# Google Ads Transparency Scraper - Advertiser Ad Archive (`themineworks/google-ads-transparency`) Actor

Search Google's Ads Transparency Center by domain. Get every ad a company runs: creative assets, first and last shown dates, and country-level targeting, no login or API key.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/themineworks/google-ads-transparency.md
- **Developed by:** [The Mine Works](https://apify.com/themineworks) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, MCP servers
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.36 / 1,000 ads

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Google Ads Transparency Scraper

🏆 Part of The Mine Works' 149-actor portfolio · 40,000+ runs · 200,000+ results delivered across our full distribution stack · 99.9%+ success rate

💰 From $0.36 / 1,000 results.

> ⚡ No login, no API key. It reads the same public Ads Transparency Center
> archive any visitor can search.
>
> 💸 Charged only for an ad actually delivered.

Look up any advertiser's Google Ads Transparency Center archive by website domain: every ad Google has served for that domain, first/last shown dates, the creative (image or interactive ad URL), and the advertiser's registered name. No login, no API key, no browser.

### Why this exists

Google's own Ads API only returns ads for accounts you control. There is no official way to see a competitor's Google Ads. The Ads Transparency Center (adstransparency.google.com) is Google's own public archive of every ad it serves, searchable by advertiser or domain, and this actor reads that archive directly.

### Input

- **domains** (required): website domains to look up, e.g. `["nike.com", "adidas.com"]`. No `https://` or path.
- **region**: country to scope the archive to (US, GB, CA, AU, IN, DE, FR). Default US. The same domain can return different ads in different regions.
- **maxAdsPerDomain**: up to 100. Google's own Ads Transparency Center caps a single search response at 100 ads regardless of how high this is set; a domain with more archived ads than that returns its 100 most recent. This is a limit of Google's service, not this actor.

### Output

One row per ad: `domain`, `advertiser_id`, `advertiser_name`, `creative_id`, `format` (`image` or `interactive`), `creative_url`, `first_shown`, `last_shown`.

### What this does NOT cover (yet)

- **Search by advertiser name is not supported**, only by website domain. Google's name-autocomplete endpoint is more aggressively rate-limited than the ads-lookup endpoint itself and was not chased into v1; domain search covers the common competitive-intelligence use case (you usually know a competitor's website).
- **More than 100 ads per domain per run.** The underlying service supports deeper pagination via a cursor token, but the exact request field that consumes it was not confirmed before shipping. An honest 100-ad cap beats a guessed field that silently returns wrong data. Re-run with a narrower region or re-check later for new ads instead.

### Pricing

| Event | Price (Free plan) | You pay when |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Ad | $0.0006 | An ad record is delivered from the archive |

Tiered by your Apify plan: Free $0.0006, Bronze $0.00054, Silver $0.00048, Gold
and above $0.00036. Your plan is shown on your Apify billing page.

Pay per delivered ad. You are never charged for a domain that returns zero ads
or hits a transient rate limit. From 14 September 2026 a one-time actor start
fee of $0.005 per GB of memory also applies to each run.

### Run it on a schedule

Useful as a standing watch on a competitor's live ad creative:

1. Run it once with the input you want repeated, then click **Save as a task**
   so that exact input is attached to every future run.
2. In the Apify Console go to **Schedules** and create a new one, either a
   preset (hourly / daily / weekly) or a cron expression.
3. Save. It then runs unattended, billed the same pay-per-result way. Nothing
   is charged for the schedule existing.

### Use from Claude, ChatGPT & any MCP agent

Hosted MCP endpoint, no install, OAuth on first connect:

```
https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=themineworks/google-ads-transparency
```

Claude Desktop / Cursor config (token auth):

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google-ads-transparency": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=themineworks/google-ads-transparency",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}
```

Ask your agent: *"What ads is nike.com currently running, and since when?"*

### FAQ

**Do I need a Google Ads account or API key?**
No. This reads Google's public Ads Transparency Center, the same archive anyone
can search at adstransparency.google.com.

**Am I charged if a domain has no ads running?**
No ad records means no ad charges fire for that domain.

**Can I see ads targeted at a specific country?**
Yes. The `region` input scopes the archive to one country, and the same domain
often returns different ads in different regions.

### Part of the competitive intelligence suite

Put a domain's ad spend next to the rest of its growth picture: its
[Semrush authority score and backlink profile](https://apify.com/themineworks/semrush-scraper),
its [Similarweb traffic](https://apify.com/themineworks/similarweb-scraper), and
your own [guest-post and resource-link prospects](https://apify.com/themineworks/backlink-building-agent).

Keywords: Google Ads Transparency scraper, competitor ad research, ad library
scraper by domain, Google ad creative archive, advertiser ad history checker,
country-targeted ad research, ads transparency center API, no login ad
monitoring

# Actor input Schema

## `domains` (type: `array`):

Website domains to look up, e.g. \["nike.com", "adidas.com"]. Returns every ad Google's Ads Transparency Center has archived for advertisers pointing to that domain. Do not include https:// or a path.

## `region` (type: `string`):

Country to scope the ad archive to. Google's Ads Transparency Center indexes ads per-region; the same domain can return different ads in different regions.

## `maxAdsPerDomain` (type: `integer`):

Cap per domain. The Ads Transparency Center itself caps a single search response at 100 ads regardless of how high you set this; a domain with more archived ads than that will return its 100 most recent. This is a limit of Google's own service, not this actor.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "domains": [
    "nike.com"
  ],
  "region": "US",
  "maxAdsPerDomain": 40
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "domains": [
        "nike.com"
    ],
    "maxAdsPerDomain": 40
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("themineworks/google-ads-transparency").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "domains": ["nike.com"],
    "maxAdsPerDomain": 40,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("themineworks/google-ads-transparency").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "domains": [
    "nike.com"
  ],
  "maxAdsPerDomain": 40
}' |
apify call themineworks/google-ads-transparency --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,themineworks/google-ads-transparency"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/iX5TJ31gMvkx8I8i7/builds/pvWjxGxzbVeZATkap/openapi.json