Quick Answer

Google Ads auction insights is a free report inside Google Ads that shows which other advertisers compete in the same auctions as you, and how often you win against them. For Search and Shopping campaigns it reports six metrics: impression share, overlap rate, position above rate, top of page rate, absolute top of page rate and outranking share. Together they reveal who your real paid-search competitors are, whether they are gaining or losing ground, and whether you are losing visibility because of budget or because of ad rank. Read correctly, the auction insights report explains sudden jumps in cost per click, falling impression share and shifting conversion volumes, and tells you whether the fix is more budget, better quality and bids, or no action at all.

What is Google Ads auction insights?

Auction insights is a report Google provides for Search and Shopping campaigns, and in a more limited form for Performance Max. It lists the other domains whose ads appeared in the same auctions as yours during the selected date range, and compares your visibility with theirs. Each metric is defined in the official auction insights documentation.

It is important to understand what the report covers. It only includes auctions you were eligible to enter, so it shows competitors for your keywords and products, not the entire market. It is based on impressions, so it tells you about visibility rather than clicks or conversions. And it reports competitors by domain, which means you see the website being advertised, not the agency or account behind it.

Where to find the Google Ads auction insights report

In the Google Ads interface, open a Search or Shopping campaign, then go to Insights and reports and choose Auction insights. You can view it for all campaigns at once, a single campaign, an ad group or selected keywords. Narrower views are usually more useful, because competition for a branded campaign looks very different from competition for a generic product campaign.

Always set a meaningful date range. A single day can be noisy; the last 30 days is a sensible default, and segmenting by week or month shows trends over time. You can also download the report, which makes it easy to track competitors in a spreadsheet.

The six metrics explained, from impression share to outranking share

Impression share

Impression share is the number of impressions you received divided by the number you were eligible for. If your ads could have shown 10,000 times and showed 6,000 times, your impression share is 60 percent. In the report, Google also shows the impression share of each competitor in those same auctions, which tells you how visible they are relative to you. The calculation is explained in the impression share help article.

Overlap rate

Overlap rate shows how often a competitor’s ad received an impression in the same auction as yours. An overlap rate of 70 percent means that when you appeared, that competitor also appeared 70 percent of the time. High overlap identifies your most direct paid-search rivals.

Position above rate

Position above rate shows how often the competitor’s ad appeared above yours when both ads showed. A rising position above rate means a competitor is winning more of the shared auctions, usually through higher bids, better ad quality or both.

Top of page rate

Top of page rate is the percentage of a domain’s impressions that appeared above the organic search results. It indicates how often an advertiser secures premium placement, which tends to drive the most clicks.

Absolute top of page rate

Absolute top of page rate is the percentage of impressions shown in the very first ad position. It is the most competitive slot and often the most expensive.

Outranking share

Outranking share is how often your ad ranked higher than a competitor’s, or showed when theirs did not. It is your single best measure of head-to-head performance against a specific competitor.

How to read the auction insights report as a whole

Each metric alone tells you little. The value comes from reading them together and over time. Three questions do most of the work.

First, who matters? Sort by overlap rate. The domains that appear alongside you most often are your true paid-search competitors, and they may differ from the companies your sales team thinks of as competitors.

Second, who is winning? Compare position above rate and outranking share. If a competitor’s position above rate is high and your outranking share against them is low, they are beating you in most shared auctions.

Third, what changed? Segment by week or month and look for movement. A new domain with high overlap, or a familiar one whose impression share suddenly rises, often explains a jump in your cost per click or a fall in conversions.

Pairing auction insights with lost impression share

Auction insights tells you who you compete with. Two columns in your campaign view tell you why you are losing visibility: search lost impression share due to budget and search lost impression share due to rank. Add them to your campaign table and read them alongside the auction insights report.

• High loss due to budget means your ads stop showing because the daily budget runs out. More budget, or tighter targeting, recovers visibility.
• High loss due to rank means your ad rank is too low to win, because of bids, Quality Score, expected click-through rate or ad assets. Improving quality is usually cheaper than raising bids.
• Low loss on both, with falling results, suggests the market itself has changed, such as lower search demand or stronger offers from competitors.

Our guide to Google Ads Quality Score explains how to improve rank without simply paying more, and our Google Ads budget guide covers how to size budgets against available impression share.

