Google Ads Transparency Scraper: Competitor Ads

📣 Google Ads Transparency Scraper: Competitor Ads

Who it's for: PPC marketers, agencies and founders who want to see the Google ads their competitors are running.

What you get: Every ad creative for a domain, advertiser ID or company name from the Google Ads Transparency Center: format, preview image, first and last shown dates, days running, plus a new-ads monitor.

Price: $1 per 1,000 ads ($0.001 per ad) and $3 per 1,000 advertiser accounts found by a name search. Set a maximum cost per run and it never charges more.

The default maximum charge per run is $2.00, about 10–20 typical runs. Raise it in the run options if you need a larger job.

See every Google ad a competitor is running: Search, YouTube, Shopping, Maps and Play. Data comes from Google's public Ads Transparency Center. Enter a domain, an advertiser ID or a company name and get a clean list of ad creatives, with format, preview image, and first-shown and last-shown dates.

• 🔎 Three ways in: a domain (nike.com), an advertiser ID (AR16735076323512287233) or a name search (hubspot) that finds the advertiser accounts for you
• 🖼️ Creative details: creative ID, format (text, image or video), preview image or video preview link, the advertiser's verified status, and a direct link to the ad in the Transparency Center
• 📅 Run-time facts: first shown, last shown, days running and whether the ad is active right now
• 🌍 Any region: 210+ countries, or "anywhere"
• 🔔 Monitor mode: schedule it and get only ads you haven't seen before, so you can spot a competitor's new campaigns the day they launch
• 🛡️ Built not to break: no browser, no proxies, no login and no CAPTCHAs. The data comes from a licensed ads-data API, so runs don't fail when Google changes its page
• 💸 Pay only for ads you get: errors, "no ads" results and filtered-out ads are free

Quick start

{
  "targets": ["nike.com"],
  "region": "US"
}

Find a competitor by name and pull its ads:

{
  "advertiserSearch": ["hubspot"],
  "fetchAdsForFoundAdvertisers": true,
  "region": "US"
}

Watch for new creatives every day (put this on a schedule):

{
  "targets": ["competitor-one.com", "competitor-two.com"],
  "onlyNewAds": true,
  "lastShownWithinDays": 2
}

Sample output

A real excerpt from one of our own runs on Oct 27, 2026 (target hubspot.com, region US). Selected fields only; each row in your dataset has more.

advertiserName	verified	creativeId	format	firstShown	lastShown	daysRunning
Hubspot, Inc.	true	CR00389017023612452865	text	2025-07-30	2026-10-27	455
Hubspot, Inc.	true	CR12920594380489752577	text	2026-01-29	2026-10-27	272
Hubspot, Inc.	true	CR12879060852736524289	text	2025-03-11	2026-10-27	595
Hubspot, Inc.	true	CR13302330936319279105	text	2026-01-12	2026-10-27	289

A name search for mailchimp in the same run returned the advertiser account Mailchimp (AR17766143077581324289, verified: true, about 1,000 ads).

Output

One row per ad creative, most recently shown first:

Field	Example	Notes
query	nike.com	What you entered
advertiserName / advertiserId	Nike, Inc. / AR16735076323512287233
verified	true	Advertiser identity verified by Google
creativeId	CR04339633203531743233	Stable ID of the ad
format	text	text, image or video
previewImageUrl	https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/archive/simgad/…	Rendered ad image (text and image ads)
previewUrl	https://displayads-formats.googleusercontent.com/…	Interactive preview (video and HTML ads)
firstShown / lastShown	2023-11-16T22:47:25Z / 2026-10-27T01:45:50Z	UTC
daysRunning	1076	Long-running ads are usually the winners
isActive	true	Shown in the last 48 hours
isNew	true	Monitor mode only
adUrl	https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/…/creative/…	Open the ad in Google's Transparency Center
region, platform, rank, fetchedAt

A name search adds one row per advertiser account: advertiserName, advertiserId, accountGroup (for companies with several accounts), verified, location, adsCountApprox, advertiserUrl and relatedDomains.

Targets that can't be processed get a recordType: "error" row that explains why, and targets with no ads get a no_ads row. Neither is ever charged. The run summary in the OUTPUT record shows per-target totals, including Google's approximate total ad count (totalAdsApprox).

The dataset has two views, Ads and Advertisers. Export to CSV, Excel or JSON, or use the API, Make, n8n or Zapier.

Input options

Option	Default	What it does
targets		Domains, advertiser IDs (comma-separate up to 25 IDs of one company) or Transparency Center URLs
advertiserSearch		Company or brand names to look up
fetchAdsForFoundAdvertisers / maxAdvertisersPerSearch	false / 1	Also list the ads of the top matching advertiser(s)
region	US	ISO code, country name or anywhere
platform	all	google_search, youtube, google_shopping, google_maps, google_play
adFormat	all	text, image, video
maxAdsPerTarget	120	Up to 360 with format all (see limits)
lastShownWithinDays	0	Keep only recently shown ads. 1–2 means running now
dateFrom / dateTo		Only ads shown in this date range
onlyNewAds / monitorStoreName	false	Monitor mode. Remembers what you've already received in a named store in your account

Pricing (pay per event)

Event	Price	When
Ad	$1.00 / 1,000 ads	Each ad row you receive
Advertiser	$3.00 / 1,000	Each advertiser account from a name search
Monitor check	$0.008 / target	Monitor mode, each target checked after the first (baseline) run
New ad	$3.00 / 1,000	Monitor mode, each new creative found

Set Max cost per run in the run options. The Actor only fetches what fits in that limit and never charges more than it.

