Smart Guide to Google Ads Competitor Analysis in 2025

Smart Guide to Google Ads Competitor Analysis

To make your Google Ads successful, it’s important to understand what your competitors are doing. What keywords are they using? What do their ads look like? How much are they spending? Learning about their Google Ads strategies can help improve your own. While you can’t see their Google Ads account directly, there are tools available to get useful insights.

This guide will show you how to research your competitors’ Google Ads campaigns and give you useful tips and strategies. You can use this information to improve your own ads. Some of the best tools for keyword research are paid, so there may be a cost involved. Advertising research tools can help you see your competitors’ ad copies, keywords, ad positions, and spending. These tools also let you track trends and learn from their performance to adjust and improve your own strategy.

What is Competitor Analysis in Google Ads?

Competitor analysis in Google Ads means studying how other businesses in your market run their ads. It includes looking at their keywords, ad content, budgets, and performance. By understanding their strategies, you can improve your own ads, make smarter decisions, and stay ahead in the competitive world of online advertising.

Why Should You Analyze Your Competitors’ Google Ads?

Keeping an eye on your competitors’ Google Ads can give you useful insights into their strategies and help you improve your own campaigns. You can find out which keywords work best for them, how they write their ads, and how they spend their budget. This knowledge can give you an advantage, allowing you to adjust your ads for better results and stay ahead in the competition.

The Reality of Watching Your Competitors in Google Ads

First, let me answer a common question we hear from new clients:

“Can I find out how much my competitors are spending and what keywords they’re using in Google Ads?”

As mentioned earlier, Google has been limiting the competitive data it shares with advertisers, much to the frustration of paid search marketers. This seems to be part of a bigger effort to limit the sharing of customer data, which means we no longer have access to detailed competitor insights like we used to.

While you’re feeling frustrated about not being able to “spy” on competitors in Google Ads (formerly AdWords), let me ask you this: Would you want your competitors to have the same ability to check on your ads?

Keep in mind, any data you can find about your google ads competitors can also be found by them about you. That’s why paid search marketers should focus on the new industry-specific competitor data we do have access to. In many cases, this data is actually more useful than knowing your competitors’ keywords or bid amounts.

Can I Find My Competitors’ Google Ads Keywords and Advertisements?

Yes, you can get a glimpse of your competitors’ Google Ads keywords and ads using tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs and Google Ads Auction Insights. The Google Ads Keyword Planner is also a helpful tool for finding keyword ideas, analyzing competition, and discovering new opportunities. These tools give you insight into the keywords your competitors are targeting and let you see examples of their ad copy. While you won’t have access to all their data, this information can help you understand their strategies and improve your own ad campaigns.

 

How Can I Find My Competitors Using Google Ads Auction Insights?

Although you can’t directly see how much a competitor is spending or which keywords they’re bidding on in Google Ads, the platform does offer a useful overview of your ad performance compared to your competitors’. You can find this information in the Auction Insights Report, available under both “Campaigns” and “Ad groups.” You can also view separate data for Google Shopping and Search.

All of this data, like overlap rate and outranking share, is useful, but our team mainly focuses on impression share.

Just to remind you, impression share is the percentage of time your ads appear on Google search results pages (SERPs). Since it’s very rare to reach 100% impression share, a share of 60–70% is considered a good result. The more google ads competitors you have, the harder it may be to achieve a higher impression share, even if you have a large ad budget.

Many things can affect your search impression share. If you’re worried about your results, we’re here to help!

Although you can’t see exactly how much your google ads competitors are spending, you can use this data to track changes over time. If a competitor’s impression share increases or decreases significantly, or if new competitors show up in the report, you can guess that they might be adjusting their budget. These changes can also help explain why your cost-per-click (CPC) is rising.

We also use competitive metrics to see how our budget is affecting impression shares. It’s normal not to be in the top position all the time (even the best ads can lose some impression share due to rank). However, if you’re losing impression share because of your budget, it means some competitors are outbidding you or have a bigger budget.

 

Effective Ways to Analyze Your Competitors in Google Ads

1. Check Google search results manually
2. Use tools provided by Google
3. Use third-party software
4. Google Shopping merchant center
5. Build your own monitoring tool

Keep reading to understand the basics of each approach.

1. Manual SERP Check

Start with a simple SERP (search engine results page) check. Choose relevant keywords for your business and search for them one by one. These keywords should be terms your customers are likely to use when looking for your products or services.

Note: Use a private browser window to avoid seeing personalized search results.

For each keyword, check its SERP. Look at the Google ads at the top and bottom of the page, and also review the organic search results. Pay attention to the businesses and advertisers running ads for the keyword you searched.

Observe the ad positioning and note if the ads include ad extensions like sitelinks, callouts, or call extensions, as these can affect how visible and effective the ads are.