Common situations and what to do

Cost per click jumped suddenly

Check the Google Ads auction insights report for the same period. A new competitor with high overlap, or an existing one with a sharply higher position above rate, usually explains rising costs. Decide whether those auctions are worth defending. For high-intent keywords they usually are; for broad, low-converting terms, it may be cheaper to step back.

Impression share is falling

Open Google Ads auction insights and look at lost impression share. If the loss is due to budget, the fix is budget allocation. If it is due to rank, review bids, Quality Score and assets. If competitors’ impression share is rising at the same time, the market is getting more crowded.

A competitor bids on your brand

Run Google Ads auction insights on your brand campaign. A domain with meaningful overlap on branded terms is bidding on your name. Defending your brand terms is usually inexpensive and protects your most valuable traffic; you may also review trademark policies if their ads use your brand in the copy.

Results dropped but nothing changed

When conversions fall and your settings have not changed, auction insights often shows a competitor gaining top-of-page share. Their improved placement pushes your ads lower and reduces your click-through rate, even at the same bid.

Auction insights for Shopping and Performance Max

For Shopping campaigns, the report shows impression share, overlap rate and outranking share, which is useful for retailers watching marketplace giants and direct competitors. For Performance Max, Google provides auction insights for the Search and Shopping portions of the campaign. Because Performance Max blends many channels, treat its competitor data as directional. Our guide to Performance Max campaigns covers how to read its reporting alongside Search.

Segmenting the report by device, time and network

One of the most underused features of Google Ads auction insights is segmentation. The default table shows averages across every auction in the date range, which can hide important patterns. Use the segment option to split the data by time period, device and, where available, network.

Time segments reveal when competitors are most aggressive. Some advertisers concentrate budget on weekdays or business hours, and their overlap rate drops sharply in the evenings and at weekends. If your conversion rate holds up at those times, shifting budget into the quieter hours can win cheaper clicks. Device segments matter for the same reason. A competitor may dominate mobile top-of-page positions while barely competing on desktop, which tells you where defending share will be most expensive and where opportunity is easiest to take.

Weekly segments are also the best way to spot new entrants early. A domain that appears with a small overlap rate one week and a large one the next is ramping up spend. Catching that within days rather than at the end of the month gives you time to adjust before your costs rise.

Building a competitor tracking sheet

The report only covers the date range you select, so long-term trends disappear unless you record them. A simple tracking sheet turns Google Ads auction insights into a history of your market.

Create one tab per main campaign. Each month, download the report and add a row per competitor with the date, impression share, overlap rate, position above rate, top of page rate and outranking share. Add your own row as well. After three or four months, chart each competitor’s impression share and position above rate over time. Patterns that were invisible in a single month become obvious: a competitor steadily gaining top-of-page share, seasonal entrants who appear every November, or a rival who has quietly stopped bidding on your core terms.

Add a notes column for context, such as a new offer you saw in their ads, a site redesign or a funding announcement. Over time, the sheet becomes a valuable record that explains why your own cost and performance moved, and it makes conversations with leadership far more concrete than “the market got more competitive”.

Defending branded campaigns

Branded campaigns deserve their own regular review in Google Ads auction insights. Brand searches convert at the highest rates in most accounts, and they are often the cheapest clicks you buy, which makes them attractive targets for competitors and affiliates.

Run the report on your brand campaign alone. In a healthy account, your impression share on branded terms should be above 90 percent and your outranking share against every other domain should be very high. If a competitor shows a meaningful overlap rate, they are bidding on your name. Check their ads: if they use your trademark in the ad text, you can submit a trademark complaint to Google. If they simply bid on the keyword, the practical response is to keep your own branded ads strong and well funded so that you hold the top position at a low cost.

Affiliates and resellers deserve particular attention. If partners are allowed to promote your products, set clear rules about bidding on your brand, and use the report to confirm they follow them. An affiliate bidding on your brand name can take credit, and commission, for sales you would have won anyway.

Seasonality and competitive spikes

Competition in paid search is rarely constant. Retail categories crowd in the run-up to holidays, education and training advertisers spike before term starts, and tax and finance services peak before filing deadlines. Google Ads auction insights makes those patterns measurable.

Compare the same period year over year. If last November brought three new competitors with high overlap rates and pushed your cost per click up by 40 percent, plan for the same this year: raise budgets ahead of time, prepare stronger offers, and decide in advance which campaigns are worth defending at higher costs and which should be scaled back. Advertisers who plan for seasonal competition protect margin; those who react after costs rise usually overpay.

