Last checked against Google’s documentation on 5 October 2026.
What is the auction insights report?
Google Ads auction insights is a report that compares your performance with other advertisers who took part in the same auctions as you. Google’s auction insights help page lists six statistics for Search campaigns: impression share, overlap rate, outranking share, position above rate, top of page rate and absolute top of page rate. Each row is an advertiser, identified by domain, and one row is you.
It is the only place in Google Ads where you see competitors at all, which makes it easy to over-read. Auction insights tells you who you met in auctions and how often they showed or ranked above you. It does not tell you why. Used well, it answers one question in a diagnosis: did something change in the auction, or did something change in my account?
Where to find auction insights in Google Ads
Google’s steps:
- Go to Campaigns, Ad groups or Search keywords within the Campaigns menu.
- Tick the box next to the campaign, ad group or keyword you want to analyse.
- Select Auction insights.
- If your selection mixes campaign types, choose Search campaigns or Shopping campaigns from the drop-down.
Set the date range first, and use a range long enough to have stable numbers: a week for a large campaign, a month or more for a small one. Google says you can segment the results by time and device, which is how you turn a single snapshot into a trend.
Which campaign types support auction insights
| Campaign type | Levels | Statistics |
|---|---|---|
| Search | Keyword, ad group, campaign | All six: impression share, overlap rate, outranking share, position above rate, top of page rate, abs. top of page rate |
| Shopping | Ad group, campaign | Three: impression share, overlap rate, outranking share |
| Performance Max | Campaign | Data on Search and Shopping ads served on the Search Network |
Google notes that search partners don’t distinguish between top and other positions, and are not included in the auction insights data. Google’s help page lists only these three campaign types, so don’t expect the report on Display, Video or Demand Gen campaigns.
Every auction insights metric, explained
Definitions are Google’s, from the auction insights help page; the right-hand column is how to use each one.
| Metric | Google’s definition | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Impression share | Impressions received divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive | Your row is your reach. A competitor’s row is their share of the auctions you were in, which may differ from what they see in their own account. |
| Overlap rate | How often another advertiser’s ad received an impression when your ad also received one | Who you actually compete with. 60% means they showed in 6 of every 10 auctions where you showed. |
| Position above rate (Search only) | How often the other advertiser’s ad was shown in a higher position than yours, when both were shown | How often they beat you head to head. 5% means 5 of every 100 shared impressions. |
| Top of page rate (Search only) | How often the ad was shown at the top of the page, above the unpaid search results | 100 impressions with 20 above the organic results is a 20% top of page rate. |
| Abs. top of page rate (Search only) | How often the ad was shown as the very first ad above the organic results | Who holds position one. Rarely worth chasing on its own; see the CPC section. |
| Outranking share | How often your ad ranked higher than another advertiser’s ad, or showed when theirs didn’t | Your side of the head-to-head. 20% means you won 2 of every 10 auctions you entered together. |
Top of page rate and absolute top of page rate here are the auction insights versions of Impr. (Top) % and Impr. (Abs. Top) %, which Google’s top and absolute top metrics page defines as the percent of your impressions shown among the top ads and as the very first of them. Add those columns to your campaign tables to track your own position every day without opening the report.
How to read an auction insight report
- Sort by overlap rate. The advertisers with high overlap are your real competitors in this campaign. A domain with high impression share but low overlap rate mostly shows in auctions you aren’t in.
- Pair position above rate with outranking share. For each of those competitors, position above rate is how often they beat you; outranking share is how often you beat them or showed alone. If the first rises and the second falls, they are taking position from you.
- Compare periods, never a single snapshot. Segment by time (week or month) and look at the direction. A competitor who has always held 40% impression share is part of the landscape; one who went from 0% to 40% in three weeks is news.
- Segment by device. A competitor can be strong on mobile and absent on desktop, which changes where your money is being contested.
- Go below campaign level. Run the report on the ad groups or keywords with the most spend. An account-wide view averages away the one ad group where a new competitor arrived.
