See every Google ad a competitor runs, from just their domain (cURL, Python, n8n)

Description and use

An Apify actor automatically fetches competitor ad data from Google Transparency Center using domain lists, returning JSON for monitoring and alerts.

Problem

Media buyers, agencies and B2B sales teams need to know which ads competitors run on Google, but manually searching the Transparency Center is impractical for many domains.

Outcome

The scraper delivers ad records in seconds without browsers or proxies, supports daily/weekly monitoring, and reveals all advertisers linked to a domain, aiding competitive intelligence and brand protection.

Workflow

• 1. Provide a list of domains to the Apify actor via cURL, Python, or n8n HTTP request.
• 2. Actor queries the Transparency Center API backend, returning ads or a summary per domain.
• 3. For monitoring, set "only_new_ads": true to receive only unseen ads.
• 4. In n8n, schedule a weekly trigger, send the request, filter for non‑empty ad_id, and post results to Slack or email.

Evidence

Google's Ads Transparency Center lists the ads that advertisers run on Google Search, YouTube, Shopping, Play and Maps, with the dates each ad was first and last shown.

Source

The Google Ads Transparency Scraper runs on Apify: Domains in, ads out. No advertiser IDs, no copy-pasting Google URLs.

Source

"Only new ads" monitoring: schedule it daily or weekly with only_new_ads: true, and each run returns only ads you have not seen before.

Source

When I looked up adidas.com, the advertisers included "Adidas America, Inc", the media agency "MediaCom L.L.C" and an individual advertiser name I did not recognize.

Source