How to See Your Google Ads Competitors (Using Auction Insights)

Auction Insights in Google Ads shows you which competitors are bidding on the same keywords, how often they show up compared to you, and where you rank against them. It's free, built into your account, and doesn't require third-party tools like SEMrush or SpyFu. While those tools dig deeper into ad copy and landing pages, Auction Insights tells you what you need to know to adjust your budget and strategy.

Start by Separating Your Campaigns

Before you even open Auction Insights, you need to make sure your campaigns are organized properly. This matters because you can't analyze competition effectively if everything's mixed together.

For dealerships, that typically means separating campaigns by strategy:

• Brand campaigns (your dealership name)

• Model campaigns (specific vehicle models you sell)

• Competitor campaigns (bidding on competitor dealership names)

• Service campaigns

  
  

Your competitors aren't bidding on all these equally. Some might be targeting your brand name specifically. Others are going after model searches. Some focus on service keywords. If you run Auction Insights at the account level and lump them all together, you can’t see what's actually happening.

A competitor stealing your brand traffic is a completely different problem than one showing up for generic model searches. You need to know which is which so you can decide where to adjust budget or strategy.

Campaign list showing different campaign types separated

How to Find Auction Insights in Search Campaigns

Once you've got your campaigns separated, pick one to analyze. In Search campaigns, Auction Insights lives at the campaign or ad group level.

Here's how to access it:

1. Click into your Search campaign

2. You'll land at the ad group layer (the "gray layer" before you get to keywords)

3. Look for "Auction Insights" and click it

4. The report will load

You'll see a table showing which domains are competing against you, along with metrics that show how you stack up.

Where to find Auction Insights button in Search campaign

Understanding Auction Insights Metrics

The Auction Insights report gives you a few key metrics. Here's what they actually tell you.

1. Impression Share:The percentage of times you showed up out of all eligible searches. If you have 46% impression share, you appeared in 46 out of every 100 searches where you were eligible to show.

2. Absolute Top of Page Rate: The percentage of times you showed as the very first ad above organic results. A 54% rate means you're in the #1 position about half the time you appear.

Other metrics include:

• Position above rate (how often you rank higher than competitors)

• Top of page rate (how often you appear at the top, not necessarily #1)

• Outranking share

• Overlap rate (how often you and a competitor both show)

You can customize which columns appear based on what matters most to your strategy.

Auction Insights metrics 

How to Find Auction Insights in Performance Max Campaigns

Performance Max campaigns handle competitive data differently. Instead of "Auction Insights," you'll find it under a section called "Auction Details."

Here's where to look:

1. Click into your Performance Max campaign (like a Vehicle Listing Ad campaign for auto dealers)

2. Go to the "Insights" tab

3. Scroll all the way to the bottom

4. Find the "Auction Details" section

The report defaults to showing impression share, but you can use the dropdown to switch to other metrics like overlap rate or outranking share.

Performance Max Competitive Metrics

The metrics here work the same way as Search campaigns, but Performance Max shows them with a chart and trend line.

1. Impression Share: Same concept as Search campaigns. An 84.5% impression share means you're showing up for the vast majority of eligible searches in your target area. That's strong saturation.

2. Overlap Rate: How often your ad and a competitor's ad both show for the same search. This tells you how crowded the auction is.

3. Outranking Share: How often you appear in a higher position than a competitor when you both show. A 67% outranking share against your top competitor means you beat them in position about two-thirds of the time.

PMax auction details with chart and competitor table 

Why Campaign-Level Analysis Matters More Than Account-Level

You can run Auction Insights at the account level if you want, but you shouldn't. You won't know what your competitors are actually bidding on.

Are they targeting:

• Your brand keywords?

• Your model keywords?

• Your service keywords?

• All of the above?

Running the report at the campaign level (or ad group level for Search) tells you exactly where the competition is focused. This lets you decide whether to increase budget, adjust keywords, or change strategy for that specific campaign type—not just throw more money at the entire account.

For example, you might have 46% impression share on brand campaigns but 84% on model campaigns. That's a completely different positioning, and you'd miss it with an account-level view. One tells you competitors are stealing your branded traffic. The other tells you you're dominating model searches. Those require different responses.

How Often Should You Check Auction Insights?

Check weekly or every two weeks. That's frequent enough to catch competitive shifts before they hurt your performance.

What you're looking for:

• New competitors entering your market

• Existing competitors increasing their impression share

• Your own impression share or absolute top rate declining

This matters especially in auto dealership markets where competitors frequently adjust their bidding strategies or expand into new geographic areas. If a competitor suddenly ramps up their brand campaign against you, you want to know about it within days, not months.

What to Do Next

Log into your Google Ads account and pull an Auction Insights report for one campaign. Start with your highest-spend campaign or your brand campaign—these usually show the clearest competitive picture.

Look at:

1. Your impression share compared to competitors

2. Whether you're consistently hitting absolute top of page

3. Which competitor domains appear most frequently

Set a reminder to check every 1-2 weeks. If you see competitors creeping up in impression share or your absolute top rate dropping, that's your signal to evaluate whether you need budget adjustments, keyword changes, or ad copy improvements for that specific campaign.