrong advertiser	The status row lists exactly which advertiser accounts were matched, with their IDs
Large advertisers	Can stop after the first page or lose progress when Google blocks	Reads every page. If Google blocks mid-way, the same page is retried on a new IP, so nothing collected is lost
Ads missing for some countries	Region often ignored	Country dropdown. Links with ?region= keep their country
Text ads saved only as pictures	Often come back with no headline or description	Optional text reader pulls the headline, description and web address out of the picture, charged only when text is found
Monitoring competitors	Often return and charge for the same ads on every run	"Only new ads" mode remembers what you already have and only returns new ones
One bad entry	Can crash the whole run	Each search is handled on its own. The run always finishes

What data you get

The dataset has two kinds of rows. Use the Ads, Ad text and landing pages and Run status tabs in the Output to see each.

Row type	Fields	Example
ad	advertiserName, advertiserId, creativeId, format, firstShown, lastShown, daysShown, imageUrl, imageWidth, imageHeight, previewUrl, adUrl, advertiserUrl, query, searchedFor, region	Nike, Inc., TEXT ad, first shown 2026-06-05, last shown 2026-10-14, 125 days
ad (with ad text or the text reader on)	headline, description, displayUrl, sitelinks, landingUrl, landingDomain, adTextSource (google or image), ocrText, ocrConfidence, youtubeVideoId, youtubeUrl, videoUrl, adTextFound	Headline and description of a text ad, read from its picture, with a confidence score
status (free)	query, status (complete, partial, no data, failed, skipped), adsDelivered, googleAdCount, matchedAdvertisers, alreadySeenSkipped, message	complete, 200 ads delivered, Google lists 8000-9000

A run summary (searches by status, ads charged, whether the run stopped at your spending limit) is saved as the OUTPUT record in the key-value store.

Who uses it

Who	What for
PPC and paid search agencies	See which ads and creatives competitors are running before pitching or planning a campaign
Brand and marketing teams	Track which creatives a competitor keeps running (long-running ads are usually the ones that work)
Brand protection	Find advertisers running ads that point to your domain
Sales and lead generation	Check whether a prospect is currently running Google Ads, and how many ads
Researchers and journalists	Archive what an advertiser has shown over time

How to use it

1. Click Try for free.
2. In Websites, companies or advertiser IDs, add one entry per line, for example nike.com, Canva or AR16735076323512287233.
3. Pick a Country if you only want ads shown there. Leave it on "Anywhere" for all countries.
4. Optionally set a format, a date range, or turn on ad text and the text reader.
5. Click Start. Ads appear in the Output tab as they're found. Check the Run status tab to see how each search went.

Input example

{
    "queries": ["nike.com", "Canva", "AR16735076323512287233"],
    "region": "US",
    "maxAdsPerQuery": 200,
    "adFormat": "ALL",
    "shownAfter": "2026-07-01",
    "includeAdText": true,
    "readTextFromImages": true,
    "onlyNewAds": false
}

Useful inputs

• Websites return every ad that links to that site, which can include more than one advertiser account (regional companies, resellers). This is usually what you want for competitor research.
• Company names are matched against Google's advertiser list by whole words, so "Canva" never picks up "Canvas". If no account has exactly that name, the company's own website is searched instead when Google suggests one. If nothing matches, you get a status row listing the closest suggestions and nothing is collected or charged. For the most complete results, search by website.
• Transparency Center links work as they are. Copy the address bar from adstransparency.google.com.
• Read text from text ads stored as pictures is for when you need the actual ad copy. Google keeps most text ads only as a picture, so without it those rows have an image but no words. It makes runs slower: in our tests a 30-ad search with it on took between 15 seconds and a minute and a half.
• Only new ads since my last run is for scheduled runs. The first run returns everything; later runs return only ads you haven't received before.

Output example

Real rows from a test run (nike.com, any country):

{
    "type": "ad",
    "query": "nike.com",
    "advertiserName": "Nike, Inc.",
    "advertiserId": "AR16735076323512287233",
    "creativeId": "CR17065361172590493697",
    "format": "TEXT",
    "firstShown": "2026-06-05T07:00:00.000Z",
    "lastShown": "2026-10-14T22:26:28.000Z",
    "daysShown": 125,
    "imageUrl": "https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/17845050656417904448",
    "imageWidth": 348,
    "imageHeight": 229,
    "adUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR16735076323512287233/creative/CR17065361172590493697?region=anywhere",
    "advertiserUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR16735076323512287233?region=anywhere",
    "region": "anywhere"
}

A text ad read by the text reader (Canva, Australia, text reader on). Google only stores this ad as a picture:

{
    "type": "ad",
    "advertiserName": "Canva, Pty Ltd",
    "creativeId": "CR11556245749163360257",
    "format": "TEXT",
    "firstShown": "2023-07-11T10:55:04.000Z",
    "lastShown": "2026-10-15T07:41:21.000Z",
    "daysShown": 1053,
    "headline": "Simple, Fast And Free - Try Canva For Free",
    "description": "Create Social Media Designs With Heaps of Templates, Fonts, And Elements To Choose From. Choose One Of Our Professional Templates To Quickly Inspire Your...",
    "displayUrl": "www.canva.com/",
    "sitelinks": ["Canva Free", "Start Designing", "Browse Templates", "Create With Your Team on Canva"],
    "landingDomain": "canva.com",
    "adTextSource": "image",
    "ocrConfidence": 95,
    "adUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR06374349942554624001/creative/CR11556245749163360257?region=AU"
}

The status row from a company-name search (Canva, Australia):

{
    "type": "status",
    "query": "Canva",
    "status": "complete",
    "searchedFor": "canva.com",
    "adsDelivered": 50,
    "googleAdCount": "3000-4000",
    "pagesRead": 2,
    "message": "Delivered 50 ads. Stopped at your limit of 50 ads per search. No Google advertiser account is named exactly \"Canva\", so ads for its website canva.com were collected instead (this covers every account advertising that site)."
}

Pricing

$0.70 per 1,000 ads ($0.0007 per ad), plus a $0.00005 start fee per run. There's no separate platform usage charge. Status rows are free, and turning on "ad text" doesn't change the price.

The optional text reader costs an extra $1 per 1,000 ads ($0.001 per ad), and only for ads where it actually read some text. Image and video ads, and pictures it couldn't read, are never charged for it.

What you run	Ads	Cost
One competitor's latest ads	100	$0.07
Five competitors, 200 ads each	1,000	$0.70
Weekly check with "only new ads", 30 new ads	30	$0.02
Canva in Australia, 30 ads, text reader on (13 text ads read)	30	$0.021 + $0.013 = $0.034
100 text ads with the text reader on (all read)	100	$0.07 + $0.10 = $0.17
A search that finds nothing	0	$0.00

If you set a maximum cost per run, the scraper stops cleanly at that limit, marks the search as partial, and lists any searches it didn't reach as skipped.

Reliability, built in

• Status row for every search. You never have to guess whether an empty result is real.
• Re-checks before saying "no data". An empty search is tried again on a different connection first.
• Explains the usual reasons for missing ads. Google hides age-restricted ads from anyone who isn't signed in, and some ads only show for certain countries. When Google's own count says ads exist but none come back, the status row says so.
• Handles Google's blocking. Requests rotate IPs, back off when blocked, and move to residential proxies automatically if they're needed and available.
• Never charges for nothing. Only delivered ads are charged.

Integrations and scheduling

Run it on a schedule (daily or weekly) with Only new ads turned on to get a feed of competitors' new creatives. Send results to Google Sheets, Slack, email, Zapier, Make or n8n with Apify integrations, or call it from your own code through the Apify API. It also works as a tool for AI agents through the Apify MCP server.

FAQ

Why did a search come back empty? Read the message on its status row. The common reasons are: the ads are age-restricted (Google only shows those to signed-in users, so no public tool can see them); the ads don't run in the country you picked; your date or format filters removed them; or the company advertises under a different name, so try its website instead.

Why are there fewer ads than on Google's site? The same reasons as above. Also check the country. The Transparency Center shows different ads depending on the region selected.

Why is the headline or landing page empty on some ads? Google stores many text ads only as a picture of the ad (that's the imageUrl on TEXT rows). Turn on Read text from text ads stored as pictures to get the headline, description and web address out of those pictures. Rows read this way have adTextSource: "image" and an ocrConfidence score. The "ad text" option adds what Google publishes as real text: landing pages, and the YouTube link for video ads. Image ads (banners) aren't read, only text ads. adTextFound tells you which rows have text.

How accurate is the text reader? It reads the picture the same way a scanner reads a page, so short words and unusual fonts can come out slightly wrong. The headline is the blue text in the ad, the description is the grey text under it, and any blue links under the description go in sitelinks. The advertiser's name and logo above the web address are left out. ocrText keeps everything it read, line by line, and ocrConfidence (0 to 100) tells you how sure it was. If Google serves its own error picture instead of the ad, nothing is returned and nothing is charged.

Why does a website search include more than one advertiser? Google matches every advertiser account whose ads link to that website. That often includes regional companies or resellers. Use advertiserName to filter.

Can I search by keyword or industry, like "running shoes"? No. Google removed keyword search from the Transparency Center, so ads can only be looked up by advertiser or website. If you have a list of competitor websites, put them all in one run.

Do I get impressions, spend or targeting? No. Google doesn't publish spend for normal ads, and only publishes impression ranges and targeting for ads shown in the EU and for political ads. This tool collects the advertiser, format, dates, creative and links.

How far back does it go? As far as the Transparency Center goes. Some ads in our tests were first shown in 2021. Use the date filters to narrow it down.

Is this legal? The Ads Transparency Center is a public library Google publishes so anyone can see who is advertising. This tool reads only that public data, doesn't log in, and doesn't collect personal data. You're responsible for how you use the results.

Something isn't working? Open an issue on the Issues tab with the search and the run link. I usually reply within one business day.

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This tool is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Google.