Understanding competitive performance in Google Ads

Understanding your competitive position in Google Ads helps you make strategic decisions about bids, budgets, and market opportunities. ConvertMate provides auction insights and impression share data to reveal where you stand against competitors and where you're losing potential traffic.

Before you start

You need:

• Active Google Ads campaigns with at least 2-3 weeks of data
• Reasonable impression volume (competitive data requires minimum thresholds)
• Connected Google Ads account in ConvertMate
• Starter plan or higher

Low-volume campaigns may not show competitive data due to Google's privacy thresholds.

Why competitive insights matter

Competitive analysis reveals:

Where you stand - Your market position relative to other advertisers in your space. Budget opportunities - Whether you're losing impressions due to budget constraints or low ad quality. Competitive threats - Which advertisers compete most directly with you for the same audience. Growth potential - How much more traffic is available if you increase budgets or improve quality. Efficiency gaps - Whether competitors are winning on bids or quality scores.

This data helps you decide where to invest more aggressively and where to pull back.

Analyzing auction insights

Auction insights show how your ads perform compared to competitors:

To view auction insights:

1. Go to Insights → Google Ads
2. Select Auction insights
3. Choose your date range
4. Optionally filter by campaign
5. Click Analyze

This costs 15 credits and takes 15-20 seconds.

Understanding auction metrics

For each competitor domain, you'll see:

Impression share - The percentage of times this advertiser's ads showed out of total eligible auctions. You can't see absolute numbers, only percentages. Higher percentages mean more visibility. Overlap rate - How often this competitor's ad showed at the same time as yours. High overlap means you're fighting for the same keywords and audiences. An overlap rate of 50% means half the time your ad shows, theirs does too. Position above rate - When both ads showed, how often the competitor ranked above you. High rates indicate they're winning on quality score, bids, or both. If a competitor is above you 80% of the time, they're clearly outbidding or outperforming you. Top of page rate - Percentage of time this advertiser appeared in top positions (above organic results). Top positions get most clicks but cost more. Competitors with high top-of-page rates are investing heavily. Absolute top of page rate - Percentage showing in the very first ad position. Position 1 gets the most attention but doesn't always have the best ROI. Outranking share - How often you ranked higher than this specific competitor. Above 50% means you're winning more than losing. Below 50% means they're usually beating you.

Interpreting competitive patterns

Dominant competitor:

• High impression share (60%+)
• High top of page rate (70%+)
• Position above rate over 70%

This competitor has significant budget and likely high quality scores. They're the market leader you need to consider carefully when planning strategy.

Direct competitor:

• High overlap rate (50%+)
• Position above rate around 50%
• Similar impression share to you

You're evenly matched. Small improvements to quality score or bid increases can shift the balance.

Weak competitor:

• Low overlap rate (below 30%)
• When you overlap, you usually rank above them
• Lower impression share

Not a major threat. They either target different keywords, have limited budget, or poor quality scores.

New competitor:

• Recently appeared in auction insights
• Growing impression share
• Increasing overlap rate

Monitor closely. New entrants often indicate market opportunity attracting investment or a competitor expanding into your space.

Declining competitor:

• Decreasing impression share over time
• Falling top of page rate
• Growing outranking share favoring you

Potentially leaving the market or reducing spend. Opportunity to capture their traffic.

Impression share analysis

Impression share reveals how much potential traffic you're missing:

To view impression share:

1. Go to Insights → Google Ads
2. Select Impression share
3. Choose your date range
4. Select level (campaign or ad group)
5. Click Analyze

This costs 8 credits.

Understanding impression share metrics

Search impression share - The percentage of impressions you received out of total impressions you were eligible for. If you have 40% impression share, your ads showed for 40 out of every 100 opportunities. The other 60% went to competitors or no one. Search lost impression share (budget) - Percentage of times you didn't show because your budget ran out. If this is 30%, you're losing 30% of potential impressions because you hit daily budget limits. Solution: increase budget. Search lost impression share (rank) - Percentage of times you didn't show because your ad rank was too low. If this is 25%, you're losing 25% of potential impressions because competitors had better ad rank. Solutions: increase bids, improve quality scores, or both. Display impression share - Same as search impression share but for Display Network campaigns. Display lost impression share (budget) - Budget-related losses for Display campaigns. Display lost impression share (rank) - Rank-related losses for Display campaigns. Top of page rate - How often you appeared above organic results. Absolute top of page rate - How often you showed in position 1.

