Competitor Google ads as JSON: what the official datasets cover, and what PlainRows offers
You want a competitor's Google ads (text, image and video, with first and last shown dates) in a script, a spreadsheet, n8n or an AI agent, not by scrolling the Transparency Center website. Here is what Google offers for programmatic access, and what PlainRows offers.
What Google offers
From Google's Ads Transparency Center datasets README on 2026-10-08:
- Two datasets,
creative_statsandremoved_creative_stats, free to download, and also queryable as the BigQuery public datasetbigquery-public-data.google_ads_transparency_center. creative_statscovers ads served in the European Economic Area and Turkey;removed_creative_statscovers the European Economic Area.- Fields include advertiser ID and names, creative ID and page URL, ad format, and per-region first shown, last shown and impression ranges.
- Both datasets fall under the Google Terms of Service and the Google Ads Transparency Center Additional Terms.
So for ads shown in the EEA or Turkey, and if you are at ease with SQL and Google Cloud, the BigQuery dataset is the official route (queries are billed under BigQuery pricing). Ads shown in the United States, the United Kingdom or anywhere else are not in it: the website at adstransparency.google.com shows them, the datasets do not.
What PlainRows offers
The Google Ads Transparency Scraper API: enter domains (nike.com), advertiser names or advertiser IDs,
pick a country (or all regions), a platform, a format and dates, and get one row per ad: advertiser, creative ID, format, preview image,
first shown, last shown, days running and the Transparency Center link, as JSON, CSV or Excel, or straight into n8n, Make, Zapier or Google Sheets.
With Only new ads turned on, a scheduled run returns only ads it has never delivered to you.
| Data | Tool | Price (Starter plan) |
|---|---|---|
| Google ads of any advertiser, in any country the Transparency Center covers, up to 120 ads per advertiser per run. | Google Ads Transparency Scraper API | $0.0008 per ad, plus $0.003 per advertiser searched |
Example: 1,000 ads costs about $0.8, plus $0.003 for each advertiser searched. The tool runs on Apify: the free plan is enough to test it, the Starter plan ($19 per month with $19 of usage included, apify.com/pricing) removes the free-plan limits.
Ready-made workflow: new Google ads of a competitor to Slack (n8n).
When the BigQuery dataset is the better choice
- You study ads shown in the EEA or Turkey across many advertisers at once (a whole market, not a list of competitors): SQL over the full dataset beats one search per advertiser.
- You need impression ranges per region or targeting information: the dataset has fields this tool does not return.
Competitor facts checked on 2026-10-08 from the linked pages; prices change, check them before you decide.