PPC Competitor Analysis: How to Analyze Your Competitors’ Ads

A PPC competitor analysis means finding out which advertisers you meet in the ad auctions, what their ads and offers say, which keywords they appear to be paying for, and where their landing pages are stronger or weaker than yours, then using that to change your own campaigns. You can do most of it for free with Google Ads Auction Insights, Google’s Ads Transparency Center and the Meta Ad Library, and add paid tools like SpyFu or Semrush for keyword estimates and ad history. No tool shows a competitor’s real bids, budgets or conversion rates, so the goal is to learn from what is public and test, rather than copy.

What a PPC competitor analysis can and cannot tell you

It can tell you who shows up against you and how often, what they promise in their ads, which offers they keep running for months (a good sign those offers work), which keywords third-party tools have seen them on, and what happens after someone clicks. That is enough to find gaps, like searches nobody is covering well, offers you could beat, or landing pages that make customers work too hard.

It cannot tell you what competitors pay per click, how much they spend in total or how many of their clicks turn into customers. Google’s own reports only show how your ads compare in the auctions you both entered, and tools like SpyFu and Semrush build their keyword and spend figures from their own data collection, so treat those numbers as estimates and look at the trend more than the exact figure.

Step 1: find out who you are really competing with

Start inside your own Google Ads account with the auction insights report, which is available for Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns (Google Ads Help). It lists the other advertisers in your auctions and compares you on these metrics for Search campaigns.

Google notes that the report needs a minimum amount of activity, does not show insights when impression share is under 10% and does not include search partners. Run it at the campaign level and again on your most important keywords, because the competitors on “emergency plumber” are often different from the ones on “water heater installation”, and B2B advertisers see the same split across product lines, as we cover in PPC for manufacturers.

The competitors that matter are usually a mix of direct rivals who sell the same thing, indirect ones who solve the same problem differently, and middlemen such as directories, lead sellers and comparison sites that bid on your searches to resell the customer. Each needs a different response, so label them as you go. If a business rarely shows up in your auctions but keeps ranking above you in the unpaid results, that is a search engine optimization question rather than an ads one, and our post on what SEO means for a business explains the difference.

Step 2: collect your competitors’ ads

Once you have a shortlist, gather the ads they are actually running. Google’s Ads Transparency Center, launched in March 2023, lets anyone search for an advertiser and see the ads it has run across Search, YouTube and Display, filtered by region, with the format and the date each ad last ran (Google).

For Facebook and Instagram, the Meta Ad Library shows all active ads any Page is running, and you can search by Page name as well as keywords (Meta). Ads that have been running for a long time are worth noting, because advertisers rarely keep paying for an ad that does not work.

As you collect ads, write down the offer in each one, such as a discount, free estimate, same-day service or guarantee, along with the call to action and any proof they use like ratings, years in business or awards. A simple spreadsheet with one row per ad is enough.

Step 3: estimate their keywords and history with research tools

Paid tools fill in what Google and Meta do not show. They are most useful for spotting keywords a competitor bids on that you have missed, and for seeing how long a campaign or ad has been running.

If you sell on Amazon, competitor research works differently, because those ads run inside Amazon’s own search results, which our Amazon PPC strategy guide covers.

When a tool shows a competitor’s keyword list, look for three things: keywords they have bid on consistently for a long time, which are probably profitable for them, keywords you are not covering at all, and keywords they stopped bidding on, which may not have worked for them either.

Step 4: compare offers and landing pages, then decide what to change

Click through to competitors’ landing pages from their live ads and compare them with yours on the things that decide whether a click becomes a lead: whether the page matches the promise in the ad, how quickly it loads on a phone, how easy it is to call or book, and what proof it shows. Our guide to PPC landing pages covers what to fix on your own pages, and the same comparison works for pages built to rank in organic search, which we explain in what an SEO landing page is.

Then turn what you found into a short list of tests. If every competitor offers free estimates and you do not, that offer is worth testing, a group of keywords nobody covers well deserves its own ad group, and a competitor who beats you on impression share only at weekends is a reason to look at your schedule and budget for those days. Change one thing at a time so you can tell what worked, and repeat the analysis every quarter or whenever your costs jump, since a sudden rise in cost per click often means a new advertiser has entered your auctions.

When competitors bid on your brand name

Finding a competitor’s ad above your own listing when someone searches your business name is common, and in most cases it is allowed. Google’s trademark policy does not restrict trademarks used as keywords, so a competitor can bid on your name, but it can restrict the use of a trademark in the ad text itself after the owner files a complaint.

The usual defense is to run a low-cost campaign on your own brand name so your ad holds the top spot, and to file a trademark complaint with Google if a competitor’s ad text uses your name. Auction insights on your brand campaign will show who is bidding on it and how often.

Questions we get asked

How do I find out which keywords my competitors bid on?

Google Ads does not show competitors’ keywords, so you need a third-party tool like SpyFu or Semrush, which estimate them from the ads they have seen. Check the estimates against the Ads Transparency Center to confirm the competitor is actually advertising.

Can I see how much my competitors spend on Google Ads?

Not precisely, because Google does not publish advertisers’ budgets or bids, and the spend figures in third-party tools are estimates, so they are best used to compare competitors with each other rather than as real numbers.

How often should I do a PPC competitor analysis?

A full review every quarter is enough for most local and small businesses, with a quick look at auction insights every month and an extra review whenever your cost per click rises sharply. Businesses in fast-moving or seasonal markets may want to check more often.

What is the best free PPC competitor analysis tool?

The best free PPC competitor analysis tool is the auction insights report inside your own Google Ads account, because it uses real auction data to show who competes with you and how often they beat you. Pair it with Google’s Ads Transparency Center for their actual ad text and the Meta Ad Library for their Facebook and Instagram ads, all of which cost nothing.

How can I see my competitors’ Google ads without affecting my account?

You can see competitors’ Google ads without touching your own numbers by using the Ads Transparency Center or the Ad preview and diagnosis tool in Google Ads, rather than searching on Google yourself. Google says the preview tool avoids accumulating ad impressions, while repeated manual searches can add impressions to your account and skew your performance data.

Should I bid on my competitors’ brand names?

Bidding on competitors’ brand names is allowed in Google Ads, since Google’s trademark policy does not restrict trademarks used as keywords, but Google can restrict their trademark in your ad text once the owner files a complaint. These clicks come from people looking for another business, so you should usually expect a lower click-through rate, keep the budget small and judge it on cost per lead.

What should a PPC competitor analysis report include?

A PPC competitor analysis report should include a labeled list of competitors, their auction insights metrics against yours, a log of their ads and offers, the keyword gaps found in research tools, a side-by-side look at landing pages, and a short list of tests you will run next. The test list matters most, because it turns the research into changes.

If you want help turning a competitor analysis into better campaigns, see our PPC services, and run our free SEO audit to see how your site and landing pages score for SEO, speed and AI search in under a minute.