Auction Insights

Auction Insights is a report that compares your impression share, overlap rate, and position against the other advertisers competing in the same auctions as you.

You want to know who you are actually up against, and Auction Insights is the one place Google shows you. It lists the domains bidding on the same searches and puts numbers next to each one, so instead of guessing who keeps outbidding you, you can see the names and how often they turn up.

You read it through a handful of columns. Impression share tells you how often you showed out of the times you were eligible. Overlap rate shows how often a rival appeared when you did. Position above rate and outranking share tell you who is landing higher in the auction. Watch these over weeks and you can spot a competitor ramping up spend or a new entrant crowding your space before it shows up in your own results.

Read it for what it is. The report shows you who you face and how often, but not their strategy, their budget, or whether any of it is profitable for them. Take it as directional competitive context, not a playbook of moves to copy, because a rival with high impression share might be quietly losing money to get it.

It tells you who is in the room, not how to win it.