How do I check if my competitors caused my performance decline?

Start by proving it’s a competitor issue (not an “inside the account” issue)

When advertisers see a sudden performance decline, the first instinct is to blame competitors. In my experience, competitors can cause real damage, but the fastest path to the truth is to separate “market pressure” from “account changes” and “demand changes.” If you skip that, you’ll often overcorrect (raising bids everywhere, widening targeting, loosening ROAS/CPA targets) and make the problem worse.

Before you look at competitor visibility, confirm exactly what declined and where. A competitor-driven decline typically shows up first as lost visibility (impressions, impression share, top-of-page presence), then cost pressure (higher CPC), and only then efficiency issues (CPA/ROAS) if you respond by bidding more aggressively or if you lose the most valuable positions.

Pinpoint the “shape” of the decline

Use two date ranges: a recent window where performance is down (for example, the last 7–14 days) versus a comparable prior period (previous 7–14 days, or year-over-year if you’re seasonal). Then segment to isolate where the drop lives—Search vs Shopping vs Performance Max (and within Performance Max, distinguish Search and Shopping visibility where possible), plus device and location. Competitor pressure is rarely uniform; it tends to hit specific query sets, locations, or devices first.

If impressions fell but CTR and conversion rate stayed relatively stable, that’s usually a visibility problem (you’re entering fewer auctions or losing more of them). If impressions are stable but CTR fell, that’s often a SERP/layout or message relevance problem (or you lost premium positions). If clicks are stable but conversion rate fell, that can be landing page, tracking, offer, or lead quality—competitors are less likely to be the primary cause.

Rule out self-inflicted causes with Change History

Competitors don’t pause your best ads, tighten your location settings, change your bid strategy target, or reduce your budgets—you do. Check Change History around the inflection date and look specifically for budget changes, bidding strategy changes (including target adjustments), keyword/match type changes, negatives added, ad or asset edits, and conversion tracking changes. If the decline lines up tightly with a meaningful internal change, treat “competitors did it” as unproven until the competitive data backs it up.

Use Auction Insights to see if competitors are taking your auctions (and which ones)

If you want a direct “competitor impact” lens inside the platform, Auction Insights is where you start. It’s designed to show who is overlapping with you and how the auctions are trending over time. The key is to run it at the right level: start at the campaign level to see the big picture, then move down to ad group and (for Search) keyword level for the query clusters that actually declined.

Be aware that Auction Insights requires a minimum activity threshold, so it won’t populate everywhere. When it does populate, don’t look at it once—compare it across date ranges to see what changed.

How to interpret Auction Insights metrics like an operator (not a spectator)

Impression share tells you how much of the eligible market you captured. If your impression share dropped sharply while one or two competitors’ impression share rose, that’s a classic “they’re taking more of the pie” signal—especially when your own targeting, budget, and approvals haven’t changed.

Overlap rate shows how often a competitor appears in the same auctions where you appear. If overlap rate rises materially, it usually means a competitor expanded into your query space (new campaigns, broader match coverage, more budget, or entering new locations/devices).

Position above rate (Search) tells you how often a competitor is placed higher than you when you both show. If position above rate jumps, that’s strong evidence you’re losing rank more often in the shared auctions—either because they increased bids/quality or because your Ad Rank deteriorated.

Outranking share is one of the most actionable metrics. It combines “I ranked above them” and “I showed when they didn’t.” If your outranking share against a specific competitor drops, you’re losing more of the head-to-head contests. That’s the closest thing to a competitive “win rate” you can get in-platform.

Top of page rate and absolute top of page rate help you see whether you’re losing the premium placements that usually drive the best CTR. One important nuance: ad placement has become more dynamic, so “top” placement concepts are not as static as they were years ago. Use top/absolute top metrics as directional indicators (premium visibility up/down), not as a guarantee of a single, consistent layout.

Three patterns that strongly suggest competitor pressure

Pattern 1: A new name appears and immediately dominates shared auctions. You’ll typically see a competitor enter Auction Insights with a meaningful impression share, high overlap rate, and a high position above rate. Your CPC may rise even if your conversion rate doesn’t change, because you’re paying more to hold ground.

Pattern 2: One existing competitor’s position above rate and outranking share swing quickly. This often happens when a competitor increases budgets or changes bidding strategy to be more aggressive. If your own account is stable, these swings are rarely random.

Pattern 3: Your top/absolute-top presence drops while others hold steady. If your absolute top rate falls and your CTR falls at the same time, it’s a strong sign you lost premium placement battles. That can be competitor-driven, but you’ll confirm the “why” with impression share loss (rank) and Ad Rank diagnostics (next section).

Use Impression Share (and Lost IS) to separate “budget limited” from “out-ranked”

Auction Insights tells you who is present and how often you collide. Impression share metrics tell you why you’re not showing as much as you could. This is where you stop guessing and start diagnosing.

For Search, the most useful set is Search impression share plus the lost impression share splits:

• Search lost IS (budget): how often you didn’t show due to insufficient budget
• Search lost IS (rank): how often you didn’t show due to Ad Rank
• Search top impression share and Search absolute top impression share: how much of the eligible premium visibility you captured
• Search lost top IS (budget/rank) and Search lost abs. top IS (budget/rank): why you’re missing premium placements specifically

If performance declined and lost IS (rank) increased, that’s the signature of being outcompeted in auctions (or your quality/Ad Rank deteriorated). If lost IS (budget) increased, you’re simply not funding the opportunity—competitors may be present, but the immediate fix is budget headroom or reallocation.

