Auction insights is a Google Ads report that shows which other advertisers took part in the same auctions as you, and how your visibility compared with theirs. It lists competitors by website domain alongside measures such as how often each one appeared, how often it showed above you and how often you outranked it.
How auction insights works
Every time your ad is eligible to show, Google runs an auction among the advertisers whose keywords or targeting match. Auction insights summarises those auctions over a date range you choose. For search campaigns the report includes:
- Impression share: the share of eligible auctions in which each advertiser’s ad appeared.
- Overlap rate: how often a competitor’s ad appeared in the same auction as yours.
- Position above rate: when both ads appeared, how often the competitor’s was higher.
- Top of page rate and absolute top of page rate: how often each advertiser’s ad showed above the organic results, and how often in the very first position.
- Outranking share: how often you ranked higher than a competitor, or showed when they did not.
Shopping campaigns show a shorter set: impression share, overlap rate and outranking share. At the time of writing (October 2026) Performance Max campaigns also offer auction insights at campaign level, though with less detail than search. You can run the report for a whole account, a campaign, an ad group or individual keywords, and split it by time period or device.
What the report does not show is just as important. It reveals no competitor bids, budgets, keywords, ad copy or conversion rates, and it lists only advertisers that passed a minimum level of activity. The domains are those shown in the ads, so a competitor using several sites may appear more than once.
Why it matters
Most changes in cost per click have a cause in the auction. If your costs rose in the run-up to Christmas, auction insights may show a new retailer appearing in half your auctions, or an existing rival suddenly taking the top position more often. Without the report you are left guessing whether the problem is your account or the market.
It is also the clearest way to see who bids on your brand name. Running the report on your brand campaign shows which competitors appear for searches of your business name and how often. For a UK service business in a busy area such as London, where several firms often compete for the same local searches, that visibility tells you whether a competitor campaign of your own or a firmer brand campaign is worth the cost.
Common mistakes
- Treating a competitor’s high impression share as proof they are spending more or doing better. They may have a narrower keyword set, a better Quality Score or simply different targeting.
- Reading the report for a whole account, where different campaigns and markets blur together.
- Chasing the top position against every rival, which raises costs without any evidence it brings more profitable customers.
- Checking the report once and never again. It is most useful as a trend over months.
- Assuming every listed domain is a direct competitor. Marketplaces, directories and comparison sites often appear too.
How to act on it
Run auction insights at campaign level for your main campaigns each month, and compare it with the previous period and the same month last year. Note any new names, any competitor whose overlap or position above rate has jumped, and any change in your own impression share. Then check your own data: did costs, click-through rates or conversions change at the same time?
Use what you find to decide, not to react. A new competitor in the auction might justify sharper ad copy or a better landing page rather than a higher bid. Run the report on your brand campaign quarterly to see who is bidding on your name. For context on what UK clicks typically cost, see my UK Google and Meta ad benchmarks. Reading auction trends is part of the monthly review in my PPC management service.