Auction Insights
Paid MediaAlso: Auction Insights Report
Quick definition
Auction Insights is a Google Ads report that shows how your ads perform against other advertisers bidding on the same keywords. It compares metrics like impression share, overlap rate and position above rate across an anonymised list of competing domains.
How it varies across Australia
Competitive density in Auction Insights varies widely by category across the Australian market. Categories with a small number of established players show consistent overlap between the same handful of domains. Fragmented categories show overlap rates that shift week to week as new bidders enter and leave.
Explore paid media competitiveness across Australian industries →The metrics in the report
The percentage of eligible auctions where your ad actually showed.
How often a specific rival's ad showed in the same auction as yours.
How often a rival's ad ranked above yours when you both showed.
How often your ad appeared at the top of the page, above organic results.
What it actually means
Auction Insights is the closest thing Google Ads gives you to a scoreboard against rivals. Every time your ad enters an auction, Google logs whether specific other advertisers were also in that auction, and how you compared on position and visibility.
The report surfaces domains, not company names, and never shows spend. That's the trade-off. You get a real signal about who you're up against without any of the context that would explain why they're beating you or by how much.
The most useful number in the report is overlap rate, which tells you how often a rival showed up in the same auction as you. A rising overlap rate on a keyword is usually the first sign a new competitor has entered your category before you notice it anywhere else. Position above rate and top of page rate round out the picture, showing whether you're consistently losing the visible slots to the same handful of domains.
Auction Insights works best as an early warning system, not as a scorecard for click-through rate or conversion rate. It shows presence and position, not results.
Auction Insights tells you who else showed up to the fight. It does not tell you why they are winning or what they are spending to do it.
How it shows up
Auction Insights shows up as a table you pull manually inside Google Ads, sitting alongside your campaign, ad group or keyword performance. It lists anonymised competing domains with columns for impression share, overlap rate, position above rate, top of page rate and outranking share.
It also shows up indirectly whenever a new competitor enters your market. Before that competitor appears in brand searches or review sites, they often appear here first as a rising overlap rate on your core keywords.
The Australian context
The Australian market's smaller advertiser pool means Auction Insights often surfaces the same three or four domains repeatedly for a given keyword set. That concentration makes the report more diagnostic here than in larger markets where dozens of advertisers rotate through an auction. A new domain appearing consistently in an Australian category's Auction Insights is a stronger signal than the same appearance would be in the United States market, simply because there's less noise to sort through.
Where people get this wrong
Related terms
Common questions
Does Auction Insights show me who is spending more than me?
No. The report never shows spend figures for any advertiser, including you. It only shows visibility and position outcomes. Higher spend is one possible reason a rival outranks you, but quality score and ad relevance matter just as much.
Why is a competitor missing from my Auction Insights report?
Google only includes advertisers with meaningful overlap in the selected period. A competitor bidding on different keywords, a narrower audience or a lower budget can simply not overlap with you enough to appear in the list.
How often should I check Auction Insights?
Monthly is usually enough for most accounts. Check weekly during a known competitive period, like a new product launch or a seasonal push, when overlap rates are more likely to shift quickly.
Can I use Auction Insights to set my bids?
Not directly. It's a diagnostic report, not a bidding input. Use it to decide where to investigate further, then adjust bids based on your own cost per click, conversion rate and CPA data rather than the auction report alone.
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About New Rebellion
New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.
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