By Ken Chase, Content Specialist for Fintech & Business
Last Updated: June 10, 2025
Is your Google Ads campaign failing to keep pace with your competitors’ results? Ever wonder what they’re doing that’s helping them to consistently beat you in the search engine rankings? If not, then maybe it’s time to learn from their success so that you can achieve similar results. Fortunately, Google Ads competitor analysis can help you gain the insight you need to improve your Google Ads campaign.
Key takeaways:
So, what is Google Ads competitor analysis? Put simply, it’s a way to research your competition to learn more about how they’re conducting their Google Ads campaigns. This analysis can be performed using a variety of different tools like Auction Insights, Semrush, Google Analytics, and Google Ads Transparency Center.
By learning how to check competitors’ Google Ads campaigns, you can identify what’s working for similar businesses and use that information to optimize your own ad campaigns. Used properly, this Google Ads competitor analysis can provide insight that you can use to focus on effective ad copy, learn how to check competitors’ keywords for free, and eventually improve your campaign’s performance metrics.
Moreover, this analysis can help you to maximize your Google Ad budget allocation, leverage key industry trends, and refine your digital marketing strategy to help your Google Ads campaigns compete at the highest level.
Of course, it’s important to understand why it’s important to conduct a Google Ads competitor analysis. Fortunately, the answer is simple: it’s almost impossible to maximize your digital marketing efforts without knowing what your competition is doing. By studying your competitors’ online digital campaigns and learning from their success, you can avoid common pitfalls and enjoy greater success in your Google Ads campaign.
Once you’ve identified the best features of your rivals’ campaigns, you can adjust your ad strategies to close market gaps, make the most of your budget allocation, and make more informed marketing decisions.
Competitor analysis of rival Google Ads campaigns isn’t about copying the competition. It’s about gaining insights and learning more about what works for similar campaigns.
That knowledge can help you chart a marketing course that meets your brand needs, with standout ad copy, optimized landing pages, and the effective campaign strategy you need to enjoy higher ROI.
Below, we provide a step-by-step guide to help you learn how to use the Google Ads Transparency Center to locate your competition’s ads. Note that you don’t even need a Google account to use this feature!
The process begins when you enter a business name in the Google Ads Transparency Center. Once you enter that information, the Transparency Center will display that competitor’s online ads.
Make sure that you familiarize yourself with the Center’s features so that you can get the most out of your search. For example, you have the option to view ad copy for a variety of different ad types, including text ads, images, and video. Alternatively, you can select the “All formats” option to explore all of these different formats.
As you examine the different ads used by your rival, you can begin to identify some of the keywords that the company is using in its online campaign. You can also try to get a sense of your competitor’s advertising focus and gain insight into effective strategies that you can use in your own campaign.
The Transparency Center provides a number of useful options you can use to analyze rival Google Ads campaigns. You can filter your results by time, location, and platform to gain the insights you need about any competitor campaign.
Once you’ve analyzed your rival’s campaign, you can use a variety of Google tools to audit your own campaign’s performance. Tools like Google Ads, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics can help you identify your campaign strengths and weaknesses to ensure that you’re maximizing your results.
Google Ads includes a keyword planner tool that can help you discover new keywords to bid on and forecast your ROI based on ad spend. Google Search Console shows how your keyword rank organically. Google Analytics will look at both organic and paid traffic to show you what channels perform best for you.
You may also want to look at a Google Auction Insights report for specific keywords to provide key information about how your campaign compares to your search engine rivals. The auction insight report includes key statistics that compare your results to rivals who compete with you in Google’s keyword search result auctions.
Those statistics include information about your impression share, outranking share, overlap rate, and other vital details that you can use to assess your campaign performance. We’ll talk about those metrics in the next section.
It’s important to continue your assessment by testing your analysis results. Try to implement your rivals’ strategies and track your progress over time. Repeat your Google Ads comparison on a regular basis to help ensure that you’re continuing to keep pace with the competition.
We mentioned some key metrics earlier in this guide, so it may be helpful to explain their usefulness. In particular, let’s examine impression share and top of page rate, and how they can help you to measure success.
Impression share is a key metric that gives you insight into how visible your Google Ad really is. According to Unbounce:
“Impression share is the percentage of times your ad is shown compared to the total number of times it could be shown. It’s like a measure of how visible your ad is to potential customers. The higher the impression share, the more exposure your ad is getting.”
By learning more about your impression share, you can more effectively manage strategies that can enhance your visibility. For example, you may need to increase your ad bids to improve your impression share or broaden your target location or demographics.