Review the ad copy and messaging in your competitors’ Google Ads. Look at the headlines, descriptions, and ad extensions to understand how they present their products or services.

Look for patterns and trends in the ads you see on the SERP. Pay attention to how often specific advertisers show up for different keywords and if their messaging changes over time.

2. Official Google Tools

Google provides tools to help you see ad patterns and make better decisions for your ad campaigns.

Google Ads Keyword Planner

Google Ads Keyword Planner provides valuable insights into keyword performance, competition, and opportunities for your campaigns. You can enter a competitor’s website or specific keywords, and it will generate a list of suggested keywords along with metrics like average monthly searches, competition levels, and suggested bids.

Keywords with high average monthly searches offer a chance to reach a bigger audience if you can successfully compete for ad placement.

The competition level shows how many advertisers are bidding on a keyword, helping you understand how tough it is to rank for.

The suggested bid for each keyword shows how much you might need to bid to compete for ad placement. Higher bids usually mean the keyword is in high demand and aligns with popular search trends.

The goal is to find high-potential keywords with manageable competition that fit your advertising goals and budget.

3. Google Shopping Merchant Center

Merchant Center helps manage product data for Google Shopping ads. You can use it to check what products your competitors are listing by entering relevant keywords. Pay close attention to the keywords they target and the unique selling points they emphasize.

Pricing

Compare their pricing and promotional offers with yours. Look for discounts, free shipping, or other incentives they use to attract customers.

Ratings

See if your competitors’ products have customer ratings and reviews. Feedback can highlight strengths and weaknesses that you can learn from.

Positioning

Check where your competitors’ products show up in the search results. Note their positions compared to your products and other google ads competitors.

Visual quality

Evaluate the quality of your competitors’ product images and how they present their products visually. Clear, high-quality images and attractive presentations can boost click-through rates and conversions.

Notice which brands and sellers regularly show up in Google Shopping results for your target keywords. These are your key google ads competitors in the Google Ads space.

Regularly check Google Merchant Center to track changes in your competitors’ listings, pricing, offers, and positioning. Keep up with their strategies and adjust yours to stay competitive.

CPC simulator

Google Ads’ CPC (Cost-Per-Click) simulator helps you see how changing your keyword bids can affect your performance and costs. Simply enter a new bid amount for your selected keywords, representing the amount you’re willing to pay per click.

The simulator uses historical data and auction insights to estimate how your bid change could impact metrics like clicks, impressions, CTR (click-through rate), average position, and cost.

It displays these estimates in a table or graph, making it easy to understand. The tool also provides recommendations to help you optimize for specific goals, such as maximizing clicks, improving ad position, or achieving a target ROAS (return on ad spend).

You can test different bid adjustments to find the right balance between performance and cost efficiency.

 

4. Third-Party Tools

Ahrefs and SEMrush are two of the most popular tools for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). They offer features for competitive research, keyword analysis, and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) insights, helping you optimize your strategies.

Ahrefs:- 

 

Enter a domain

Enter your competitor’s website into Site Explorer. You’ll get details about their backlinks, paid and organic search traffic, top pages, and other important metrics.

You can also enter your own website to see the “Competing Domains” report. This shows websites competing with you in organic search. From here, you can spot potential Google Ads competitors, especially those in similar industries or targeting the same keywords.

Use Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer to find high-volume keywords your competitors target in their Google Ads campaigns. Focus on keywords with high search volume, but also consider their difficulty and potential traffic value.

Explore organic keywords

Check the organic keywords bringing traffic to your competitors’ websites. Identify the search terms they target and the topics they prioritize.

Analyze paid keywords

Use organic keywords as a starting point to identify potential paid keywords. Focus on those with high search volume and strong commercial intent that match your industry.

Evaluate backlink profile

Analyze the backlink profile to learn about your competitors’ link-building strategies and sources of referral traffic. While backlinks are mostly for SEO, they can indirectly affect the quality score and success of Google Ads campaigns.

Study top pages

Look at the top-performing pages on your competitors’ websites to see what content appeals most to their audience. Use this insight to improve your ad messaging and landing page content to better connect with your target audience.

Monitor changes over time

Keep an eye on your competitors’ websites in Ahrefs to track updates in their SEO strategies, content, or promotions. These changes can guide adjustments to your Google Ads campaigns.

While Ahrefs doesn’t give direct data on Google Ads competitor analysis, it provides valuable insights into your competitors’ online presence, search rankings, and content strategies.

 

SEMrush:- 

 

Enter domains

Use the Domain Analytics or Advertising Research tool to enter your competitors’ domain names. You’ll gain insights into their Google Ads campaigns, such as their top keywords, ad copies, ad positions, and more.