Reporting auction insights to clients and leadership

For agencies and in-house teams, the report is one of the most persuasive pieces of evidence you can share. Stakeholders who see only rising cost per click often assume the account is being mismanaged. Showing them that a new competitor now appears in half of your auctions and wins the top position most of the time reframes the conversation around strategy rather than blame.

Keep the reporting simple. A monthly slide with the top five competitors, their impression share and outranking share against you, and a short commentary on what changed is enough. Add one recommended action, such as defending a profitable segment, improving Quality Score on a contested ad group, or stepping back from an unprofitable bidding war. Our guide to Google Ads campaign types is useful context when the recommendation involves moving budget between campaign types.

Automating the report

For accounts with many campaigns, downloading the report manually becomes tedious. You can schedule reports, and the auction insights data can be included in custom reports for regular delivery. Larger advertisers sometimes connect the data to dashboards in Looker Studio or a data warehouse so that competitor trends sit next to spend, conversions and revenue. Even a simple scheduled monthly email of Google Ads auction insights for your top campaigns removes the risk of forgetting to check.

What auction insights cannot tell you

It is easy to over-read the report. It does not tell you whether a competitor is profitable, what they bid, how much they spend, or which keywords drive their visibility. A competitor with a high impression share might be losing money on every click. Treat the data as evidence about visibility and pressure in the auction, then combine it with your own conversion and revenue data before deciding to spend more. The goal is never to beat every competitor in every auction; it is to win the auctions that are profitable for you.

New advertisers should also remember that remarketing and other audience-based campaigns are not covered. If you rely heavily on Google Ads remarketing or Display, use other reports to understand performance in those campaigns.

Turning the report into action

1. Pull the report monthly for each main campaign and log the top five competitors with their impression share, overlap rate and outranking share.
2. Flag any competitor whose position above rate or impression share rose by more than ten points.
3. For each flagged competitor, look at their ads and landing pages to understand what changed: new offers, new messaging or simply higher bids.
4. Check lost impression share to decide whether you need budget, better ad rank or a different keyword strategy.
5. Adjust bids and budgets where it is profitable to compete, using the guidance in our Google Ads bidding strategies guide.
6. Improve ad strength with stronger copy and assets, covered in our guides to responsive search ads and Google Ads extensions.

A worked example

A B2B software company notices its cost per lead on a core generic campaign has risen by 35 percent in a month. Nothing in the account has changed. The team opens the auction insights report for the campaign and segments by week.

A domain that did not appear the previous month now shows a 48 percent overlap rate and a 62 percent position above rate. Its top of page rate is 85 percent, far above anyone else. Lost impression share due to rank has also climbed for the company’s own campaign. The picture is clear: a well-funded new entrant is bidding aggressively on the same keywords.

Rather than matching bids across the board, the team narrows the campaign to the keywords with the highest conversion rates, improves ad relevance and landing page experience to lift Quality Score, and adds negative keywords to cut low-intent queries. Within three weeks, cost per lead falls back near its previous level on lower spend, even though the new competitor remains in the auction. The report did not fix anything by itself; it told the team exactly which problem to solve.

How different businesses use the report

Ecommerce and retail

Online retailers usually face two kinds of competitors in paid search: direct rivals selling similar products, and large marketplaces that appear in almost every product auction. Marketplaces often show very high impression share and overlap rates, but competing head-on with them across every product rarely makes sense. Retailers get more value from the report by focusing on product groups where their margins are strongest, checking whether they hold enough impression share there, and accepting lower visibility on low-margin lines. Shopping campaigns are where this matters most, because price and product data shape who wins.

Local service businesses

For plumbers, dentists, law firms and other local businesses, the competitive set is usually small and stable, which makes changes easy to spot. When a new practice opens nearby or a national lead-generation site starts bidding in your city, the report shows it within days. Local advertisers often find that a handful of competitors account for nearly all overlap, so a monthly check of those few domains, combined with call tracking, is enough to stay ahead.

B2B and SaaS

Software and B2B advertisers often compete with comparison sites and review platforms as well as direct rivals. These sites bid on category keywords and competitor names to capture buyers in research mode. Seeing them in the report helps you decide where to focus: high-intent product and brand terms where you can win profitably, rather than broad category terms where comparison sites and large rivals push costs up. B2B cost per click is often high, so small changes in outranking share can have a large effect on cost per lead.

