Google Ads Transparency Scraper: Ads, Text, OCR & Videos

Google Ads competitor research in one run: every Search, YouTube, Shopping, Maps and Play ad any brand or domain is running, with ad copy, images, video links, dates, countries, and whether it is running right now.

How to use

1. Sign up for Apify — the free plan's monthly credit is enough to try this Actor.
2. Open Google Ads Transparency Scraper, fill in the input (the form is pre-filled with a working example) and click Start.
3. Watch results stream into the dataset table while the run is going.
4. Export as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, HTML or RSS — or pull the results from your own code with the Apify API.

Why use this competitor ads scraper?

• Two output modes.
  • Ads: one row per ad with copy, creative, dates and countries.
  • Advertiser summary: one row per company. It answers does this company run Google Ads, how many ads, on which platforms, and when was the last one shown? Paste 500 domains and get a lead list for a fraction of the cost of pulling every ad.
• The right advertiser, not look-alikes. Google's own search box returns "Nikena" and "nikethan g" for nike. This Actor keeps only accounts that carry the brand name and skips tiny look-alike accounts, so the results are the brand you asked for.
• Platform filter + platform per ad. Choose Search, YouTube, Shopping, Maps or Play. Each ad lists every selected platform it ran on.
• isActive flag. True when the ad was shown in the last 3 days, so you can separate live campaigns from the archive. Ads come newest first.
• Ad content, not just preview links. Where Google exposes it, the Actor extracts:
  • headline and ad texts
  • call to action
  • product title and image for Shopping ads
  • YouTube video ID, URL and thumbnail for video ads
• Countries per ad. Where each ad was shown and when it was last shown there, most recent first.
• Any input you have. Brand names, domains (also typed into the search box), advertiser IDs, or any Ads Transparency URL pasted from your browser.
• Monitoring mode. Returns only ads that appeared since the last run.
• No browser, no login. Fast HTTP requests.

How to scrape competitor ads

{
  "searchTerms": ["nike", "hubspot.com"],
  "resultType": "ads",
  "region": "US",
  "platforms": ["YOUTUBE", "SEARCH"],
  "format": "all",
  "dateFrom": "2026-08-01",
  "maxAdsPerAdvertiser": 200
}

Check which companies advertise on Google (lead generation)

{
  "resultType": "advertisers",
  "domains": ["hubspot.com", "pipedrive.com", "my-prospect.com"],
  "region": "US"
}

Input reference

Every option at a glance. A minimal input that works as-is:

{
  "searchTerms": [
    "nike"
  ],
  "resultType": "ads",
  "region": "anywhere",
  "format": "all",
  "advertisersPerSearchTerm": 3,
  "includeAdContent": true,
  "includeDetails": true,
  "maxAdsPerAdvertiser": 100,
  "maxResults": 1000
}

All fields:

• searchTerms (Brand names or domains) — Brand or company names (e.g. "nike") or domains (e.g. "nike.com"). Names are matched to the advertiser accounts that really carry that name — look-alike accounts are skipped. Domains return every ad pointing to that site.
• resultType (What to return) — Use the advertiser summary to check a list of companies or domains for Google Ads activity (lead generation, market research). You pay one result per advertiser instead of per ad. Options: ads (Ads (one row per ad, with text, video and countries)), advertisers (Advertiser summary (one row per brand/domain: runs ads? how many? on which platforms?)); default "ads".
• domains (Domains) — Get all ads that link to these domains, from any advertiser (e.g. nike.com).
• advertiserIds (Advertiser IDs or URLs) — AR… IDs, or any adstransparency.google.com URL (advertiser, creative or ?domain= search page).
• region (Region) — Two-letter country code where ads were shown (US, GB, DE, KR…), or 'anywhere'. Default "anywhere".
• platforms (Platforms) — Only ads shown on these Google platforms. Leave empty for all. Each ad gets a 'platform' field when filtered. Google tracks platforms for ads shown since Sept 2023. Any of: SEARCH, YOUTUBE, SHOPPING, MAPS, PLAY.
• format (Ad format) — Filter by creative format. Options: all (All formats), text, image, video; default "all".
• dateFrom (Shown from) — Only ads shown on or after this date.
• dateTo (Shown until) — Only ads shown on or before this date.
• advertisersPerSearchTerm (Advertisers per search term) — Up to this many advertiser accounts named like each search term (largest first). Tiny look-alike accounts (under 1% of the biggest one's ads) are skipped. Default 3.
• includeAdContent (Extract ad text & video) — Read each ad preview to extract headline and ad copy, call to action, image URL and YouTube video ID. Same price. Default true.
• ocrImageAds (Read text inside image ads (OCR)) — Image ads carry their copy inside the picture. Turn this on to read it with OCR into the imageText field (English). Adds about a second per image ad. Default false.
• saveAssets (Save ad images) — Download each ad's image into this run's storage and return a permanent link in assetUrl, so creatives stay available after Google rotates them. Default false.
• includeDetails (Include regions) — Adds the countries where each ad was shown (with last shown date) and number of variations. Default true.
• maxAdsPerAdvertiser (Max ads per advertiser / domain) — Most recently shown ads first. Default 100.
• onlyNewAds (Only ads that are new) — Monitoring mode. Remembers which ads you already pulled and returns only ads that appeared since the last run. Put it on a daily schedule to watch a competitor's new campaigns — you pay only for new ads. Default false.
• maxResults (Max results) — Stop after this many ads. You are charged per ad. Default 1000.
• proxy (Proxy) — Apify datacenter proxy works for the Ads Transparency Center.

