Apify + Google Sheets: FB Ad Hook & CTA Extractor via n8n

Extract FB Video Ad Hooks & CTAs into Google Sheets—using Apify + n8n

Run this n8n workflow on demand to scrape a competitor’s active Facebook video ads via Apify, transcribe them, extract the first-3-seconds hook and CTA, then append a clean one-row-per-ad teardown table to Google Sheets.

What this workflow does

• Starts when manually tested: you trigger the workflow to begin a fresh run.
• Reads your inputs: provides a competitor Facebook Ad Library search URL (or a Facebook Page URL) and a maximum number of ads to process (maxAds).
• Runs the Apify scraper: launches an Apify Facebook Ads Library scraping run for the competitor and polls Apify until completion.
• Fetches transcripts + ad metadata: sends the scraper run’s dataset ID to an Apify Facebook Ads Transcript Scraper to return transcript, hook, CTA, and metadata.
• Processes and ranks results: calculates transcript word/character counts, sorts ads (prioritizing transcribed and longer videos), and formats a single structured row per ad.
• Appends to Google Sheets: writes the teardown rows into the selected spreadsheet and sheet.

Setup requirements

• Create an Apify API token and add an HTTP Header Auth credential using Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>, selecting it for all Apify HTTP requests.
• Connect Google Sheets, then choose the target spreadsheet and sheet for the append step.
• Update the competitor URL and maxAds in the configuration step before running.

Use cases

• Rapid competitor creative teardown: collect hooks and CTAs from active FB video ads into a shared Google Sheet.
• SaaS growth ops research: compare messaging patterns across ads by extracting the first 3 seconds and calls to action.
• Automation engineers’ workflow benchmarking: demonstrate an end-to-end Apify → n8n → Google Sheets pipeline.

Technical details (n8n + integrations)

• n8n nodes: if, set, code, sticky note, HTTP Request, Google Sheets.
• Apify: Facebook Ads Library scraper + Facebook Ads Transcript Scraper, using dataset ID handoff and Apify polling.