Google Ads Transparency Center: how to see competitors' Google and YouTube ads

1. Set the country

The "Ads in…" selector next to the search box sets which country's ads you see. It defaults to your own. Set it to the market your competitor sells in — an advertiser can run different ads in each country.

2. Search by advertiser name, not just website

As you type, the dropdown splits into Advertisers (with where each is based and how many ads it has) and Websites. The difference matters. A website search includes every advertiser account whose ads point to that domain. When we searched liquiddeath.com, the ten results came from four different verified accounts — resellers and individuals as well as the brand's own ads. Choose the advertiser to see only the brand's account; choose the website to see everyone advertising it.

3. Filter

• Date — defaults to any time; narrow it to see what ran during a launch or a sale.
• Platform — Google Search, YouTube, Google Shopping, Google Maps or Google Play.
• Format — text, image or video.

4. Open an ad

Click any ad to open its details page, covered next.

• Advertiser — the verified account that ran it. Google notes that ad information can vary by location.
• Shown in — the country you're viewing.
• Last shown — the most recent date the ad ran. A recent date on an old-looking ad means it's still earning its budget.
• Format — text, image or video.
• Variations — "1 of 3 variations" means the advertiser is testing several versions. Click through them to see what they're changing: headline, offer, call to action.
• Report this ad — to flag a policy violation.

For text ads you see the full ad as served, including headlines, descriptions and sitelinks — the cleanest view you'll get of a competitor's search messaging.

There is no separate YouTube ad library — YouTube ads live in the Transparency Center. Search the advertiser, set Platform to YouTube and Format to video, and you have every YouTube ad they've run in that country, with last shown dates.

Two related links on the Transparency Center home page are worth knowing: YouTube's paid promotions search, for sponsorships and product placements in creators' videos, and the political advertising report.

• Keywords and bids. The biggest gap for PPC research. You see a competitor's search ad, but not which searches trigger it or what they pay.
• Spend, impressions and clicks. Not for regular ads. Spend appears only in the separate political ads report.
• Targeting outside the EU. For ads served in certain regions, including the EU, Google adds targeting information, the total number of recipients and a subject-matter label. Elsewhere there's none.
• Results. Nothing tells you whether an ad converts.
• Ads from unverified accounts. The Center covers verified advertisers.

For a complete library of Facebook and Instagram ads, see our Meta Ad Library guide.

• Long-running ads. An ad last shown yesterday that you've seen for months is almost certainly working.
• Variations. What an advertiser keeps changing tells you what they're unsure of — and what stays fixed is what's proven.
• Platform mix. Filter by platform to see where a competitor actually puts its money: search only, or heavy on YouTube and Shopping.
• Who else bids on a brand. A website search shows resellers and affiliates bidding on the brand — useful if it's your brand.
• Seasonal messaging. Narrow the date filter to last year's sale period to see the offers that ran then.

• Political Advertising Transparency Report — election ads from verified election advertisers, with more detail.
• My Ad Center — for controlling the ads you personally see, not for research.
• Transparency Center API — Google provides API access to data about ads served in the EEA, subject to the Transparency Center's terms.

The Transparency Center shows what competitors say. Your own account shows which searches you're winning and losing — and that's where the useful competitor signal is: the search terms you pay for, and the impression share you lose.

GoMarble reads your Google Ads account alongside Meta, Microsoft Ads and your store. Ask it which search terms are wasting spend, where you're losing impression share, or how your brand campaigns are performing, and it answers from your live data — in GoMarble, or in Claude and ChatGPT through the Google Ads MCP connection. For a ready-made audit, try the complete Google Ads audit workflow.