Using auction insights to diagnose a CPC rise
Average CPC rose and nothing in your account obviously changed. Google’s Ad Rank page lists the competitiveness of an auction among the factors that decide Ad Rank, alongside your bid, ad and landing page quality, Ad Rank thresholds, the search context and the expected impact of assets. Auction insights is how you check the competition factor, but rule out your own changes first:
- Check your changesChange history for bid strategy, targets, bids, keywords, match types and budgets in the period.
- Check your qualityExp. CTR, ad relevance and landing page experience on the keywords with the most spend.
- Check the auctionAuction insights by week: new domains, rising overlap or position above rate, falling outranking share.
- DecideDefend the searches that convert profitably; let go of position where it costs more than it earns.
- Your avg. CPC ($)
- Competitor position above rate (÷10, %)
View as table
| Your avg. CPC ($) | Competitor position above rate (÷10, %) | |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 2.1 | 1.2 |
| Week 2 | 2.1 | 1.3 |
| Week 3 | 2.2 | 1.2 |
| Week 4 | 2.6 | 2.9 |
| Week 5 | 2.8 | 3.4 |
| Week 6 | 2.9 | 3.6 |
If a competitor did step up, your options are to pay for the position, to improve the quality side of Ad Rank, or to accept a lower position. Google’s Ad Rank page notes that when two ads have similar ad ranks each has a similar chance to win, and that the higher-ranking ad may pay more for the certainty of winning. Chasing absolute top of page is the expensive version of that. What matters is cost per conversion and return on ad spend, not position for its own sake: if your conversion rate at second position is the same as at first, the extra spend buys nothing.
Use the same comparison for any business model. An online shop compares cost per sale before and after the competitor arrived; a lead-gen account compares cost per qualified lead; a SaaS account compares cost per trial or demo. If those held steady, the higher CPC was paid back.
Using auction insights to diagnose lost impression share
Your own impression share fell. First split the loss: Google reports search lost IS (budget) and search lost IS (rank) separately, and they need opposite fixes. Our guide to lost impression share: budget vs rank explains both.
- Lost to budget rose. Auction insights rarely explains this directly. It can show that more competitors entered your auctions, which raises CPC and runs your budget out sooner, but the fix is about budget and bids, not competitors.
- Lost to rank rose. This is where auction insights helps most. If a competitor’s position above rate rose and your outranking share against them fell, they are winning auctions you used to win. If no competitor moved, look at your own quality and bid strategy target instead.
For a wider drop that also touches conversions, follow the full tree in how to diagnose a Google Ads performance drop; auction insights is one branch of it, under CPC.
What auction insights can’t tell you
- Why a competitor moved. Bids, budgets, quality and bid strategy are invisible. The report shows outcomes only.
- Small slices. Google says the report doesn’t show insights when impression share is less than 10%, and only items above minimum activity thresholds show a report at all.
- Search partners. Google excludes them from auction insights data.
- Your results. There are no clicks, costs or conversions in the report. Pair it with your own CPC, conversion rate and cost per conversion for the same weeks.
- Who the competitor is. Rows are domains. A reseller, an aggregator and a direct competitor look alike; you have to know your market.
A competitor check in five steps
- When CPC rises or impression share falls, check change history and quality columns before anything else.
- Open auction insights on the campaigns or ad groups with the most spend, segmented by week.
- List the domains with the highest overlap rate and note any that are new or rising.
- For those, compare position above rate and your outranking share against the previous period.
- Decide with cost per conversion: defend the searches that pay, and stop paying for position that doesn’t.
In Boxoo, the performance and structure agent lines up spikes and drops with the changes made in the account, using Google Ads change history, so you know whether your own account explains a move before you look at competitors. The budgets and bidding agent checks which campaigns lose impression share to budget and whether each bid strategy target fits the campaign. Each finding comes as a case with the evidence, and nothing changes until you press Apply.
Run a free Google Ads audit to see what is really driving your costs.
