Google Ads Competitor Snapshot to Google Sheets (n8n + Apify)

Track Google Ads Transparency competitor ads in Google Sheets—automatically

This n8n workflow runs daily (or on-demand) to snapshot a competitor’s Google Ads Transparency results via Apify and automatically upsert the observed ads into a Google Sheets “Ads” tab—so you can maintain a growing log of what competitor domains are showing over time.

What this workflow does

• Schedules or manual execution: Runs at 09:00 UTC daily (or you can trigger it manually).
• Validates your configuration: Ensures the setup uses a single lowercase domain, the “ads” snapshot mode, and a configured maximum charge cap before continuing.
• Reads prior data: Loads existing ad records from the Google Sheets “Ads” tab to preserve previously saved keys and delivery status.
• Runs the Apify scraper: Starts datasmithlab/google-ads-transparency-scraper, polls Apify until the run succeeds or fails, and retrieves HEALTH, TARGETS, and the ads dataset.
• Validates result completeness: Stops the run if the output appears incomplete or unreliable.
• Builds a scope-specific key + upserts: Creates a scope-specific key for each ad, merges the latest snapshot with saved rows (keeping older rows even if ads disappear), and writes updates back to the Ads tab.

Use cases

• SaaS operators monitoring a competitor domain’s Google Ads Transparency ad set over time.
• Automation engineers maintaining a reliable pipeline from Apify to Google Sheets with run validation and “upsert” behavior.
• Market research teams building a historical archive of observed ads per competitor.

Technical details

• Integrations: n8n + Google Sheets (OAuth) + Apify Actor datasmithlab/google-ads-transparency-scraper
• Workflow nodes: if, set, code, wait, http request, and sticky note
• Output: A Google Sheets “Ads” tab with upserted ad rows and a run summary (counts and coverage notes).