Google Ads Competitor Analysis System: Spying with API

Want to see what your competitors are up to with their Google Ads? Let's explore how SerpApi can help you discover their strategies and make better campaign decisions.

We'll see how to grab this data manually and automatically.

Sponsored section in Google SERP

First, we can find ads from a Google search

• Search on Google by particular keyword
• Take notes of the image, title, and description of the ads
  
  One way to discover your competitor's strategy is to search on Google for particular keywords. You can use a "hot" keyword that people would search for that is relevant to your niche and see who your competitors are in the sponsored section.

Sponsored results are not just at the top of search results but also at the bottom of your search.

Learn what your competitors use for their image, title and snippet for the ads.

Find ads programmatically

You can do this automatically using SerpApi. We provide Google Ad Results API. Here is an example in Python:

Google Ads Transparency Center

The Google Ads Transparency Center is a feature launched by Google to provide more transparency and information about advertising on its platforms. What's interesting about this page is that we can see ads from any advertiser.

Scrape ads transparency center programmatically

You can do this automatically using SerpApi. We provide a Google Ads Transparency Center API.

Here is an example of how to scrape the ads transparency center in Python:

Google Shopping Ads

Google also allows businesses to advertise their products across channels, including the Google Shopping page.

You can use our Google Shopping API to get the ads from Google Shopping programmatically. It'll be available on the inline_shopping_results response.

Google Maps Ads

Ads are also available in Google Maps search:

Using our Google Maps API, you can scrape whenever ads are available.

The ads will be available in a nice structured JSON format like this

"ads":
[
{
"position":
1,
"title":
"First Service Roofing & Construction",
"place_id":
"ChIJ40kZESxC24gRD_zZEQ7Qu3k",
"data_id":
"0x88db422c111949e3:0x79bbd00e11d9fc0f",
"data_cid":
"8771833458081790991",
"reviews_link":
"https://serpapi.com/search.json?data_id=0x88db422c111949e3%3A0x79bbd00e11d9fc0f&engine=google_maps_reviews&hl=en",
"photos_link":
"https://serpapi.com/search.json?data_id=0x88db422c111949e3%3A0x79bbd00e11d9fc0f&engine=google_maps_photos&hl=en",
"gps_coordinates":
{
"latitude":
26.6720556,
"longitude":
-81.89239909999999
},
"place_id_search":
"https://serpapi.com/search.json?engine=google_maps&google_domain=google.com&hl=en&place_id=ChIJ40kZESxC24gRD_zZEQ7Qu3k",
"provider_id":
"/g/1tdh4p5w",
"rating":
4.7,
"reviews":
211,
"type":
"Roofing contractor",
"types":
[
"Roofing contractor",
"Painter"
],
"type_id":
"roofing_contractor",
"type_ids":
[
"roofing_contractor",
"painter"
],
"address":
"1364 Touchstone Rd, Fort Myers, FL 33903",
"open_state":
"Closed ⋅ Opens 7 AM Wed",
"hours":
"Closed ⋅ Opens 7 AM Wed",
"operating_hours":
{
"tuesday":
"7 AM–5 PM",
"wednesday":
"7 AM–5 PM",
"thursday":
"7 AM–5 PM",
"friday":
"7 AM–5 PM",
"saturday":
"7 AM–5 PM",
"sunday":
"7 AM–5 PM",
"monday":
"7 AM–5 PM"
},
"phone":
"(239) 652-5784",
"website":
"https://www.myfirstservice.net/",
"thumbnail":
"https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipMImLlWFkLosfOtCjKzQCZLQBSAFUM3zyfSRAxM=k-no-"
},

Here is a tutorial on how to scrape Google Maps Data using Python:

That's it! I hope this can help you automate your ads strategy by learning what other competitors do.