Run time and cost examples

Costs use the current list prices on the Apify Free plan, including Apify's $0.00005 start event. Run times are from our own test runs in October 2026 at the default memory; yours depend on the input.

Run	Run time (our tests)	Cost (Free plan)
Ads for one competitor domain (10 ads)	about 5 to 8 seconds	about $0.01
Find an advertiser by name and pull its ads (1 advertiser, 10 ads)	about 8 seconds	about $0.013
Monitor check of 1 competitor, no new ads	about 6 seconds	about $0.008
Daily monitor of 5 competitors, 3 new ads found	not measured yet	about $0.049
1,000 ad rows across many competitors	not measured yet	about $1.00

Price per ad: $0.001 on the Apify Free plan, $0.0009 on Starter (Bronze), $0.0008 on Scale (Silver), $0.0007 on Business (Gold) and above. The discount is applied automatically. Advertiser, monitor-check and new-ad events are the same on every plan.

Limits, honestly

• Google's Transparency Center returns at most 120 creatives per query, newest first. With format all, the Actor also queries text, image and video separately, which lifts the limit to 360 unique creatives per target. Very large advertisers (thousands of ads) are covered by their most recently shown ads. Narrow down with platform, adFormat or region to go deeper.
• Ad copy text and the regional impression ranges aren't included yet. For text and image ads, the preview image shows the rendered copy.
• A domain target returns every ad that points to that domain, including ads that partners, agencies or resellers run for it (the advertiserName column shows who paid). To see one company's own ads only, use its advertiser ID or a name search.
• adsCountApprox and totalAdsApprox are Google's rounded estimates.
• Old date ranges may return nothing: Google keeps fewer historical creatives.

Use it from an AI agent (Apify MCP)

Give Claude, Cursor, VS Code or any other MCP client this Actor as a tool through the Apify MCP server. Add this to your client's MCP config; you sign in to Apify with OAuth on first connect:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=steady-scrape/google-ads-transparency"
    }
  }
}

Clients without OAuth can send an Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN> header instead. Then ask, for example: "Show me the Google ads nike.com started running in the US in the last 30 days, with preview images." The agent starts a normal run, so the prices above and your maximum charge per run still apply.

FAQ

Do I need a Google account or API key? No.

Is this legal? The Ads Transparency Center is a public library that Google publishes so anyone can see who advertises and how. The output contains business advertisers and their ads only, with no personal data. You're responsible for how you use the data.

Why would a run return fewer ads than Google's total? See the 120-per-query limit above. totalAdsApprox in the summary tells you how many exist.

Something wrong? Open an issue on the Issues tab. SteadyScrape answers there.

How can I see what Google ads my competitors are running? Enter their domains in targets (or names in advertiserSearch) and a region. You get each ad's format, preview image and first and last shown dates from Google's Ads Transparency Center.

Can I get alerted when a competitor launches a new Google ad? Yes. Turn on onlyNewAds, schedule the Actor daily and connect Slack or email. Monitor mode charges $0.008 per target checked and $0.003 per new ad found.

Does it show ad spend or impressions? No. Google's Ads Transparency Center doesn't publish spend or impressions for most ads, so neither does this Actor.

How much does it cost to monitor competitor ads? Five competitors checked daily, with a few new ads a week, cost roughly $1.25 a month.

More from SteadyScrape

• Public Tenders Monitor: government tenders and contract opportunities from SAM.gov (US), CanadaBuys (Canada) and TED (EU) in one feed; scheduled runs return only new and amended notices.
• Review Intelligence: Google, Trustpilot, Tripadvisor Reviews: Google, Trustpilot and Tripadvisor reviews without reviewer names, plus rating trends and AI complaint themes to pair with a competitor's ads.
• Google Shopping Offer Monitor: Google Shopping prices and sellers by keyword or GTIN; monitor mode returns only new or changed offers.
• Website Traffic Checker (Similarweb alternative): organic and paid traffic estimates, ranked keywords, backlinks and spam score for a list of domains.
• Keyword Search Volume: Google search volume, CPC, competition and a 12-month trend for up to 10,000 keywords per run.
• AI Visibility & Share of Voice Tracker: see whether ChatGPT and Perplexity mention, rank and cite your brand versus your competitors.
• Backlink Checker API: New and Lost Link Monitor: who links to a competitor's site: backlinks, referring domains and anchors, plus a monitor for new and lost links.

See every SteadyScrape (steady-scrape) Actor on our Apify profile.

The Agency Lead Stack

Running lead gen for clients? These work as one workflow:

1. Find the businesses — Google Maps Leads pulls segmented local business lists (apify.com/steady-scrape/google-maps-business-segments)
2. See what they're running — Google Ads Transparency shows every Google ad a prospect or competitor is live with (apify.com/steady-scrape/google-ads-transparency)
3. Read their reviews — Review Intelligence pulls Google, Trustpilot and Tripadvisor reviews without reviewer names, plus rating trends and AI complaint themes (apify.com/steady-scrape/review-intelligence)
4. Keep watching — pair them with the monitors above so new tenders, offers and creatives land as they change.

Acceptable use

You may not use results from this service to build or operate a search engine, or any product or service that competes with or harms the business of search engine providers.

— SteadyScrape