Google Ads Transparency Center: How to Scrape Competitor Search Ads

If a competitor is running a Google Search Ad, they are paying for every click.

That means the ad copy must be working. They wouldn't keep paying for it if it wasn't converting.

This makes the Google Ads Transparency Center a goldmine. It shows you every ad a company is running.

In this guide, we'll build a Google Ads Scraper using SociaVault. We'll extract the headlines, descriptions, and landing pages of your top competitors.

The Strategy

We will write a script that:

1. Finds the advertiser profile for a domain (e.g., monday.com).
2. Scrapes all active text ads.
3. Saves the ad copy to a JSON file.

Prerequisites

You'll need a SociaVault API key. You can get one here.

Step 1: Find the Advertiser

First, we need to find the official advertiser ID for the domain.

const axios = require('axios');

const API_KEY = 'YOUR_SOCIAVAULT_API_KEY';
const BASE_URL = 'https://api.sociavault.com/v1';

async function findAdvertiser(domain) {
  console.log(`🔍 Searching for advertiser: ${domain}...`);

  try {
    const response = await axios.get(`${BASE_URL}/scrape/google-ad-library/search-advertisers`, {
      params: { query: domain },
      headers: { 'x-api-key': API_KEY }
    });

    if (response.data.success) {
      const advertiser = response.data.data[0];
      console.log(`✅ Found: ${advertiser.name} (ID: ${advertiser.id})`);
      return advertiser.id;
    }
  } catch (error) {
    console.error("Error finding advertiser:", error.message);
  }
}

Step 2: Scrape the Ads

Now we can pull the ads. We'll filter for "Text Ads" (Search Ads) since those are usually the most copy-heavy.

async function scrapeGoogleAds(domain) {
  const advertiserId = await findAdvertiser(domain);
  
  if (!advertiserId) return;

  console.log(`📥 Fetching ads for ${domain}...`);

  const response = await axios.get(`${BASE_URL}/scrape/google-ad-library/company-ads`, {
    params: { 
      advertiser_id: advertiserId,
      region: 'US'
    },
    headers: { 'x-api-key': API_KEY }
  });

  if (response.data.success) {
    const ads = response.data.data;
    console.log(`✅ Found ${ads.length} active ads.`);
    
    ads.forEach((ad, i) => {
      console.log(`\n[Ad #${i+1}]`);
      console.log(`Headline: ${ad.headline}`);
      console.log(`Body: ${ad.body}`);
      console.log(`Link: ${ad.link}`);
    });
  }
}

// Run it
scrapeGoogleAds('monday.com');

Sample Output

🔍 Searching for advertiser: monday.com...
✅ Found: Monday.com Ltd. (ID: AR123456789)

📥 Fetching ads for monday.com...
✅ Found 45 active ads.

[Ad #1]
Headline: Monday.com Official Site | The Work OS for Teams
Body: Manage projects, tasks, and workflows in one place. Start your free trial today.
Link: https://monday.com/lang/en/

[Ad #2]
Headline: Better Than Trello? | Switch to Monday.com
Body: See why 100,000+ teams choose Monday.com over Trello. Visual project management.
Link: https://monday.com/compare/trello

Advanced: Landing Page Analysis

The ad is only half the battle. The Landing Page is where the conversion happens.

By extracting the link field from the ads, you can see exactly where they are sending traffic.

• Are they sending traffic to the homepage? (Brand awareness)
• Are they sending traffic to a "Vs Competitor" page? (High intent)
• Are they sending traffic to a webinar signup? (Lead gen)

Comparison: Google vs Facebook

We previously covered Facebook Ads.

• Facebook Ads are visual. You scrape them for creative inspiration (images/videos).
• Google Ads are textual. You scrape them for copywriting inspiration (headlines/hooks).

You need both to have a complete view of your competitor's strategy.

Get Started

Start building your swipe file today. Get your API key here.