Competitor analysis in the context of Google Ads refers to the process of evaluating your competitors' advertising strategies and performance to gain insights. The goal is to understand how your competitors are using Google Ads to target similar audiences, what they are doing well, and where there are opportunities for your business to outperform them.
Competitor analysis is critical because it provides you with a roadmap to improve your own campaigns, avoid mistakes, and capitalize on market trends that competitors might be missing.
Let’s first talk through the general workflow of performing a competitor analysis. Later, we’ll get to the specific tools and how to use them to support your research and analysis.
Start by identifying your main competitors in the market. These may not always be direct competitors in terms of products or services but can also be businesses competing for the same keywords in Google Ads. Use Google search results to find who’s bidding your target keywords as well as who is organically ranking. Where and when ads are displayed are depending on numerous factors such as budget, max CPC, competition, etc. In other words, just because you don’t see your competitors in the top ad spots doesn’t mean they aren’t bidding.
Competitors’ ad copy provides insight into how they communicate with the audience. Look for patterns, such as repeated promotions, emotional appeals, and the language they use. Understanding this can help you craft more compelling and differentiated ad copy. Google’s Transparency Center and SEMRush give you samples of the ads shown.
Keywords are the foundation of Google Ads. Use tools like Google’s Auction Insights and SEMrush to see which keywords your competitors are bidding on. By analyzing their keyword choices, you can discover opportunities to target underused keywords or exclude non-performing ones. You can also see if they are focusing on long-tail or high-competition keywords.
Knowing how much competitors are willing to spend on their Google Ads, and when they are spending, gives you a sense of how competitive the landscape is. While you may not get exact figures, tools like SpyFu and SEMrush provide estimates.
A well-optimized landing page is crucial for converting ad clicks into sales or leads. By reviewing competitor landing pages, you can gather ideas for better layout, design, and call-to-action placements. Consider how they align the messaging between their ads and landing pages for a consistent user experience.
In the beginning stages of running Google Ads — before you’ve even kicked off any campaigns — there are a few tools that can help you identify keywords that you might want to bid on.
SEMRush is one of the staples in our toolkit. We use it frequently from researching topics and monitoring content performance to measuring successes.
For paid search campaigns, we use their Advertising Research to search a competitor’s domain to better understand their paid strategy: their ad spend on Google, the keywords they are bidding on, the landing page, and samples of their headlines and descriptions.
In the below example, we can see that Hudson Way Immersion School (hwis.org)’s ad spend peaks around December and runs through February, with another smaller bump in June. This seasonal spending makes sense, given that their application deadlines are in December and January, with rolling admissions thereafter.
Note that this ad spend is merely an estimate. It's good for directional guidance, but I would not say it's accurate.
You can also use the PPC Toolkit to identify the keywords that competitors are bidding on, as well as example ads for these terms.
Here I filtered for ads appearing in December 2023:
For each keyword that the advertiser is bidding on, you can see:
Most of the spend for HWIS is on “private schools near me”. The business also bids on competitors’ branded terms, like “avenues the world school”.
Interestingly, when I change the date to June 2024, I see only competitor keywords:
It may be that are testing the effectiveness of bidding on branded terms; i’m not entirely sure why.
In May 2023, in response to provisions of the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), Google announced the launch of their new Ad Transparency Center. It’s a fully searchable hub of all ads served from verified advertisers on Google, designed to expand transparency to users on things like who the advertisers are, where they are located and what political or social issues they are associated with.
For advertisers, the Google Ad Transparency Center has become a resource for competitive research. You can see all the ads ever run by any one of your competitors. This goes beyond headline and descriptions of search campaigns and includes viewing image ads, watching video ads, and seeing exactly how many ads they are running for a specified time frame.You can specify which country you want to see ads for as well as on which Google platform:
For HWIS, we can scroll through all the below ads that were running December 2023 - January 2024.
You can also click on the ads to see variations and when they were last shown:
Or, filter formats for Video to see examples of video assets when you’re considering running video ads yourself.
Clicking on this ad within the Transparency Center directs you to the actual (and unlisted) YouTube video.
Auction Insights is a built-in Google Ads tool that shows how your ads compare to competitors based on impression share, position, and overlap rate. It helps you understand who you're competing against in the same auction and how often they outrank you.
One thing to note is that to view Google Auction Insights, you must have an impressions share of at least 10% — more on this below.
Here’s an example Auction Insights report for one of our clients (shown as “You” in the second row)
In this report, Google gives us a few metrics to benchmark us against competitors:
In this example, I’m actually concerned that our overlap rate with preply.com is so high. To me, they are not a direct competitor, and I’ll have to refine our keyword targeting so that we have less overlap (i.e. the client shows up less for their keywords).3. Position above rate: this is the percentage of time the competitor advertiser is ranking higher than you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should increase your bids. A competitor may be outbidding you, or they may have better ad relevance than you.
4. Top of page rate / Absolute Top of Page Rate: this shows how often your ads are at the top of the page or in the absolute top position. Again, high rates mean higher bidding or better ad relevance to the keywords being targeted.5. Outranking Share: How often your ad outranks a competitor’s ads.
From the table above, I can glean that Preply spends a lot, has the highest impression share and is most frequently at the top of the page. Greenivy has a lower impression share but also frequently ranks at the top of the page. Greenivy has a smaller overall budget but is aggressive with their bidding. When may not show their ads as much, but when they do, they are higher.
SpyFu has a decent bubble chart visualizing competitor footprints, overlaps and gaps.
You can drill down into things like:
SpyFu also shows historical data by month for ad performance and keyword targeting.
Once you’ve identified the keywords your competitors are using, consider refining your keyword targeting. You might find gaps in their strategy that you can exploit, such as long-tail keywords they’re not targeting.
By analyzing the language and messaging your competitors are using, you can craft more effective ad copy. Focus on differentiating your product or service by highlighting unique selling points that competitors may not emphasize.
Knowing your competitors’ estimated spend can inform how you allocate your budget. For example, if a competitor is spending heavily on a high-competition keyword, you might decide to invest in more niche keywords with lower cost-per-click (CPC).
Use the data from tools like Auction Insights to adjust your bidding strategies. If you consistently rank lower than competitors, increasing your bids on certain keywords could improve your visibility and drive more traffic.
Conducting a Google Ads competitor analysis is essential for staying competitive in paid search marketing. By studying your competitors' ad copy, keywords, landing pages, and budget, you can make informed decisions to optimize your own campaigns. The right tools—such as Google Auction Insights, SEMrush, and SpyFu—can provide valuable insights into what is working for others in your industry and how you can outperform them.
Ultimately, competitor analysis helps you fine-tune your Google Ads strategy, leading to improved ROI and better overall performance in an increasingly crowded digital landscape.
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