Diagnosing impression share issues

High budget loss (30%+), low rank loss:

Your ads are good enough to show, but you run out of budget before the day ends. This is the easiest problem to fix but requires more money.

Actions:

• Increase daily budget
• Reduce bids slightly to make budget last longer
• Pause underperforming campaigns to reallocate budget
• Improve conversion rates to justify higher budgets

High rank loss (30%+), low budget loss:

You have budget available but lose auctions because competitors have better ad rank. This indicates quality or bid issues.

Actions:

• Increase bids to improve ad rank
• Improve quality scores (better ads, landing pages, relevance)
• Add ad extensions to improve expected CTR
• Review keywords for relevance
• Test new ad copy

High budget loss and high rank loss:

Both budget and quality/bid problems. You're constrained by money and by competitive position.

Actions:

• Focus on highest-performing campaigns first
• Pause or reduce budget on poor performers
• Improve quality scores to make budget go further
• Prioritize quick wins (quality score fixes cost nothing)
• Consider whether this market is viable with current resources

Low impression share with low loss:

You're showing for most searches you could win, but overall impression share is low because you're not eligible for many auctions. This usually means limited keyword targeting or narrow geographic/demographic targeting.

Actions:

• Expand keyword list
• Broaden match types
• Expand geographic targeting
• Review audience exclusions
• Consider if low search volume is fundamental market constraint

Competitive response strategies

Against dominant competitors:

Don't try to outspend giants. Instead:

• Target long-tail keywords they might ignore
• Focus on specific geographic markets
• Emphasize unique value propositions
• Build remarketing lists (you don't compete on price for remarketing)
• Improve quality scores for better efficiency
• Find niche segments they don't serve well

Against direct competitors:

Small improvements matter when you're evenly matched:

• Incremental bid increases (5-10%)
• Quality score focus (can be deciding factor)
• Better ad extensions
• Landing page optimization
• Test different ad copy angles
• Claim abandoned search terms they might miss

Against weak competitors:

Opportunity to dominate:

• Increase impression share by 20-30%
• Bid more aggressively
• Capture their search terms
• Build brand presence while they're weak
• Lock in top positions

Against new entrants:

Monitor and respond:

• Don't panic over short-term changes
• Assess whether they're here to stay or testing
• Maintain your quality score advantage
• Review whether they found keywords you're missing
• Strengthen remarketing to keep existing customers

Budget allocation decisions

Use impression share data to allocate budget:

High impression share (70%+), profitable:

• Maxed out this market opportunity
• Incremental spend won't help much
• Focus on quality and conversion optimization
• Consider expansion to new markets or keywords

Medium impression share (40-70%), profitable:

• Room for growth
• Increase budget by 20-50%
• Monitor whether cost per conversion stays stable
• This is the sweet spot for scaling

Low impression share (below 40%), profitable:

• Significant growth opportunity
• Budget constraint or ranking issues
• High priority for budget increases
• Could potentially double or triple traffic

High impression share, unprofitable:

• You're capturing most available traffic but losing money
• Problem is conversion rate, landing pages, or product-market fit
• Don't increase budget - fix profitability first
• Lower bids or pause until profitable

Low impression share, unprofitable:

• Either small market or fundamental issues
• Don't increase budget
• Fix profitability issues first or exit market

Quality score impact on competition

Quality score has multiplier effects:

Quality score of 10 vs. 5:

• You can bid 40-50% less and achieve same position
• Your cost per click is significantly lower
• You show more often with same budget
• Better positions at same cost

This means:

• 1-2 point quality score improvement can match a 20-30% bid increase
• Focus on quality score when budget-constrained
• Quality score improvements help you compete with bigger spenders

Actions to improve quality score:

• Write ads that include keywords
• Ensure landing pages match ad promise
• Improve landing page speed (under 3 seconds)
• Add relevant ad extensions
• Increase CTR through compelling copy
• Organize keywords tightly in themed ad groups

Geographic competitive analysis

Run impression share and auction insights by location to find:

Underserved markets - Locations where you have low impression share but competitors are also weak. Easy wins with moderate budget increases. Overcompetitive markets - Locations where multiple strong competitors make it expensive to compete. Consider whether ROI justifies investment. Emerging markets - New areas showing growth but not yet saturated. Get in early before competition increases. Defensive positions - Your strongest locations where competitors are trying to enter. Protect these markets with adequate budget.