Output: one ad

{
  "advertiserId": "AR10072600183532683265",
  "advertiserName": "Hubspot, Inc.",
  "creativeId": "CR07622365527788224513",
  "format": "VIDEO",
  "platforms": ["youtube"],
  "isActive": true,
  "firstShown": "2025-07-16T04:59:19.000Z",
  "lastShown": "2026-10-09T11:24:35.000Z",
  "daysShown": 451,
  "domain": "hubspot.com",
  "headline": null,
  "youtubeVideoId": "vrqbgVbc0N8",
  "youtubeUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrqbgVbc0N8",
  "imageUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vrqbgVbc0N8/hqdefault.jpg",
  "regions": [
    { "region": "US", "lastShownDate": "2026-10-01" },
    { "region": "CA", "lastShownDate": "2026-09-01" }
  ],
  "regionCount": 2,
  "variationsCount": 1,
  "adUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR10072600183532683265/creative/CR0603...",
  "advertiserUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR10072600183532683265",
  "advertiserTotalAdsMin": 1000,
  "advertiserTotalAdsMax": 2000
}

Output: advertiser summary

{
  "searchTarget": "hubspot.com",
  "advertiserName": "Hubspot, Inc.",
  "domain": "hubspot.com",
  "region": "US",
  "runsGoogleAds": true,
  "isActive": true,
  "adCountMin": 1000,
  "adCountMax": 2000,
  "adsByPlatform": { "search": 900, "youtube": 700, "shopping": 99, "maps": 64, "play": 0 },
  "platforms": ["search", "youtube", "shopping", "maps"],
  "latestAdLastShown": "2026-10-09T11:24:35.000Z",
  "latestAdUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR1007.../creative/CR0603...",
  "transparencyUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/?domain=hubspot.com&region=US"
}

Ad counts are the ranges Google shows (e.g. "1,000–2,000"); adsByPlatform uses the upper end. A domain with no ads returns runsGoogleAds: false, which is also useful for finding companies that do not advertise yet.

Read the text inside image ads (OCR)

Image ads carry their copy inside the picture. With ocrImageAds on, each image ad gets imageText: the lines read by OCR (English), with low-confidence fragments dropped. It adds about a second per image ad.

Keep the creatives

Google rotates and removes creatives. With saveAssets on, each ad image is saved in the run's storage and assetUrl is a permanent link to it.

What can you do with competitor ads data?

• Competitive intelligence: see every ad competitors run, where, since when, and with what message.
• Creative research: collect headlines, offers and YouTube creatives for inspiration and testing.
• Agencies & PPC teams: audit clients' and prospects' ad activity by country and format.
• Brand protection: find advertisers bidding on or linking to your domain.
• Market research & AI analysis: large ad copy datasets for trend and messaging analysis.

How much does it cost?

Pay per result: one ad in ads mode, one company in advertiser-summary mode. Ad content extraction, regions and platform counts are included at no extra cost, plus a negligible start fee per run.

How to monitor competitor ads for changes

Turn on onlyNewAds and the Actor remembers which ads it already returned. On the next run you get only ads that appeared since — the fastest way to see a competitor launch a campaign. Ads you already have are skipped before the slow detail lookup, so a daily check is cheap.

Limits you should know about

• Data comes from Google's public Ads Transparency Center. Google archives many older text ads as images, so those rows have imageUrl but no headline — turn on ocrImageAds to read their text.
• Platform data exists only for ads shown since September 2023.
• daysShown is Google's count of days the creative was served.
• If something breaks after a Google change, open an issue and it will be fixed quickly.

Pricing — what you pay per ad

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: no monthly rental, you pay for the results you get. Prices per 1,000 results by Apify plan:

Event	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold+
ad — One ad (with text, media and regions) saved to the dataset	$1.50	$1.35	$1.275	$1.20

There is also a small start fee of $0.00005 per GB of memory ($0.00005 per run at the default 1 GB). Platform compute is included in the price — you are not billed separately for run time. Set a maximum total charge on the run if you want a hard cap, and use the input limits to control how much is fetched. The current prices are always on the Pricing tab.