Five questions to ask every month

A short, fixed set of questions keeps the review fast and consistent, and it stops the report turning into a page of numbers nobody acts on. These five work for almost any account, from a single local campaign to a multi-market ecommerce program, and they take only a few minutes once the data is in front of you.

1. Which domains have the highest overlap rate, and has that list changed since last month?
2. Has any competitor’s impression share or position above rate risen by more than ten points?
3. Is our own impression share on branded campaigns still above 90 percent?
4. Is lost impression share mainly due to budget or to rank, and has that balance shifted?
5. Are we competing hardest in the auctions that are most profitable for us?

Answering these five questions takes less than half an hour and keeps you ahead of most competitive shifts before they show up as a jump in costs. Write the answers down each month; the trend in your answers is often more revealing than any single report.

Limitations to keep in mind

• The report does not show competitors’ bids, budgets, spend, clicks or conversions.
• Competitors appear by domain, so several advertisers promoting the same site look like one.
• Data covers only auctions you were eligible for, not the full market.
• Low-volume segments can be noisy, so use sensible date ranges and compare trends rather than single days.
• Thresholds apply: very small competitors may not appear at all.

How Google Ads auction insights fits into account management

This report is one input in a wider optimization routine. It explains movement that other reports only show, which is why experienced managers check it whenever costs or results shift. Combine it with accurate Google Ads conversion tracking, careful keyword match types, a disciplined list of negative keywords, and strong landing pages, and you have the levers to respond to anything the report reveals. Our complete guide to Google Ads optimization brings those pieces together, and a regular Google Ads audit catches problems before they become expensive.

If you would like specialists to monitor your competitive landscape and respond quickly, our Google Ads management team reviews auction insights for every account we run. You can also talk to our team about a free account review.

Key Takeaways

• The report shows which domains compete in your auctions and how your visibility compares.
• Overlap rate identifies true competitors; position above rate and outranking share show who wins.
• Top of page and absolute top of page rates reveal who secures premium placements.
• Read auction data with lost impression share due to budget and rank to choose the right fix.
• Track the report monthly and investigate any competitor gaining more than ten points.
• The report shows visibility only, so combine it with your own conversion data before acting.

Frequently asked questions

Is the auction insights report free?

Yes. Auction insights is included in every Google Ads account at no extra cost for Search and Shopping campaigns, with limited data for Performance Max.

Can I see how much competitors spend?

No. The report shows relative visibility metrics such as impression share and overlap rate, not spend, bids or budgets. You can only infer investment from how visible a competitor is.

Why does a competitor appear that I have never heard of?

Any domain bidding on the same keywords appears, including resellers, comparison sites, marketplaces and affiliates. These advertisers can be significant competitors in paid search even if they are not direct business rivals.

What is a good impression share?

It depends on goals and budget. For branded campaigns, aim for 90 percent or higher. For competitive generic campaigns, profitable accounts often sit between 40 and 70 percent, because chasing the last impressions can be very expensive.

Do I need a minimum budget to use the report?

No minimum budget is required, but the report needs enough impressions to show competitor data. Very small campaigns or narrow date ranges may show few or no competitors, so widen the date range if the table looks empty.

How often should I check auction insights?

Review it monthly as routine, and immediately whenever cost per click, impression share or conversions change sharply without an obvious internal cause.

Why is my own domain listed in the report?

The report includes your own row labeled “You” so you can compare your metrics directly with each competitor in the same table.

Does auction insights work for Display and YouTube?

No. The report is available for Search and Shopping, and for the Search and Shopping parts of Performance Max. Display and video campaigns use different reporting.

Can I see auction insights for a single keyword?

Yes. Select one or more keywords in the keywords view and open the report from there. Keyword-level data is useful for your most expensive terms, though low-volume keywords may not have enough data to show results.

Does the report include organic competitors?

No. It only covers paid ads in the same auctions. A competitor that ranks well organically but does not advertise will not appear, so pair it with organic research to see the full search landscape.

Where can I learn the official definitions?

Full definitions of every metric are published of every metric in the Google Ads Help Center, including its guide to ad rank and quality, which explains why some competitors win auctions at lower bids.