Compare cost per conversion across locations weighted by competitive intensity. Sometimes cheaper to win more customers in a more competitive market than fewer customers in an uncompetitive one.

Seasonal competitive shifts

Competition varies by season:

Peak seasons (holidays, events):

• More advertisers enter market
• Impression share typically drops for everyone
• Cost per click increases 50-300%
• Budget constraints hit harder
• Plan budget increases months in advance

Off seasons:

• Some competitors pause or reduce
• Opportunity to gain impression share
• Lower costs
• Build brand presence when cheaper
• Test and optimize for next peak season

Event-driven spikes:

• Industry events, news, trends cause temporary increases
• Impression share may drop suddenly
• Usually temporary - don't panic
• Maintain position through short spikes

Track year-over-year competitive patterns to predict and plan for changes.

Combining competitive and performance data

Most powerful analysis combines competitive positioning with performance:

High impression share + high ROAS = winning:

You're dominating a profitable market. Maintain position, defend against new entrants, consider expansion.

Low impression share + high ROAS = opportunity:

You're profitable but not capturing most available traffic. Prime candidate for budget increases.

High impression share + low ROAS = market problem:

You're visible but not converting or paying too much. Fix profitability before increasing presence.

Low impression share + low ROAS = exit candidate:

Small presence and unprofitable. Unless you're early in testing, consider exiting this market.

High overlap + low outranking = competitive disadvantage:

Specific competitor beating you consistently. Analyze their ads and strategy. Improve quality score or bid more aggressively for this segment.

Low overlap + growing competitor = strategic threat:

Competitor growing in areas where you don't compete. They may be finding better opportunities. Investigate their strategy.

Taking action

Based on competitive insights:

Immediate actions:

• Increase budgets for campaigns with high budget loss and good ROAS
• Improve quality scores for campaigns with high rank loss
• Bid more aggressively against weak competitors
• Protect markets where you're dominant but seeing new competition

Short-term actions:

• Ad copy refresh to improve CTR and quality scores
• Landing page optimization to improve conversion rates
• Keyword expansion in markets with low competitive intensity
• Geographic expansion to underserved markets
• Ad schedule optimization based on competitive patterns

Long-term strategy:

• Budget reallocation from overcompetitive to undercompetitive markets
• Brand building to improve ad engagement (higher CTR = better quality scores)
• Product positioning to differentiate from competitors
• Market selection based on competitive intensity vs. profitability
• Remarketing programs to bypass competitive auctions

Monitoring frequency

Daily:

• Check for sudden impression share drops (indicates technical issues or budget exhaustion)
• Monitor active competitors list for new entrants

Weekly:

• Review impression share trends
• Track budget loss vs. rank loss balance
• Check if recent changes affected competitive position

Monthly:

• Comprehensive auction insights analysis
• Compare month-over-month competitive shifts
• Budget allocation adjustments based on competitive data
• Strategic decisions about market entry/exit

Quarterly:

• Major competitive strategy review
• Analyze seasonal patterns
• Plan budget for upcoming quarter based on competitive forecasts
• Evaluate market attractiveness considering competition

Credit costs

Competitive analysis reports cost:

• Auction insights: 15 credits per report
• Impression share: 8 credits per report

Run monthly for strategic planning, more frequently when launching new campaigns or experiencing sudden changes.

Common questions

Why don't I see competitor names, just domains?

Google only shows domains, not company names, to protect privacy. You can often figure out who competitors are by visiting the domains.

A competitor suddenly disappeared from auction insights. Why?

Several possibilities:

• They paused campaigns or ran out of budget
• Their impression volume dropped below Google's privacy thresholds
• They changed targeting to no longer overlap with you
• Seasonal change in their strategy

My impression share is only 20%. Is that bad?

Depends on context:

• In very broad, high-volume markets, 20% can represent huge traffic
• In narrow markets, 20% might indicate budget or quality issues
• Compare to competitors - if everyone is at 15-25%, you're competitive
• If competitors are at 60% and you're at 20%, that's a gap to address

What matters is profitability. 20% of a profitable market beats 80% of an unprofitable one.

Should I always try to maximize impression share?

No. Impression share is a vanity metric if you're not profitable. Better to have:

• 30% impression share at 5.0 ROAS
• Than 80% impression share at 2.0 ROAS

Maximize impression share only in markets where you're already profitable and have room to scale.

More questions? Use the chat widget in the bottom-right corner or email support@convertmate.io.