Google Ads Transparency Scraper

Scrape every ad an advertiser runs on Google (Search, YouTube, Display, Shopping, Play, Maps) from the Google Ads Transparency Center, and get the actual ad copy, not just a screenshot link.

Give it a domain, an advertiser name, an advertiser ID or any Transparency Center URL. It returns structured ads with:

• ✍️ Decoded ad content: headline, long headline, body/description, call-to-action, landing page URL, display URL, logo and image URLs.
• ▶️ YouTube video ads: video ID, ready-to-open YouTube URL, video title, channel name and URL, duration and thumbnail.
• 📍 Maps / local ads: store name, Google rating, headline, description and CTA.
• 🛍️ Shopping ads: product title, merchant and product image.
• 📅 Run dates: first shown, last shown, total days shown. Long-running ads are usually the winners.
• 🌍 Per-country data (optional): first/last shown per country, impression ranges and the platforms the ad ran on. Google publishes impressions mainly for EU countries under the DSA.
• 🎯 Targeting (optional): whether demographics, locations, contextual signals or customer lists were used. Also the ad topic and the paying sponsor.
• 🔔 Monitoring: give a search a name and schedule it. Each run returns only ads you have not seen yet, so you pay only for new ones.

No login, no cookies, no browser. It talks to the same API the Transparency Center website uses, so it is fast and cheap. Pair it with the Facebook Ads Library Scraper to compare a competitor's ads on Google and Meta.

Use cases

• Competitor research: see every creative a competitor is running right now and which ones have run for months.
• Ad copy swipe files: export hundreds of headlines and CTAs from a niche into a spreadsheet.
• YouTube ad research: collect the video IDs of a brand's video ads and watch them all.
• Agency pitches & audits: show a prospect what their competitors run, by country and platform.
• Compliance & brand protection: find advertisers bidding on your brand or running ads on your domain.

Input

Field	Description
queries	One per line: nike.com, Booking.com, AR16735076323512287233 or https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR…/creative/CR…
region	Country where the ad was shown (default: anywhere)
platform	Search, YouTube, Play, Maps, Shopping or all
format	Text, Image, Video or all
dateFrom / dateTo	Only ads shown in this date range
monitorName	Name a search to get only new ads on each run (see Monitoring new ads)
maxAdsPerQuery	Limit per query (0 = everything)
maxAdvertisersPerQuery	For name queries: how many matching advertiser accounts to include
decodeContent	Extract headline, CTA, landing page, YouTube ID… (default on)
includeDetails	Per-country impressions, platforms, targeting, sponsor, all variations

{
  "queries": ["booking.com", "Nike"],
  "region": "DE",
  "platform": "YOUTUBE",
  "maxAdsPerQuery": 200,
  "decodeContent": true,
  "includeDetails": true
}

Output example

{
  "query": "booking.com",
  "advertiserId": "AR02934798844673654785",
  "advertiserName": "Booking.com",
  "creativeId": "CR01456002477508788225",
  "format": "VIDEO",
  "domain": "booking.com",
  "firstShown": "2026-10-06T09:10:49Z",
  "lastShown": "2026-10-15T17:10:06Z",
  "totalDaysShown": 10,
  "transparencyUrl": "https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR02934798844673654785/creative/CR01456002477508788225",
  "headline": "別荘やホテルなど豊富な選択肢から探そう",
  "longHeadline": "個性と好みに合う宿を、幅広い選択肢から選ぼう",
  "description": "料金表示は明確で、予約もラクラク！安心して旅を楽しもう",
  "callToAction": "今すぐ予約",
  "destinationUrl": "http://www.booking.com/index.html?aid=2259564",
  "visibleUrl": "booking.com",
  "youtubeVideoId": "2Nai5unnZ8w",
  "youtubeUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nai5unnZ8w",
  "youtubeChannelName": "Booking.com",
  "videoDuration": "0:20"
}

With includeDetails: true each ad also gets per-country data, targeting and the paying sponsor:

{
  "sponsor": "INITIATIVE MEDIA B.V.",
  "regions": [
    {"geoId": 2756, "countryCode": "CH", "countryName": "Switzerland", "lastShown": "2026-10-15",
     "impressionsMin": null, "impressionsMax": null, "platforms": []}
  ],
  "targeting": {"demographics": "INCLUDED", "geographicLocations": "EXCLUDED"},
  "variations": [{"previewUrl": "https://displayads-formats.googleusercontent.com/ads/preview/content.js?..."}]
}

Text (Search) ads are stored by Google only as images. For them you get previewImageUrl, a direct link to the archived ad image, instead of decoded text.

