How do I analyze competitor ads in Google Ads?

What “competitor ad analysis” in Google Ads can (and can’t) tell you

When people say they want to “analyze competitor ads,” they usually mean one of two things: they want to see what competitors are saying (offers, positioning, calls-to-action, landing page angles), and they want to quantify how aggressively competitors are showing (how often they appear with you, how often they outrank you, and how often they take the top spots).

Google Ads supports both of those goals, but with important limits. You can’t see a competitor’s actual keyword list, bids, budgets, conversion rate, targeting settings, or which audiences they’ve layered in. What you can do is build a very accurate picture of: who you’re meeting in auctions, how often they overlap with you, how often they beat you for position, how often they show above you, and what their ads and landing pages look like for the searches you care about.

The two lenses you should use together

Qualitative competitor analysis is “What are they saying and where do they send traffic?” This is where you study ad messaging, ad assets, pricing, promos, guarantees, shipping/returns, trust signals, and the landing page flow.

Quantitative competitor analysis is “How big are they in the auction and where are they beating us?” This is where you use competitive visibility reporting to understand impression share dynamics, overlap, and top-of-page pressure.

Tool #1: Auction insights (your most reliable competitor benchmark inside Google Ads)

If you only use one feature for competitor analysis, make it the auction insights report. It compares your performance with other advertisers who participated in the same auctions you did, and it’s available for Search, Shopping, and Performance Max (with Performance Max auction insights covering Search and Shopping ads on the Search Network for more recent inventory).

One practical note that catches teams off guard: auction insights won’t display in low-volume situations, and it also won’t show insights when your impression share is below a minimum threshold. So if you’re trying to analyze competitors on a brand-new campaign, a tiny ad group, or a very narrow keyword set, you may need to widen the time range or scope to collect enough activity.

How to pull auction insights at the right level (and why it matters)

Start broad at the campaign level to identify your true auction competitors (often different from your “business competitors”), then narrow your view. For Search campaigns, auction insights can be run at keyword, ad group, and campaign level; that’s critical because your competitor set can change dramatically between “head terms” and “high-intent” terms.

For example, your campaign-level report might show large directories and marketplaces, while your bottom-funnel ad group might show two direct competitors fighting hard for the same customers. If you don’t split that view, you’ll make the wrong decisions about bids, messaging, and landing pages.

The six Search auction insights metrics and how to interpret them

Impression share in auction insights shows how often you (and other advertisers listed) received impressions out of the estimated impressions you were eligible for. When a competitor has high impression share relative to you, they’re simply present more often in the auctions you also enter.

Overlap rate tells you how frequently a competitor shows up in the same auctions where you also showed. High overlap is your “core competitor set” for that segment of traffic.

Outranking share tells you how often you ranked higher than the competitor (or you showed when they didn’t) in the auctions you both entered. If a competitor’s outranking share against you is strong, you’re consistently losing important auctions to them.

Position above rate tells you how often the competitor was in a higher position than you when both ads showed at the same time. This is the metric I watch when clients say, “We’re showing, but we’re always under the same two brands.”

Top of page rate tells you how often an advertiser’s ad appeared above the organic results (any top ad position). This is your “are they buying premium visibility?” indicator.

Absolute top of page rate tells you how often an advertiser’s ad was the very first ad above organic results. If a competitor is dominating absolute top, expect higher CPC pressure and more brand perception impact (even if your conversion rate remains healthy).

How to turn auction insights into actions you can actually take

Auction insights doesn’t tell you “raise bids” or “write better ads” directly—but it tells you where you need to compete differently. Here’s the decision framework I use:

• If overlap is high, treat the competitor as a primary benchmark: build messaging that differentiates, tighten landing pages to match intent, and watch top metrics closely.
• If position above and outranking are high (against you), you’re losing visibility in the auctions that matter. Your fixes are typically Ad Rank related: bidding strategy/targets, ad relevance, expected CTR signals, landing page experience, and overall asset quality.
• If their top-of-page and absolute-top rates are high, decide whether you need to meet them at the top for business reasons (brand defense, premium lead quality, short sales windows), or whether you can profitably live in slightly lower positions with better efficiency.

Tool #2: Impression share & “lost IS” columns (the fastest way to quantify competitive pressure)

Auction insights tells you who you’re up against and how often they beat you. Impression share reporting tells you why you’re missing impressions overall. In practice, I use them together: auction insights to identify the competitors and pressure points, then impression share and lost IS metrics to confirm whether the limitation is budget, rank, or both.

The core columns to add and what each one means

Search impression share is the impressions you received on the Search Network divided by the estimated impressions you were eligible to receive.

Search lost IS (budget) is the percentage of time your ads weren’t shown due to insufficient budget. This is only available at campaign level, which is intentional: budget constraints are evaluated at that level.

Search lost IS (rank) is the percentage of time your ads weren’t shown due to poor Ad Rank in the auction. If this is high, you’re not just “lower on the page”—you’re frequently not entering the page at all.

In addition, for premium placement analysis, add Search top impression share and Search absolute top impression share to understand your missed opportunity specifically at the top positions. These are especially useful when leadership asks, “Why aren’t we showing at the top anymore?” or “Are we losing the first position to competitors?”

How to diagnose the root cause in 60 seconds

When a campaign underperforms, don’t guess. Read the lost IS columns like a decision tree. If lost IS (budget) is the dominant number, you have a budget allocation and waste-reduction problem. If lost IS (rank) is dominant, you have an Ad Rank competitiveness problem (bid targets, relevance, and experience). If both are high, you’re usually in a highly competitive space and you’ll need to narrow focus to the most profitable intent segments first before scaling coverage.

