Google Ads Scraper

Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getcore.me/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Goal: Pull competitor ad creatives, formats, and targeting data from Google’s Ads Transparency Center for any company, domain, or advertiser ID. Trigger: Run on demand when the user asks to research competitor Google ads, view ad creatives for a company, or analyze messaging from a domain.

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Step 1: Gather Search Parameters

Ask the user for the following in a single prompt:

• Target: Company name, domain (e.g. nike.com), or Google Ads advertiser ID (format: AR + 20 digits)
• Region: e.g. US, GB, DE, or “anywhere” (default: anywhere)
• Max ads: Maximum number of ads to return (default: 50)

“Which company, domain, or advertiser ID do you want to scrape Google ads for? Any region or result limit?”

If $ARGUMENTS are provided, extract the target from there and skip the prompt.

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Step 2: Resolve Advertiser ID

If the user provided a direct advertiser ID → skip to Step 3. Otherwise, use the Apify apify/web-scraper actor via MCP to search Google Ads Transparency Center and extract the advertiser ID:

• Domain search (more reliable): https://adstransparency.google.com/?domain=[domain]
• Name search: https://adstransparency.google.com/?text=[company]

Extract the advertiser ID from the results (format: AR followed by 20 digits). If auto-resolution fails → ask the user to visit https://adstransparency.google.com, search manually, click the advertiser, and copy the ID from the URL. If multiple advertisers match → list all matches and ask the user to confirm which one to use.

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Step 3: Scrape Ads

Run the Apify xtech/google-ad-transparency-scraper actor via MCP with:

• advertiserIds: the resolved advertiser ID(s), comma-separated if multiple
• region: from user input (default: anywhere)
• maxResults: from user input (default: 50)

Poll until the run completes, then fetch the dataset. If the MCP connection fails → instruct the user to run /mcp to reconnect, then retry.

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Step 4: Present Results

Sort results by last_shown descending (most recent first). Group by ad_format. Present a summary table followed by any image or video creative URLs: After the table include:

• Total ads scraped
• Date range (earliest first_shown to most recent last_shown)
• Ad format breakdown (TEXT, IMAGE, VIDEO count)
• Any image or video URLs listed separately

Offer to filter by format, region, or date range if the result set is large.

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Output Format

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Google Ads Report — [Company / Domain] Scraped: [N] ads | Region: [region] | Period: [first_shown] to [last_shown] Format Breakdown

• TEXT: [N] ads
• IMAGE: [N] ads
• VIDEO: [N] ads

Ad Creatives Media Creatives

• [format] — [headline] — [image_url or video_url]

---

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Edge Cases

• Advertiser ID not found: Ask the user to manually visit https://adstransparency.google.com, search for the company, and copy the ID from the URL.
• No ads returned: Note that the advertiser may not run Google ads or may not be a verified advertiser. Suggest trying a different region or confirming the company name.
• Multiple advertisers match: List all matches and ask the user to confirm which advertiser to scrape.
• MCP not connected: Prompt the user to run /mcp and reconnect Apify before retrying.
• Run times out: Reduce the max ads count and retry. For large advertiser accounts, scraping all ads can take several minutes.
• Historical data only: Note that Google’s Transparency Center primarily shows recently active ads — older campaigns may not appear.