Monitoring new ads

Track competitors without paying twice for the same ads:

1. Fill in queries and filters as usual and set monitorName, for example competitors-de.
2. Save the input as a Task and add an Apify Schedule (daily or weekly).
3. The first run returns every matching ad. Each later run with the same monitorName returns only ads that earlier runs have not returned. Old ads are skipped and not charged.

Connect a webhook or the Slack / email integration to the Task to get new ads delivered. The list of seen ads is stored in the google-ads-monitor key-value store in your account. To start over, use a new monitorName or delete its record from that store.

Pricing

Pay per result:

• $1.50 per 1,000 ads (basic record: advertiser, format, dates, preview, links).
• + $1.00 per 1,000 ads when enrichment runs (decoded content and/or details).

Set a maximum cost per run in the Apify Console, and the scraper stops cleanly when it is reached.

Tips

• Big brands have tens of thousands of ads. Narrow with region, platform, format and dates, or set maxAdsPerQuery.
• In monitor mode maxAdsPerQuery counts all ads checked, new and old. Set it above the advertiser's total, or narrow with dateFrom and region, so new ads are not missed.
• An advertiser name often matches several legal entities (e.g. "Nike, Inc." and regional distributors). Raise maxAdvertisersPerQuery, or paste the exact advertiser URL.
• Google blocks datacenter IPs on the Transparency Center (HTTP 302 loops). Keep Apify Proxy with the Residential group, which is the default. Traffic is small, roughly 10 MB per 1,000 ads.

Integrations, API and MCP

REST API. Run the Actor and get the results in one call (replace YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN; it's in Console → Settings → API & Integrations):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/wakeful_outhouse~google-ads-transparency-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"queries": ["booking.com"], "maxAdsPerQuery": 50}'

Python (pip install apify-client):

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("wakeful_outhouse/google-ads-transparency-scraper").call(run_input={"queries": ["booking.com"], "maxAdsPerQuery": 50})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

AI agents (MCP). Give Claude, Cursor or any MCP client this Actor as a tool through the Apify MCP server:

• hosted: https://mcp.apify.com?tools=wakeful_outhouse/google-ads-transparency-scraper
• local: npx -y @apify/actors-mcp-server --actors wakeful_outhouse/google-ads-transparency-scraper (set APIFY_TOKEN)

No-code. Use the Apify integrations for Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, Slack and webhooks: for example, run the Actor on a Schedule and send each new competitor ad to a Slack channel or append the ad copy to a Google Sheet. All formats are available as JSON, CSV, Excel and HTML from the dataset.

More ad-intelligence tools

Same author, same data format, same pay-per-result pricing:

• Facebook Ads Library Scraper — ad text, headlines, CTAs, landing pages, images and videos from the Meta Ad Library (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads).
• Google Trends Scraper — interest over time, interest by region, related queries and today's trending searches by country, to see which keywords are rising.
• LinkedIn Ad Library Scraper — B2B ad copy, CTAs, landing pages, media, impressions by country and targeting from the LinkedIn Ad Library.

All tools: https://apify.com/wakeful_outhouse

FAQ

Is it legal? The Transparency Center is a public database Google publishes so anyone can inspect ads. The scraper collects only what the website shows publicly and no personal data. You are responsible for how you use the data.

Why are impressions empty? Google publishes impression ranges mainly for ads shown in the EU (Digital Services Act). Outside the EU you get dates and platforms per country.

Something broke? Open an issue on the Issues tab with the run link. Fixes usually ship within a day.