How do I find competitors on Google Ads?

Wondering how to find your competitors on Google Ads? There are many ways to do this and it will help you to build a comprehensive competitor list and plan your campaigns accordingly.

You’ll be able to see which ads they are running and what benefits and features they are highlighting. And this will help you to write unique ads that achieve high click through rates and good keyword quality scores.

And you’ll be able to see what keywords they are bidding on and what positions they have on average.

I’ve listed here four ways to help you find your competitors in Google Ads.

Perform a search

The quickest way to find your competitors on Google Ads, is to do a search on Google. This will bring up a list of competitors for the keywords you use to search

However, this has some drawbacks and will  not show you the full range of competitors for all your campaigns and ad groups.

Also, the results will be customised to your context and may not be a full picture of how you appear and who your competitors are. Sometimes the system shows you results that it thinks are relevant for you at that point, so the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool will show you more accurate results.

Use Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool

This tool is in your Google Ads account under Tools & Settings. It’s the best way to see how your ads are appearing and who your competitors are. And the best part is you can see it for different locations and not just where you are located.

This is far better than doing a search on Google, because that only shows you a limited number of competitors in one location.

Some advertisers for example only target specific cities or towns, and they compete with you there. So, using the Ad Preview tool will show you who they are and what positions they have in those locations.

Use Auction Insights report

This report shows the competitors you are coming up against for each of your campaigns and ad groups. And it shows your average position in the top and absolute top positions relative to other advertisers.

And you can see other metrics like the percentage share you have for the impressions you’re getting for your campaign or ad group.

This report also helps you to decide which bid strategy to use based on your findings. For example, if you want to get more impressions by appearing higher in the ad results, the Target Impression share bid strategy would be very helpful.

Competitor research tool

A good competitor research tool to use is found in the SERanking platform. This tool allows you to research all your competitors  to see if they are currently running Google Ads campaigns and how much they’re spending per month.

And you’ll be able to see what keywords they are bidding on and how much they pay per click for each of them on average.

Conclusion

There are other tools and reports that will help you find competitors, but the methods  I’ve listed above are some of the best. And that will help you to carry out competitor analysis and then setup and manage effective campaigns in Google Ads.

Get in Touch

Still need help on how to find competitors on Google Ads. Contact me below to discuss your requirements. I’m a Google Ads expert and PPC specialist with over 13 years experience in the industry.