Tips

• Start with a small maxResults (say 20) to check the output, then raise it — you only pay per result.
• For ongoing tracking, schedule the Actor and turn on onlyNewAds so each run returns only what is new.
• Keep the default proxy setting — it is only used as a fallback when a direct request is blocked.
• Rows the Actor cannot read are logged and skipped, never charged — check the run log if a count looks low.

Automate & schedule

Run this Actor on autopilot and pull results into your own stack:

• Apify API — start runs, fetch datasets and manage schedules over REST.
• apify-client for JavaScript and apify-client for Python — official SDKs.
• Schedules — run it on a cron to keep your data fresh.
• Webhooks — trigger downstream actions the moment a run finishes.

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'MY_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('tindacloud/google-ads-transparency').call({
    "searchTerms": [
        "nike"
    ],
    "resultType": "ads",
    "region": "anywhere",
    "format": "all",
    "advertisersPerSearchTerm": 3,
    "includeAdContent": true,
    "includeDetails": true,
    "maxAdsPerAdvertiser": 100,
    "maxResults": 1000
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Got ${items.length} records`);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("MY_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("tindacloud/google-ads-transparency").call(run_input={
    "searchTerms": [
        "nike"
    ],
    "resultType": "ads",
    "region": "anywhere",
    "format": "all",
    "advertisersPerSearchTerm": 3,
    "includeAdContent": True,
    "includeDetails": True,
    "maxAdsPerAdvertiser": 100,
    "maxResults": 1000
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

cURL — run and get the results in one request:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/tindacloud~google-ads-transparency/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=MY_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"searchTerms": ["nike"], "resultType": "ads", "region": "anywhere", "format": "all", "advertisersPerSearchTerm": 3, "includeAdContent": true, "includeDetails": true, "maxAdsPerAdvertiser": 100, "maxResults": 1000}'

Integrate with any app

Connect the dataset to thousands of apps — no code required:

• Make — multi-step automation scenarios.
• Zapier — push new records straight into your CRM or sheet.
• n8n — self-hosted workflows.
• Slack — get notified when a run finishes or finds something new.
• Google Drive / Sheets — auto-export every run to a spreadsheet.
• Airbyte — pipe results into your data warehouse.
• GitHub — trigger runs from commits or releases.
• Webhooks — call your own endpoint when a run succeeds or fails.

Use with AI assistants (MCP)

The output is clean, LLM-ready JSON. Call this Actor from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any agent framework through the Apify MCP server — ask your assistant to "find every YouTube video ad Nike is running in the US and how long each has been live" and let it run this Actor for you.

Agent-ready: autonomous payments (x402 & Skyfire)

This Actor is agent-ready — AI agents can discover it, run it and pay for it on their own. It uses pay-per-event pricing and limited permissions, so it qualifies for Apify's agentic payments:

• x402 — an open, HTTP-native payment protocol. Agents pay in USDC through the Apify MCP server — no Apify account needed.
• Skyfire — agent-to-service payments with pre-funded Skyfire tokens.

Building an AI agent, MCP tool or data pipeline? This Actor is ready to plug in and pay as it goes.

Ready-made examples

Open one, change the fields, press Start — nothing to configure:

• Google Ads competitor research
• Get alerted when a competitor launches new ads

Frequently asked questions about scraping competitor ads

Do I need an API key or a login?

No. Paste your input, press Start. There is nothing to connect and no account on the target site to create.

How do I export the results?

Every run produces a dataset you can download as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML, or read through the Apify API from your own code. You can also connect it to Make, Zapier or n8n.

Can I run this on a schedule?

Yes. Apify schedules run it every hour, day or week without you being there. With the monitoring option on, you only get ads that appeared since the last run.

Can I call it from Python or JavaScript?

Yes — the Apify API runs any Actor and returns the dataset, and the official Python and JavaScript clients wrap it in a few lines. AI agents can call it too, through Apify's MCP server.

What does it cost?

You pay per result, not per hour. Filters are applied before anything is charged, so narrowing the input directly lowers the bill. Pages that cannot be read are reported in the log and never charged.

Is this data public?

Everything collected here is what the Google Ads Transparency Center shows to anyone without logging in. Check the target site's terms and the rules that apply to you before using the data commercially.

Related scrapers

Other scrapers from the same maker, built the same way — no browser where it isn't needed, one flat price per result:

• Website to Markdown for AI & RAG
• Website Contact & Email Scraper

Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Google LLC. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. "Google Ads Transparency Center" is named here only in a descriptive sense — to identify the publicly available website this Actor reads. It collects only publicly available information that anyone can see without logging in; you are responsible for making sure your use of the data complies with applicable laws, regulations and the terms of the source website.