One practical caution: if you’re on certain automated strategies designed to spend your full daily budget (like Maximize Conversions / Maximize Conversion Value), “limited by budget” behavior can be part of the strategy’s normal operation. In those cases, don’t treat lost IS (budget) as a moral failing. Treat it as an opportunity signal and validate with outcomes (incremental conversions/value) and your bid strategy reporting and simulators before raising budgets broadly.

A simple decision matrix for “competitors vs budget vs quality”

If you see lost IS (rank) rising while budgets are steady and eligibility hasn’t changed, you’re likely losing Ad Rank battles. If Auction Insights simultaneously shows a competitor’s position above rate rising and your outranking share falling, that’s as close as you’ll get to proving competitor-driven pressure in-platform.

If you see lost IS (budget) rising and your average CPC is stable, competitors may not be the main issue—you’re just capped. If CPC is also rising, you can have a “double squeeze”: competitors push prices up, and your budget caps you sooner, causing a disproportionate drop in impressions and clicks.

Check Ad Rank and Quality Score to confirm whether you’re losing because they improved—or because you slipped

Competitors can only “cause” your decline in two practical ways: they either raise the bar in auctions (higher bids, better ads/assets, better landing pages), or they expand coverage into your query space. But you also need to confirm you didn’t unintentionally lower your own Ad Rank.

Ad Rank is determined by more than bid. It incorporates bid, ad and landing page quality, auction-time context (device, location, query intent, time), competitiveness, thresholds, and the expected impact of assets and formats. That’s why two advertisers can see a rank shift without either one “changing bids” in an obvious way.

Use Quality Score components as your internal “health check”

Quality Score is not a KPI by itself, but it’s an excellent diagnostic tool when you suspect you’re being out-ranked. Look for component changes across the keyword sets that declined:

If Expected CTR drops broadly, you may have lost premium placement, your messaging got weaker, or the SERP got more crowded with stronger offers. If Ad relevance drops, the structure may be too loose (overly broad ad groups, mismatched ads to query intent). If Landing page experience drops, competitors may not be the culprit at all—you may have page speed, content relevance, or UX issues, or you changed the landing page.

A quick reality check I use: if Auction Insights shows you’re losing head-to-head while your Quality Score components are flat or improving, the competitor likely became more aggressive (bids/budget/coverage). If your Quality Score components degraded around the same time, you likely have an internal quality issue that made it easier for competitors to outrank you.

Triangulate with Insights: is it really competitors, or is demand shifting?

Sometimes performance drops because the market moved, not because a competitor “attacked.” Use the Insights area to look for demand shifts, search trends, and performance shift observations. Then use Search terms insights (available for Search, Shopping, and Performance Max) to see whether the categories driving traffic changed.

If the categories shifted toward more expensive, less converting intent (for example, research-heavy terms) you may see CPC rise and conversion rate fall even without a clear competitor story. Conversely, if demand is steady but your competitive visibility metrics show loss of rank or loss of top/absolute-top presence, competitor pressure becomes the more likely explanation.

A repeatable 30-minute workflow to confirm competitor impact

• Identify the exact start date of decline and the primary symptom (impressions, CTR, CPC, CVR, CPA/ROAS).
• Check Change History for that date range to rule out internal changes.
• Pull Auction Insights for the impacted campaigns (and the top ad groups/keywords) and compare to the prior period.
• Add impression share + lost IS (rank/budget) + top/absolute top metrics to see whether the loss is rank-driven or budget-driven.
• Review Quality Score components on the keywords that declined to confirm whether your own quality slipped.
• Use search terms insights and Insights trends to rule out category-level demand shifts.

If competitors did cause the decline: how to respond without overpaying

Once the data points to competitive pressure, the goal isn’t “bid higher everywhere.” The goal is to regain profitable coverage where it matters and avoid buying back volume that was never efficient.

Defend the highest-intent segments first

Start with the query sets that historically drove the best conversion rate and value. If those segments show rising lost IS (rank) and falling outranking share, prioritize them for Ad Rank improvements: tighter ad group theming, more specific messaging, and stronger landing page alignment. This approach often beats blunt bid increases because it improves auction performance without permanently inflating CPC.

Buy back premium visibility surgically

If your CTR decline lines up with reduced top/absolute-top presence, test a targeted push for premium visibility on the most valuable campaigns. Where appropriate, strategies that explicitly manage visibility (for example, impression share-focused approaches) can be useful, but only when you’ve confirmed the incremental value of top placement for your business. Otherwise, you can end up paying for “being seen” instead of paying for results.

Strengthen Ad Rank beyond bids

In competitive spikes, advertisers often forget that assets influence prominence and can improve overall performance even when you can’t win purely on bid. Make sure you’re using all relevant assets, keep creative aligned to the highest-value intent, and remove structural friction that causes relevance dilution. If you can raise expected CTR and relevance, you’ll frequently stabilize position and impression share with less CPC inflation than your competitors.

Watch for the “new normal” before you rewrite targets

If competitors permanently raised aggressiveness, you may need to recalibrate efficiency targets (CPA/ROAS) or reallocate budget toward segments where you can still win profitably. Use longer comparison windows once the initial disruption settles so you’re not making target changes based on a short-lived auction shock.

If you’re trying to confirm whether competitors actually drove a performance drop (rather than a budget cap, a rank/quality issue, or an internal change), Blobr can make that investigation faster by plugging into your Google Ads account and monitoring performance shifts continuously, including signals like impression share, lost IS (rank vs budget), and changes that show up in competitive dynamics. Behind the scenes, it runs specialized AI agents to handle the time-consuming work—like spotting what changed, suggesting ad copy improvements to protect relevance, and finding waste or missed coverage—so you can focus on deciding the right response once you’ve pinpointed the real cause.