What is Auction Insights?
Auction Insights is a Google Ads report showing how your performance compares to other advertisers in the same auctions, across six metrics including impression share, overlap rate, position above rate, and outranking share. It reveals who you compete with and whether you're winning, but never their keywords, budgets, or bids.
What to know in practice
- Read it as a trend, not a snapshot: a competitor whose overlap and position-above rates are both climbing is escalating pressure on your terms.
- Outranking share is the best single 'am I winning this matchup' summary, rising means gaining ground, falling means losing it.
- It can be run at account, campaign, ad group, or keyword level; the keyword level is where the real competitive insight lives.
- To research what competitors actually advertise, pair it with the Google Ads Transparency Center (for live creative) and a third-party tool (for estimated keywords).
Common misconception
Auction Insights does not expose competitor keywords or budgets. Any tool claiming to pull a rival's spend 'from Auction Insights' is selling a fiction, the report only shows comparative auction position.
Related terms
- Impression Share → Paid Media
- Ad Rank → Paid Media
- Competitor Conquesting → Paid Media