Google Ads Transparency

An MCP server that lets AI assistants look up any advertiser's Google ads. Search by domain or company name, retrieve ad creatives, and decode text ad content — all from Google's Ads Transparency Center.

No API key. No paid service. No browser required.

Google has no official API for their Ads Transparency Center. The only open-source option was an abandoned Python package (last commit July 2023, broken domain search, crashed on image ads). Paid alternatives start at $75/mo. This project fixes the scraper and wraps it as an MCP server so any AI assistant can query Google's ad database directly.

Tools

Install

# With uvx (recommended)
uvx google-ads-transparency-mcp

# With pip
pip install google-ads-transparency-mcp

Configure

Claude Code

claude mcp add google-ads-transparency -- uvx google-ads-transparency-mcp

Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google-ads-transparency": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["google-ads-transparency-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor / VS Code

Add to your MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google-ads-transparency": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["google-ads-transparency-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Example Usage

Once connected, ask your AI assistant things like:

• "What ads is nike.com running?"
• "Search for crypto exchange advertisers on Google"
• "Get the last 5 ads from Coinbase"
• "Look up ad details for advertiser AR05099026886533578753"

Example: Domain Search

> search_advertiser_by_domain("nike.com")

{
  "advertiser_id": "AR14188379519798214657",
  "name": "Nike, Inc.",
  "ad_count": 1842
}

Example: Get Ads with Decoded Text Content

> get_ads("Coinbase", count=1)

[
  {
    "advertiser_id": "AR09076382774528",
    "creative_id": "CR10813648716908961793",
    "format": "text",
    "last_shown": "2025-01-15",
    "advertiser_name": "Coinbase",
    "content": {
      "preview_url": "https://ads-rendering-prod.corp.google.com/search?...",
      "headline": "Most Trusted Crypto Exchange",
      "description": "Buy, Sell & Trade Bitcoin, Ethereum & More...",
      "destination_url": "coinbase.com"
    }
  }
]

How It Works

This server reverse-engineers Google's internal RPC endpoints:

Text/search ads have their content encoded as base64 in iframe preview URLs. The server decodes these to extract headlines, descriptions, and destination URLs.

Use as a Python Library

from google_ads_transparency_mcp import GoogleAdsTransparency

client = GoogleAdsTransparency()

# Search by domain
advertiser = client.search_advertiser_by_domain("nike.com")
print(advertiser)  # {"advertiser_id": "...", "name": "Nike, Inc.", "ad_count": 1842}

# Get ads with decoded content
ads = client.get_ads("Coinbase", count=5)
for ad in ads:
    print(ad["format"], ad["content"])

# Region-specific search
client_uk = GoogleAdsTransparency(region="GB")

Supported Regions

Pass a two-letter country code to filter by region. Use "anywhere" (default) for global results. All 240+ regions from Google's Ads Transparency Center are supported.

Credits

Based on GoogleAdsTransparencyScraper by Farhan Ahmed. Forked and fixed by Sam Town — domain search, image ad parsing, text ad decoding, error handling, and MCP server.

License

MIT