Under the insights & reports section of your Google Ads account, you will see a section titled “Auction Insights.” What is this really reporting on and how is the information it contains actionable?

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In essence, the Auction Insights report is a bird's eye view into the competitive landscape of your account. It won’t give you specific information about your competitors spending habits, but it will tell you how often you are appearing in ads with them and your ad position relative to theirs.

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This is a screenshot of the Auction Insights report from our ZATO Marketing Google Ads account. You will notice several columns that the Auction Insights report gives us data on.  Let’s go through the definitions of these columns one by one.  The words in italics are the information taken directly from Google’s definitions when the column titles are hovered over.

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“Impression share” is the number of impressions you received divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive.  Eligibility is based on your current ads' targeting settings, approval statuses, bids, and Quality Scores. This number is updated once a day.  This metric essentially informs us of the percentage of time we are winning the auction and having ads that appear within the SERP.  Google also lets us know the advertisers that are appearing within these same auctions with us and the amount of impression share they get when they appear in the same auctions as the advertiser’s account.

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“Overlap rate” is how often another advertiser’s ad received an impression in the same auction that your ad also received an impression. This metric informs us of who is directly competing with us in the SERP and what advertisers ads are appearing above and below us. 

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“Position above rate” is how often another advertiser’s ad in the same auction shows in a higher position than your own, when both of your ads were shown at the same time. Position above rate builds upon the overlap rate.  In the example screenshot above, Amazon’s Ads appeared in the same SERP as ZATO’s 12.5% of the time. Of that 12.5%, 75% of the time Amazon’s Ads appeared above ZATO’s.

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Top of page rate is how often your ad (or the ad of another advertiser, depending on which row you're viewing) was shown among top ads in search results. This percentage shows the percentage of time, based on all of the impressions your ad has shown, your ad has appeared in, typically, the top 3 or 4 positions. Why do I say "typically"? Google's actual definition ties top of page placement to appearing above the organic results rather than a fixed number of ad slots, and the number of ads that show in that top section can actually vary from auction to auction. So "top 3 or 4" is a useful mental model for understanding what we're talking about, but I'd hold it loosely rather than treating it as a fixed rule.

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Absolute top rate is the percentage of your impressions that are shown as the very first ad among top ads. Use this metric to see whether changes in performance are due to changes in your ads' location.  This metric does not include data from Search Partners. Many of you may remember Google’s average position column that was deprecated many years ago.  Absolute top rate shows the percentage of time your ad was in the very first position.

“Outranking share” is how often your ad ranked higher in the auction than another advertiser’s ad, or if your ad showed when theirs did not. So, the number in this column indicates the percentage of time the account user’s ad outranked the specific advertiser (domain url) listed.

Now that we know the definitions of what Google is providing us within the Auction Insights report, how can we take that information and make it actionable?  We typically find ourselves within the Auction Insights report when something seems off - there may have been a recent performance fluctuation or maybe traffic has declined or CPCs started to rise.  The Auction Insights Report is your source to determine if new advertisers entering the auction or your position within the auction is the reason for these changes. 

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In addition to viewing these metrics for your account relative to your competitors, Google also provides some additional segmentation.  You can segment these results both by time (week, month, quarter, year, day of the week) as well as device (computers, mobile phones and tablets).  This will give you insight into where your ads appear on specific devices and enable you to see if competition is higher during certain times of the week or year.

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Because this report changes so frequently, it’s important to view it within different timeframes. Has an advertiser gained impression share recently within the auctions or has your outranking share gone down? These could all indicate greater competition, which could coincide with higher CPCs and lower visibility within the page.  The top of page and absolute top of page rate are important to note these changes as well.  If you are noticing clicks declining and your top of page rate is decreasing, then you become aware of the fact that you are losing ad rank and need to take steps to regain some of that - either through improving quality score or raising bids. 

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An Important Consideration Regarding Campaign Types

Auction Insights doesn't behave identically across all campaign types. If you're running Display campaigns alongside Search or Shopping, you'll notice that certain metrics, including position above rate and outranking share, simply don't appear for Display. So if you pull up the report for a Display campaign and find yourself wondering where those columns went, that's why and not something you need to troubleshoot.

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An Important Consideration Regarding Amazon

If you sell your products on Amazon and you see the impression share, position above rate or top of page rate on this platform increasing or the outranking share going down, you typically will also see a decline in performance on your ecommerce site that coincides with this change.  There are certain times of year (BFCM, Prime Days, etc) where Amazon will become more aggressive with its bidding.  This will drive more users to your Amazon product page as opposed to your website for purchase. In these instances, it’s important to not overspend, as conversion rates will be lower on your website than on Amazon.  Simply ride the wave and keep a close eye on this report to indicate when Amazon has lowered their bids and you can become more aggressive for website traffic once again.

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The Auction Insights Report is an indispensable diagnostic tool for any Google Ads account, providing clear data on competitive presence and ad position. By frequently analyzing metrics like Impression Share, Outranking Share, and Top of Page Rate, you can quickly identify whether performance fluctuations - such as declining traffic or rising CPCs - are due to increased competition or a loss in ad rank. While proactive steps like improving Quality Score or adjusting bids can help regain position, unique considerations, such as Amazon's aggressive seasonal bidding, may require a strategic, watchful approach to avoid overspending. Ultimately, this report offers the necessary clarity to make actionable, data-driven decisions to optimize your campaign visibility and performance.

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