Google Ads Transparency scraper: export a competitor’s ads with ad copy and regions

Google publishes the ads of every verified advertiser in its Ads Transparency Center (adstransparency.google.com). The site shows them as a grid of previews, one advertiser at a time, with no export, so tracking what a competitor runs means scrolling and screenshotting.

arcadium/google-ads-transparency takes brand names, landing domains or advertiser ids and returns one JSON row per ad: the verified advertiser name and country, format (text, image or video), first and last day shown, days shown, regions and the archived image of the ad. With details on, text ads come with headline, description, display URL and sitelinks where Google still renders them, video ads with their YouTube video, and EU/EEA ads with impression ranges per country and surface.

Cost of this example on the Apify Free plan: 40 × $0.0045 = $0.18 ($0.1352 on the Apify Gold plan and higher), plus $0.001 per GB of memory when the run starts.

What you need

• An Apify account and API token.
• The competitors to look at, as landing domains (hellofresh.com), brand names or advertiser ids (AR...).

Step 1: Run it in the Apify Store (no code)

1. Open arcadium/google-ads-transparency on the Apify Store and sign in (a free Apify account works).
2. Enter the competitor under Brands, domains or advertiser links. A landing domain such as hellofresh.com returns every advertiser whose ads point to it; a brand name uses the best-matching verified advertisers.
3. Add the countries under Regions (two-letter codes) and set Shown on or after to -90d for the last 90 days.
4. Turn on Ad details and decoded content for the ad text and set Max ads per advertiser or domain to 40.
5. Optional: set a maximum cost per run in the run options as a hard cap.
6. Click Start. Rows appear in the Output tab; export them as JSON, CSV or Excel.

The same input as JSON (paste it in the JSON tab of the input form):

{
  "searchTerms": [
    "hellofresh.com"
  ],
  "regions": [
    "US"
  ],
  "startDate": "-90d",
  "maxAdsPerAdvertiser": 40,
  "includeDetails": true
}

Step 2: Call it over the Apify API

One HTTP call runs the actor and returns its rows. It suits runs up to about five minutes; for longer runs start the run asynchronously and read the dataset when it finishes.

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/arcadium~google-ads-transparency/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"searchTerms":["hellofresh.com"],"regions":["US"],"startDate":"-90d","maxAdsPerAdvertiser":40,"includeDetails":true}'

Step 3: Run it from Python

With apify-client 3.x, call() returns a Run object: read the dataset id as run.default_dataset_id (older examples use run["defaultDatasetId"], which no longer works).

# pip install "apify-client>=3"
import os

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run = client.actor("arcadium/google-ads-transparency").call(run_input={
    "searchTerms": ["hellofresh.com"],
    "regions": ["US"],
    "startDate": "-90d",
    "maxAdsPerAdvertiser": 40,
    "includeDetails": True,
})
rows = list(client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items())  # apify-client 3.x

for ad in (r for r in rows if r.get("rowType") == "ad"):
    copy = ad.get("headline") or ad.get("youtubeUrl") or ad.get("imageUrl")
    print(ad["advertiserName"], ad["format"], ad["firstShown"], "->", ad["lastShown"],
          ad.get("daysShown"), "days |", copy)
for e in (r for r in rows if r.get("rowType") == "error"):
    print("could not read:", e.get("input"), e.get("code"), e.get("message"))

Step 4: Run it from JavaScript

// npm install apify-client
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('arcadium/google-ads-transparency').call({
  "searchTerms": [
    "hellofresh.com"
  ],
  "regions": [
    "US"
  ],
  "startDate": "-90d",
  "maxAdsPerAdvertiser": 40,
  "includeDetails": true
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Step 5: Ask an AI assistant (MCP)

Apify’s hosted MCP server turns the actor into one tool. Add it to Claude, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=arcadium/google-ads-transparency",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Then ask, for example:

Use arcadium/google-ads-transparency with details on to list the Google ads pointing to hellofresh.com that were shown in the US in the last 90 days. Summarise the headlines and offers of the text ads and list the YouTube videos the video ads use.

More clients and the local setup on the MCP page.

Only new and stopped ads, every day

Monitor mode remembers what it saw. The first run records a baseline; each later run returns one summary row per advertiser and one ad-change row per ad that started, came back or stopped (changeType new, resumed or stopped). Save it as a Task with a daily Schedule. Each change row is charged as an Ad, each advertiser summary as Advertiser checked.

{
  "mode": "monitor",
  "searchTerms": [
    "hellofresh.com",
    "factor75.com"
  ],
  "regions": [
    "US"
  ],
  "monitorName": "meal-kits-us"
}

Find the advertiser first

Big brands verify one advertiser per country entity. Run "mode": "advertisers" with the brand name to list the matching verified advertisers with their advertiserId, country and approximate number of ads, then pass the ids you want in advertiserIds.

Output fields

Every row has a rowType; filter on it first. Failed inputs come back as free rows with a code and message. The fields this tutorial uses, from the actor’s dataset schema:

All fields: Google Ads Transparency Scraper guide.

Cost per run

Pay per event: you pay for the rows delivered, at the actor’s live Apify price on 2026-11-03. Error, coverage and summary rows are free.

Cost of this example on the Apify Free plan: 40 × $0.0045 = $0.18 ($0.1352 on the Apify Gold plan and higher), plus $0.001 per GB of memory when the run starts. Higher Apify plans pay less per row. The Store page always has the current price.

Limitations

• The cost example assumes the domain has at least 40 ads in the period; fewer ads cost less. Without details each ad is charged as Ad instead of Ad with details.
• Only what the Transparency Center shows anonymously. Google keeps ads for about a year after they were last shown (political ads longer).
• Google archives most text ads as an image of the ad; for those headline stays empty and imageUrl holds the ad. Text ads that Google still renders (and Shopping ads) are decoded.
• Impression ranges exist only for EU/EEA regions and political ads; ad counts are Google's approximations ("~9,000").
• Region filters with a brand name pick the advertisers first: when a brand runs local entities, raise maxAdvertisersPerTerm or use the local advertiser id.
• The actor reads Google over Apify's shared datacenter proxy. When Google rate-limits that pool, the run retries with short pauses and, if the limit persists, stops and reports the remaining inputs as free blocked error rows instead of burning time. Run again later.

Links

• Google Ads Transparency Scraper: fields, price table and sample output
• How to use Google Ads Transparency Scraper: every input field, n8n, LangChain
• arcadium/google-ads-transparency on the Apify Store
• All tutorials