Top-of-page rate is another key metric that you should examine as you’re assessing your campaign and comparing it to your rivals. According to Unbounce, top-of-page rate “measures how often your ad appears at the top of the search results page, just above the organic listings. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of your top-of-page impressions by the total number of times your ad was eligible to be shown.”
It’s vital to track this metric so that you can properly measure the success of your ad bids and make changes to improve your visibility in the search rankings. These changes can include things like:
If you’re a fan of Bing Webmaster Tools and behavioral analysis heatmaps that help you see how users use your site, then there’s good news. Microsoft Clarity now integrates with Google Ads, providing yet another tool that you can use to maximize your landing pages, and get the most out of your Google Ads account.
Of course, Google Ads Transparency Center is not the only tool that you can use to compare your Google Ads efforts with your rivals. Below, we’ll consider several of the other top online tools that can help you analyze the competition to gain the insights you need to maximize your ad campaign efforts.
Let’s begin with Semrush. This tool is one of the best ways to conduct in-depth Google Ads competitor research. Semrush provides several key tools that you can use during your analysis, including an Advertising Research Tool, Ads history tool, PPC Keyword Tool, and Keyword Magic Tool.
Semrush’s Advertising Research Tool offers important insight into your competitor’s ad strategies. Using the tool can help you to identify:
The Semrush Advertising Toolkit also includes a tool called Ads History. This helpful feature can provide the insight you need to see how the competition’s paid search results perform for any specific keyword. Using this tool, you can learn which sites regularly compete for any given keyword, and see the ads that they used each month.
This analysis can help you identify trends, assess keyword performance, and figure out which advertising strategies will yield the results you’re seeking.
Next on our list of Semrush Advertising Toolkit options is the PPC Keyword Tool. This tool can assist you as you manage your campaign creation process, helping you to identify and group keywords to optimize your strategy and results.
Finally, you can use the site’s Keyword Magic Tool to identify the best keywords for your campaign. The tool enables you to find the keywords that align with your domain goals, review average search volume for those words and phrases, and view trends.
You can also use the tool to determine the anticipated cost per click (CPC) for each target keyword, and assess the keyword difficulty. This information can help you to create more effective Google Ads strategies while maintaining control over your Google Ads budget.
Ahrefs is another tool that you can use for your Google Ads competitor comparison. This tool provides key information that you can use to see competitors’ Google Ads info, and how your rivals’ paid ads are performing. You can use this data to compare paid vs organic keyword performance to help you forecast the types of Google search results that you can expect if you rely on the same words and phrases for your site.
Ahrefs is a great tool that can help you monitor your own Google search results over time, while also keeping track of your competition’s Google Ads performance results. To learn more about this tool and how to use it, be sure to check out the Ahrefs site.
SpyFu is another tool you can use to understand competitors’ Google Ads performance. This tool can help you develop great backlink strategies, track keywords, and see a site’s Google search results ranking history.
When you’re competing for those top search engine rankings, it’s vital to keep track of your competitors’ campaigns. Conducting regular competitor analysis can help you to identify the techniques and strategies used by your rivals, providing helpful insights that you can use to refine your own Google Ads strategy. That can help you to refine your ad copy, improve customers’ landing page experience, and take your Google Ads campaign to the next level.
Should you need more help planning your Google Ad campaigns, check out ZenUp’s PPC services.
There is no precise way to use competitor analysis to learn exactly how much your rivals are spending on their online ad campaigns. That’s because Google has been tightening its data privacy protocols in response to customer demands.
However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t gain insight into your rival’s ad bidding costs. You can use Auction Insights to analyze key impression and top-of-page rates. By paying attention to how those numbers change over time, you can make some good guesses about a rival’s budgeting decisions.
There are a variety of different ways to see which ads your competitors are using in their campaigns. Obviously, a simple Google Ads search can bring up some quick search results for any company’s ads. Other tools like Google Ads Transparency Center, Semrush, and Ahrefs can help you gain even greater insight into the types of ads your rivals are relying on for their Google Ads campaign success.
Meta Ads provides the strongest competition for Google Ads. Unlike Google Ads, which focuses on search engine results, Meta Ads is focused on marketing to social media users; specifically, users on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms.
During Ken's two decades as a freelance writer, he has covered everything from banking and fintech to business management and the entertainment industry. Throughout his career, he’s been dedicated to helping individuals and companies market themselves, by providing the quality content needed to achieve their career and business goals. When he's not working, Ken can usually be found adventuring with family and friends or playing fetch with his demanding German Shepherd.
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