One nuance: impression share metrics don’t update instantly, and they’re not aggregated across all campaign types into one neat account-wide number. That means you should compare like with like (Search vs Search, Shopping vs Shopping) and avoid drawing conclusions from a single day of data.

Tool #3: Ad Preview and Diagnosis (how to “see competitor ads” without contaminating performance data)

To study competitor messaging, you need to see real search result pages for the queries you care about, in the geographies you care about, on the devices your customers use. The right way to do that inside Google Ads is the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool. It lets you preview how ads appear on a search results page and troubleshoot why your ad or ad assets might not be appearing—all without repeatedly searching in a way that can inflate impressions and distort performance signals.

How to use it for competitor ad research (not just troubleshooting)

I recommend treating Ad Preview and Diagnosis like a structured research workflow. Pick a set of high-value queries (your top converting non-brand terms, your top spend terms, and your brand terms). Then run those searches across your most important locations and device types. What you’re looking for is consistency: which competitors show up repeatedly, what themes they push, and how their offers and trust signals vary by query intent.

Pay special attention to ad assets. Competitors often “win” perception not because their headline is better, but because they’re using strong supporting assets (pricing language, promo callouts, category sitelinks, service menus, and proof points) that make their result look more complete.

A practical competitor ad swipe-file checklist (capture this every time)

• Query + intent (what stage of the funnel is it?)
• Competitor name + landing page theme (pricing page, category page, comparison page, lead form, etc.)
• Main promise (fast, cheap, premium, local, guaranteed, etc.)
• Offer mechanics (discount, free trial, financing, bundles, shipping/returns, warranties)
• Trust signals (reviews, years in business, certifications, “official,” guarantees)
• CTA pattern (Get Quote, Book, Shop, Compare, Call, Subscribe)
• Asset coverage (which extras make the ad larger/more compelling)

Advanced competitor insights: use the Insights page to spot demand shifts competitors will exploit

Competitor analysis isn’t only about who is showing today—it’s also about where demand is moving next. The Insights area can surface search trends (including “trending now” and forecasted upcoming trends in some views) and search terms insights that group user searches into categories and subcategories. This is especially helpful when you feel like “a competitor came out of nowhere,” because what often happened is demand shifted into a new theme and they reacted faster with new creatives, new landing pages, or new product coverage.

How I apply these insights in real accounts

First, I use search trends to identify rising themes where we’re underrepresented. Then I cross-check: do we have campaigns and creatives aligned to that theme, and do we have landing pages that convert for it? If not, the competitor advantage is rarely “they bid more”—it’s that they’re more relevant to the moment.

Next, I use search terms insights to see which demand categories are driving performance and which are emerging. This lets you build competitor-resistant structure: tighter segmentation by intent, better asset customization per theme, and fewer “one-size-fits-all” ad groups that force you into generic messaging.

Putting it all together: a repeatable weekly competitor analysis routine

If you want a sustainable process (not a one-time competitive deep dive), run this weekly cadence. Keep it tight, consistent, and focused on actions you can take.

• Step 1 (10 minutes): Pull auction insights for your top campaigns/ad groups and note any competitor share changes, especially position above rate and outranking share shifts.
• Step 2 (10 minutes): Review Search impression share plus lost IS (budget) and lost IS (rank). Decide whether this week’s constraint is budget allocation, Ad Rank competitiveness, or both.
• Step 3 (15 minutes): Use Ad Preview and Diagnosis on your top 10–20 queries in your top locations. Update your swipe file and look for new offers, new angles, or new landing page strategies.
• Step 4 (15 minutes): Make one change per theme: improve assets, tighten intent segmentation, refresh landing page alignment, or adjust bidding targets/budgets where the data clearly supports it.

The biggest mistakes I see (and how to avoid them)

1) Treating auction insights like a “copy competitors” report

The goal isn’t to mimic. It’s to understand where you’re being outcompeted and decide whether to out-position, out-message, or out-focus them. Often the best move is to stop chasing the noisiest auctions and concentrate budget on the intent pockets where you can win profitably.

2) Overreacting to absolute top pressure

Seeing a competitor dominate absolute top can trigger panic bidding. Before you do that, check whether your business actually needs that position. If your conversion rate and lead quality are strong in slightly lower positions, you may be better off improving ad relevance and landing page alignment rather than buying the most expensive slot.

3) Ignoring the “why” behind lost impression share

“Competitors are beating us” is not a diagnosis. Lost IS (budget) and lost IS (rank) tell you what’s structurally limiting you. Fix the right constraint first, and competitor pressure becomes manageable instead of mysterious.

If you’re analyzing competitor ads in Google Ads using tools like Auction Insights (to see who overlaps with you and who outranks you), Impression Share and Lost IS (to understand whether you’re constrained by budget or Ad Rank), Ad Preview and Diagnosis (to review real SERPs without skewing your data), and the Insights page (to spot shifting demand), Blobr can help you turn those signals into a repeatable workflow: it connects to your account, monitors changes across campaigns and search intent segments, and then suggests concrete next steps—like refining messaging where overlap is high or tightening coverage where you’re losing top-of-page visibility—with specialized AI agents such as the Headlines Enhancer (to update ad assets based on competitor messaging gaps and landing page alignment) and Keyword Ideas Finder (to surface new opportunities while filtering out existing and negative keywords).