How to Use Google Ads Auction Insights

The Auction Insights report reveals who you are competing against in Google Ads auctions and how you stack up. Unlike other reports that only show your own performance, Auction Insights shows the domains of your competitors and comparative metrics.

Navigate to Campaigns, Ad Groups, or Keywords. Select one or more items using the checkboxes. Click the "Auction insights" option that appears above the table. You can also access it from the Insights page in the left navigation.

Impression Share: The percentage of impressions you received out of the total you were eligible for. If your impression share is 40%, you are missing 60% of eligible impressions — either due to budget or ad rank limitations.

Overlap Rate: How often a competitor's ad received an impression at the same time as yours. A high overlap rate means you frequently compete with that domain.

Position Above Rate: How often a competitor's ad was shown in a higher position than yours when both appeared. This tells you who is outbidding or out-relevance-scoring you.

Top of Page Rate: How often your ad appeared at the top of the search results page (above organic results). Compare this to competitors to gauge your position competitiveness.

Outranking Share: How often your ad ranked higher than a competitor's, or showed when theirs did not. This is the most comprehensive competitive metric — it combines position above rate and impression share into a single number.

Identify new competitors. Check the report monthly to spot new domains entering your auctions. Research them to understand their offerings and adjust your strategy.

Diagnose impression share loss. If your impression share is declining while a specific competitor's is increasing, they may have increased their budget or improved their ads.

Inform budget decisions. If you have high impression share already, increasing budget may yield diminishing returns. If impression share is low, a budget increase could capture significantly more traffic.

Evaluate bid strategy impact. After changing bidding strategies, check Auction Insights to see how your competitive position changed.

Auction Insights only shows data for auctions you participated in. It does not show competitors who bid on the same keywords but in different time slots or locations. It shows domains, not specific ads or bidding amounts. Use it as a directional tool, not an exact competitive analysis.