PPC competitor analysis: who bids, on what, and why

A PPC competitor analysis answers five questions: who bids against you, on which keywords, with what message, sending people where, and with what offer. Three of those you can answer for free from Google's own tools. The keywords need a paid tool, and its answer is an estimate.

The step most analyses skip is the last one: turning what you found into bid, copy and landing page changes. That is the only part that pays for the time, so it gets a full section below.

Step 1: find who actually bids against you

The rivals you think about and the rivals in your auctions are rarely the same list. Paid search pulls in directories, marketplaces, comparison sites and businesses from the next town over.

Auction insights. In your Google Ads account, select a campaign and open Auction insights. It lists every domain competing in the same auctions, with overlap rate (how often their ad showed when yours did) and position above rate (how often they sat above you). Rank competitors by overlap rate. How to read auction insights covers every column.

The Ad preview and diagnosis tool. Under Tools, then Troubleshooting, in Google Ads. Run your 20 most valuable keywords through it and note who appears and in what order. Google says it shows the live results without adding impressions to your account, so it is better than searching yourself.

Without an account. Search your main terms in a private browser window, from the location you sell to, and write down the advertisers. Do not click their ads.

The output of step 1 is a short list: three to five domains, ranked by how often they meet you in the auction.

Step 2: estimate which keywords they bid on

Google does not publish anyone's keywords. Paid tools estimate them by sampling search results and recording which domains appear in the ads.

Keyword Planner in Google Ads is the free starting point. Its "start with a website" option suggests keywords from a competitor's site. That is what Google thinks their site is about, not what they bid on, but it is a decent list to check.

SpyFu and Semrush show estimated paid keywords, positions and past ad copy for any domain. Semrush says its Advertising Research tool shows a domain's paid search competitors and keywords, with ad examples going back to 2012. Prices below were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 4 October 2026.

Treat the output as a list of hypotheses. A keyword a tool says a rival bids on is worth testing only if it also fits your search terms report and your margins. For how the two tools compare in depth, see SpyFu vs Semrush.

Step 3: read what their ads say

Search each competitor's domain in the Google Ads Transparency Center, set the region to your country and filter the format to text for search ads. Our Transparency Center guide covers the filters.

For each competitor, record the same five things:

Then look for the ads that have run longest. An ad that has been live for months is one that works for them, because nobody funds a losing ad that long. That is the message you are actually competing with.

Step 4: follow the clicks to their landing pages

The display URL in a text ad usually tells you the page. Open each one and note:

• Dedicated page or homepage? A dedicated page per ad group is a sign of a well-run account.
• Form length. Count the fields. Shorter forms tend to bring more leads with less detail in each.
• Phone number. Prominent, clickable, or buried?
• Price on the page. Stated, hidden behind a quote, or "from".
• Does the page keep the ad's promise? If the ad says "same-day" and the page does not, that is a weakness you can exploit.

To see how those pages have changed over time, the Wayback Machine keeps old versions of most of them.

Step 5: compare the offers

Put their offers next to yours in one table: trial length, discount, guarantee, price, contract terms. In paid search the offer often decides the click more than the bid does. If a rival's ad offers a free trial and yours offers a demo call, you are likely to pay more per lead however good your Quality Score is.

Offers change. Monitoring competitor pricing covers how to catch it when they do.

Step 6: turn the PPC competitor analysis into changes

This is where the analysis earns its keep.

Bids. On your best-converting terms, where a rival has high overlap and a rising position above rate, decide with your own cost per lead whether the top spot is worth it. Improve ad relevance and landing page experience before you raise bids. Where overlap is low, leave it.

Copy. Do not copy their headlines. Say what they do not. If every rival leads with "free quote", lead with your price or your response time. If none show reviews and you have good ones, put the rating in the headline.

Keywords. Test the two or three estimated competitor keywords that fit your business and are missing from your account. Give them their own ad group and a fixed budget.

Landing pages. Match the promise in your ad, and beat their form if theirs is long.

Your brand name. If a rival appears in your brand campaign's auction insights, they are bidding on searches for you. Bidding on competitor keywords covers how to respond.

Write each change down with the date. Next quarter's analysis should start by checking whether they worked.

Doing the monitoring part every week

The full analysis is a quarterly job. The part that goes stale fastest is step 3: rivals launch new ads all the time.

Ours, so judge accordingly. Figo reads the Google Ads Transparency Center for each competitor once a week and emails you when new ads appear, with the copy and the landing page. It also watches their pricing pages and new pages on their site, which covers much of steps 4 and 5. It does not estimate keywords, bids or spend, and it does not read your auction insights, so if keyword-level PPC research is what you need, SpyFu or Semrush is the right purchase. Plans start at $49 a month for three competitors.