Facebook Ads Scraper - Apify Actor A high-performance Facebook Ads Library scraper built for the Apify platform using Playwright. This actor efficiently scrapes Facebook's Ad Library for ads based on country-keyword pairs with optimized resource usage. ## 🚀 Features - High Performance: Optimized for Apify platform with minimal resource consumption - Batch Processing: Controlled concurrency to prevent memory issues - Comprehensive Data: Extracts detailed ad information including: - Ad status and Library ID - Page name and start date - Primary text and Call-to-Action (CTA) - External links and image URLs - Raw ad content - Robust Error Handling: Continues processing even if individual ads fail - Real-time Output: Results are saved to Apify dataset immediately ## 📋 Input Schema The actor accepts the following input parameters: json { "targets": [ { "country": "United States", "keyword": "rental properties" }, { "country": "Canada", "keyword": "vacation homes" } ], "adsLimit": 1000, "scrollCount": 3, "headless": true, "maxConcurrency": 1, "delay": 2000 } ### Parameters - targets (required): Array of country-keyword pairs to scrape - adsLimit (optional): Maximum ads per target (default: 1000) - scrollCount (optional): Number of scroll actions to load more ads (default: 3) - headless (optional): Run browser in headless mode (default: true) - maxConcurrency (optional): Maximum concurrent browser instances (default: 1) - delay (optional): Delay between actions in milliseconds (default: 2000) ## 📊 Output Format Each scraped ad contains: json { "country": "United States", "keyword": "rental properties", "ads": [ { "status": "Active", "library_id": "123456789", "started": "Started running on Jan 1, 2024", "page": "Example Page", "primary_text": "Find your dream rental property...", "cta": "Learn More", "links": [ { "type": "link", "url": "https://example.com", "text": "Visit Website" } ], "image_urls": ["https://example.com/image.jpg"], "raw_text": "Full ad text content...", "scraped_at": "2024-01-01T12:00:00.000Z" } ], "ads_count": 150, "processed_at": "2024-01-01T12:00:00.000Z" } ## 🛠️ Technical Details ### Architecture - Runtime: Node.js 18 with Playwright - Browser: Chromium with optimized launch arguments - Concurrency: Configurable batch processing - Memory: Optimized for low memory usage on Apify ### Key Optimizations - Single browser instance with multiple contexts - Immediate data saving to prevent loss - Progressive scroll delays to avoid rate limiting - Efficient XPath selectors for fast element detection - Minimal DOM queries with smart caching ### Error Handling - Graceful handling of missing elements - Automatic retry on transient failures - Detailed error logging for debugging - Continues processing even if individual ads fail ## 📝 Usage Examples ### Basic Usage json { "targets": [ {"country": "United States", "keyword": "real estate"}, {"country": "Canada", "keyword": "homes for sale"} ] } ### Advanced Configuration json { "targets": [ {"country": "United Kingdom", "keyword": "property investment"}, {"country": "Australia", "keyword": "vacation rentals"} ], "adsLimit": 500, "scrollCount": 5, "headless": false, "maxConcurrency": 2, "delay": 3000 } ## ⚠️ Important Notes 1. Rate Limiting: The scraper includes delays to respect Facebook's rate limits 2. Resource Usage: Optimized for Apify's resource constraints 3. Data Quality: Filters out Facebook-internal links and duplicates 4. Authentication: Designed to work without login (public Ad Library) --- Built with ❤️ for the Apify platform