How to Find Competitor Google Search & Display Ads in Minutes
The exact 5-minute workflow to pull every active Google Search and Display ad a competitor is running — what each ad reveals, and how to act on it.
Finding a competitor's active Google Search and Display ads used to mean spending six hours in SEMrush. Since the Google Ads Transparency Center launched in 2023, the same intel is now a 5-minute workflow. Here is the exact step-by-step we use across 200+ client audits at AdScrape.
Step 1 — Find the verified advertiser entity
Open adstransparency.google.com. Type the brand name. Pick the result with the Verified advertiser badge and a domain that matches the brand's website. A surprising number of brands run under a holding-company name; cross-check the legal entity in their privacy policy.
Step 2 — Filter by format
Use the format toggle to isolate Search text ads from Display image ads. They tell very different stories: Search ads reveal high-intent keyword strategy; Display ads reveal brand positioning and remarketing creative.
Step 3 — Read the Search ads like a strategist
Each Search ad shows the headlines, descriptions and the final URL. Group ads by landing page — every distinct URL is its own ad group. Now you have a competitor's campaign structure inferred from the outside.
| Signal | What it means |
|---|---|
| 3+ headlines testing price | They are price-sensitive in this segment |
| Headlines referencing competitors | Conquesting bid strategy active |
| URLs with /lp/ paths | Dedicated landing pages, mature funnel |
| URLs ending in UTM-heavy strings | They measure post-click attribution rigorously |
| No sitelinks visible | Either thin asset library or new account |
Step 4 — Decode Display creative
Display banners are visual but reveal positioning. Look at: (1) whether faces appear, (2) whether price is shown, (3) whether the CTA is direct ("Buy") or soft ("Learn more"), and (4) the dominant color. Brands shifting from soft CTAs to direct CTAs are moving budget down-funnel.
Step 5 — Export and triangulate
The Transparency Center has no export, so right-click and save every creative into a shared drive folder per competitor. Cross-reference with the brand's organic search footprint in your favorite SEO tool. Paid keywords that don't map to organic content reveal where they are buying intent they can't earn.
Automate the boring part
Doing this for 5 competitors quarterly is 25 hours. Doing it weekly with AdScrape is 0 hours — we ingest the Transparency Center daily and diff the changes so you get a Monday-morning email with new creatives only.
Put this into practice with AdScrape
Search every active Meta ad, compare brands side-by-side, and pull it all through a clean REST API. Free to start, no credit card required.
