Competitor analysis in contextual advertising of Google Ads PPC

Sooner or later, every business faces the need to analyze its advertising expenses, market share, and growth rate. Competitor analysis in Google Ads touches on all of these key areas.

These are simple yet crucial questions when analyzing competitors in paid search advertising. In this article, we’ll focus specifically on Google Ads.

Let’s make one thing clear—there’s no tool that will instantly give you all your competitors’ information at the push of a button. Many of the details are locked inside the advertiser’s account and cannot be accessed without their permission, aside from the data available via services connected to the account, such as Google Analytics or Data Studio.

So how can you gather this valuable competitor information?

You can obtain it through indirect and external analysis, but it requires a professional who understands analytics. Let’s dive into the details!

➊ Search ads

1.1 Ad copy and focus

The completeness of an ad is one sign of a well-optimized account managed by an agency.

Focus refers to the key selling point of an ad—whether it emphasizes low prices, quality, or speed. Each advertiser has a unique message they want to communicate to their target audience. We often refer to this as a "concept".

You can see thousands of examples by entering any search query. It’s not hard to spot the difference between a well-crafted ad

...and a less appealing one.

Poorly designed ads tend to be thrown together quickly, without much thought. The difference is often visible at a glance.

* Additionally, in 2023, Google launched its Ads Transparency platform (adstransparency.google.com), which lets you check active ads for a particular website and see who is paying for them. Simply enter the advertiser's name and get results. Here’s an example of what that might look like:

1.2 Targeting algorithms

It’s essential to understand how your competitor is advertising—are they using automated or manual targeting? How detailed are their ad groups?

For example, let's consider the query "flat construction". If we simply enter "flat construction" - it's not interesting, everything is displayed. But if with some extraneous words, we get a picture of the budget drain.

Or, for example, we add an incomprehensible city from search suggestions to the query. We immediately get a list of those who do not correctly manage the context.

By analyzing these combinations, you can reveal inefficient ad spending.

Another important factor is the frequency of ad impressions and the average position of a specific ad. If a company consistently appears in the same position, it suggests they have a strong bidding strategy and a balanced budget. We have our own system for setting the most optimal bids without overspending, but that’s a conversation for another time.

1.3 Auction insights and budgets

If you’re already running ads, you can gather a lot of data from auction insights about your competitors:

Key metrics to pay attention to.

• Impression share: the percentage of auctions you won against competitors.
• Overlap rate: the percentage of auctions where your competitors also participated.
• Position above rate: the percentage of auctions where a competitor’s ad appeared above yours.
• Top of page rate: the percentage of impressions in the top 4 positions.
• Absolute top of page rate: the percentage of impressions in the top 1 position.
• Outranking share: the percentage of times your ad appeared higher than a competitor’s ad.

Based on these analytical data, we can conclude:

• how much higher the competitor's budget is;
• the degree of uncovered queries;
• how much higher the rates are.

We will talk about rates in the next block.

1.4 Cost per click (CPC)

Besides the metrics above, you can also look at:

• Lost click share due to ad rank;
• Estimated first page bid;
• Estimated top of page bid;
• Estimated bid for the absolute top position.

All of these metrics are available in your account and provide insights into competitor spending and strategy.

1.5 Search remarketing

By manually browsing your competitors’ sites and then entering related queries, you can check if their ads follow you around, which suggests they’ve set up remarketing campaigns.

➋ Remarketing in Google Display Network (GDN)

Remarketing in GDN is simple—if you see a banner ad from a company after visiting their website, it means they have a remarketing campaign set up.

➌ Shopping campaigns in Google Shopping

Google’s Shopping campaigns are constantly evolving. Competitor price analysis is now available at the Merchant Center level, though this feature is still in testing. Some data are already starting to appear.

These are the basic aspects of competitor analysis in Google Ads that can be done manually, without the need for special tools. With a clear goal and sufficient time, you can gather a lot of valuable information.