Analyze competitor ads

The Advertising Research tool shows competitors’ ad copies, targeted keywords, and ad positions. Look for any trends or patterns in how and where their ads appear.

Explore competitor keywords

Use the Keyword Magic Tool to explore the keywords your competitors target in their Google Ads campaigns. It provides data on search volume, keyword difficulty, Cost-Per-Click, and competition level for the keywords they’re bidding on.

Assess ad position and performance

Analyze your competitors’ ad positions and performance metrics like impressions, clicks, CTR (Click-Through Rate), and conversion rate. This will help you understand how successful their ad campaigns are and where they’re allocating their budget.

Study ad copy and messaging

Review the ad copies and messaging to identify unique selling propositions (USPs), calls-to-action (CTAs), or promotional offers that competitors highlight to attract customers.

Track changes over time

Keep track of updates to your competitors’ ad copies, keywords, landing pages, and promotional strategies to stay aware of any changes or shifts.

 

5. Building Your Own Ad Monitoring Tool

To track competitor ads on Google, you can create your own tool (a web scraper) using a programming language and web scraping libraries. However, this can be difficult, as you’ll need to handle tasks like making requests, extracting and parsing data, storing it, and monitoring it regularly.

Most websites have anti-bot systems to protect against unwanted traffic, so these systems can make it hard to track data. They use various methods to check if the visitor is a real person or a bot.

As a result, websites may block IP addresses that use automated tools for data extraction. To avoid this, you’ll need to use proxies and create a custom digital fingerprint.

The approach you choose for Google Ads monitoring can be manual, fully automated, or a mix of both. An automated method, like our Google Ads API, can help reduce time-consuming tasks and processes.

 

Additional Tools to Help Your Google Ads Competitor Analysis

Due to the limited data available from Google Ads competitor analysis, I recommend focusing less on individual competitors and more on the industry as a whole.

In today’s paid search environment, it’s impossible to know exactly how much your competitors are spending or which keywords they’re bidding on. However, by analyzing trends and data available for your industry, you can make educated guesses about their behavior.

My team uses these analysis tools to gain a broader understanding of the market for our clients:

1. Google Search Results

When doing Google Ads competitor research, don’t overlook the classic tool: Google’s search function. By searching your target keywords, you can see the ads that appear, including their messaging, calls to action, and overall ad copy. While you won’t see every competitor bidding on those keywords, it’s a great starting point.

For even more insights, try searching on both your phone and computer. This way, you can see different types of ads, including remarketing ads and display ads that may appear on mobile. These can give you a better idea of the kinds of ads your competitors are running.

Remember to perform these searches at different times of the day. Some companies have limited budgets and may not be running ads all the time. This will give you a basic understanding of your competitors’ Google Ads strategies and could inspire some ideas for your own ads.

2. Google Ads Keyword Planner

To get estimated keyword search volume and forecasted bid ranges, use Google Ads’ Keyword Planner tool. Just type in a keyword important to your business, and you’ll get data to help you understand search trends and what you may need to bid to have your ads show up.

A word of caution: In our experience researching search terms for clients, I’ve found that the “top of bid page” estimate in Keyword Planner can be inaccurate. For some specific keywords, I’ve had to bid much higher than the forecasted amount. While this data is useful, don’t rely on it entirely. Instead, experiment with your bids to figure out what works best for your campaigns.

Here’s a hot tip: Use Keyword Planner to find low-competition search terms. If they’re relevant to your business, make sure your brand targets these terms with exact match or phrase match keywords. While terms with 20-40 searches per month may not make a huge impact on their own, filling an ad group with these profitable keywords can boost incremental revenue and keep your KPIs on track.

3. Google Ads Campaign Target ROAS Simulator

For better budget forecasts, try using the Campaign Target ROAS Simulator. This tool looks at your current ad spend and your competitors’ actions to estimate potential growth if you adjust your budget. It calculates the total budget needed (and extra daily budget) to meet your desired Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

In our view, this data is far more useful than focusing on specific competitors. By analyzing it on an industry-wide level and considering all competitors, the Campaign Target ROAS Simulator offers the most valuable insights for growing your Google Ads accounts.

As always, don’t rely solely on this data. Test how these forecasts impact your PPC campaigns before making any major changes. ( I recommend using the Experiments feature when transitioning from one bid strategy to a Target ROAS strategy.)

Note: If your ad spends or traffic is too low, setting a high Target ROAS goal may result in lower performance. In such cases, we recommend testing a Max Conversion Value strategy instead of using the Target ROAS feature.

4. Google Merchant Center’s Price Competitiveness

The Price Competitiveness report in Google Merchant Center’s Market Insights is a useful tool for comparing your product prices with your competitors in the eCommerce industry. It analyzes your Google Shopping data feed and categorizes your prices as above, in line with, or below the industry average. Ideally, you want your products to fall into the “below industry average” category, as this can make them more attractive to potential customers.

