Auction Insights Analysis

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Intermediate

Basic ML concepts helpful

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Static Playbook

Static guide & reference tables

A Rare Window Into Competitive Reality

Most of Google Ads reporting tells you about your own account in isolation. The Auction Insights report is the exception — it shows how you stack up against other advertisers competing in the exact same auctions, using six metrics: Impression Share, Overlap Rate, Position Above Rate, Top of Page Rate, Absolute Top of Page Rate, and Outranking Share. It's available at the keyword, ad group, campaign, or account level.

Metric	What It Tells You
Impression Share	% of eligible auctions where your ad actually showed
Overlap Rate	% of your auctions where a specific competitor also showed
Position Above Rate	% of shared auctions where that competitor ranked higher than you
Top of Page Rate	% of your impressions that appeared anywhere above organic results
Absolute Top of Page Rate	% of impressions in the very first ad position
Outranking Share	% of auctions where you showed and ranked higher, or showed when they didn't

Reading Competitive Pressure Correctly

A rising Overlap Rate with a specific competitor combined with a rising Position Above Rate for them tells you they're intensifying bids or improving Quality Score against your shared keyword set — a leading indicator before you see it show up as rising CPCs in your own cost reports. This makes Auction Insights a useful early-warning system, not just a retrospective scorecard.

Impression Share Lost to Budget vs Rank

Google Ads separately reports 'Search Lost IS (budget)' and 'Search Lost IS (rank)' at the campaign level — these aren't part of the Auction Insights table itself but should always be reviewed alongside it. A high Overlap Rate with competitors plus high Lost IS (rank) means you're being outbid or out-relevance'd; high Lost IS (budget) means you're capped by spend, not competitiveness, and the fix is budget, not bidding or creative.

auction_insights_trend.sql

sql

-- Trend a competitor's overlap and position-above rate over time
-- (requires Auction Insights data exported via Ads Data Transfer / API)
SELECT
  segments_date,
  competitor_domain,
  overlap_rate,
  position_above_rate,
  top_of_page_rate
FROM `project.google_ads.auction_insights_domain`
WHERE campaign_name = 'Brand_NonBrand_Core'
  AND competitor_domain = 'competitor.com'
ORDER BY segments_date

What Auction Insights Can't Tell You

The report only shows domains that compete in auctions where you *also* participated — it has no visibility into competitors who are winning auctions you're not even bidding on, or who've expanded into keyword territory you haven't touched. It's a relative, not absolute, competitive picture. Pair it with keyword gap analysis tools (third-party SEM platforms, or manual SERP review) to see the fuller landscape.

Domain-Level Masking at Low Volume

At low auction volume, Google aggregates or omits some competitor rows to protect data reliability, which means small accounts or niche keyword sets often get a sparse, less actionable Auction Insights table. Don't over-interpret noisy data from low-volume campaigns.

What's Next?

Competitive auction dynamics on the search side are mirrored by equivalent dynamics in analytics: knowing how your own funnel behaves is the next piece of the puzzle, starting with how GA4's funnel exploration tooling reveals where users actually drop off.

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