You can dive even deeper with the Price Competitiveness report by viewing price comparisons for specific products, product types, categories, and brands. This helps you get a more detailed understanding of where your products stand in the market. By clicking on “view submitted products,” you can see how your individual product listings compare to the industry averages, giving you valuable insights to adjust your pricing strategy.

5. Google Merchant Center’s Best Sellers

Google Merchant Center also lets you view the top products in your industry, known as “best sellers,” based on your own Google Shopping feed. Although there might be some unrelated products (from competitors with a broader range), this tool helps you identify which relevant products are performing well. You can then adjust your Shopping and Search campaigns accordingly. To make the results more relevant, you can use the “category” filter to narrow down the best sellers to your specific niche.

6. Semrush’s PPC Toolkit

As I mentioned earlier, getting specific Google Ads competitor analysis data can be challenging. However, there are tools that can help fill in the gaps. One of them is Semrush’s PPC Toolkit. It offers market analysis, keyword research, and ad tracking to help you monitor your competitors. You can track their top ad positions and keywords, competitive standing, ad copy (both text and display), and more.

While this tool won’t show you exactly how much your competitors are bidding on ads, it provides valuable insights into trends and strategies they might be using, allowing you to adjust your own campaigns accordingly.

7. Ahrefs’ Site Explorer

Ahrefs is widely loved by SEO marketers, but it also offers useful tools for paid search marketers. You can use its “Site Explorer” feature to analyze a competitor’s paid search strategy. By entering the competitor’s domain and navigating to the “Paid Search” section, you’ll be able to see which PPC keywords they are ranking for, view their top ads, and identify which pages are driving the most paid search traffic. This data can help you understand their paid search strategy and inform your own approach.

8. Spyfu’s PPC Research

Spyfu allows you to “spy” on your competitors in Google Ads through its PPC Research tool, which uses data from the Google SERPs and Google Ads Planner. You can analyze a competitor’s ad spend, find overlapping keywords, and explore an “ads history” tab that shows their most profitable ads from past years.

Like Semrush and Ahrefs, the data on clicks and budget provided by Spyfu is an estimate, not something to base your entire paid marketing strategy on. Instead, use this information alongside other tools and your own insights to create a strategy that aligns with your budget and goals.

 

Best Practices for Google Ads Competitor Analysis

To stay ahead of the competition and get the most out of your Google Ads campaigns, it’s essential to follow best practices for google ads competitor analysis. By incorporating Google Display Ads best practices, you can gain valuable insights into your competitors’ strategies while improving your own ads. Let’s dive into these best practices to help you succeed in the ever-evolving world of Google Ads.

1. Embrace Google Display Ads Best Practices: Google Display Ads are a powerful way to reach a broad audience and engage potential customers. When analyzing your competitors, take note of their ad designs, sizes, and formats. Pay attention to how they use attractive visuals, attention-grabbing headlines, and strong calls-to-action. Use these insights to enhance your own display ads, making them visually appealing and focused on driving conversions.

 

1. Harness Google Ads Best Practices: Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is crucial for online advertising. To stay ahead of your competitors, it’s important to follow Google Ads best practices. This involves thorough keyword research, using ad extensions, and optimizing landing pages for relevance and user experience. Pay attention to how your competitors use ad extensions, bidding strategies, and ad scheduling. Understanding their successful tactics will help you apply them to improve your own campaigns.

 

1. Continuously Monitor and Analyze Your Competitors’ Ad Performance: Google Ads Competitor analysis is not a one-time task; it’s an ongoing process. Regularly track and analyze your competitors’ ad performance to stay updated on their strategies. Focus on key metrics like CTR, conversion rates, and ad positions to assess their success. Look for patterns and trends over time, and adjust your own campaigns based on these insights. By staying informed, you can uncover new opportunities to improve your own advertising strategies.

 

1. Stay Updated with Industry Trends and Changes in Competitor Strategies: The digital advertising world is constantly changing. To stay ahead, it’s important to keep up with the latest industry trends and your competitors’ strategies. Subscribe to newsletters, follow industry blogs, and join relevant forums to stay informed. By staying up to date, you can anticipate changes in your competitors’ tactics and adjust your campaigns before these shifts impact your performance.

 

1. Test and Iterate Based on Insights Gained from Analysis: Google ads competitor analysis is only useful if you take action. Use the insights from your research to test new strategies. Run A/B tests on ad messaging, landing page designs, and targeting options. By continuously testing and refining your campaigns, you can improve performance and stay ahead of your competitors.

 

By applying these practices to your google ads competitor analysis, you can gain valuable insights and make informed decisions to improve your Google Ads campaigns. Stay flexible, adapt to industry changes, and let your detailed analysis lead you to greater advertising success.