Competitor Insights data is very valuable to a PPC advertiser, but it isn’t always the easiest to collect and manipulate. This blog will give you a quick way to access this data for easy takeaways.
Current Methods for Analysis
Google Ads Interface
This is the most straightforward method – just pop into the interface, select the campaigns you want, then navigate to Auction Insights
The resulting report is pretty barebones. No graphs or charts, and limited segmentation options.
The Downsides
When viewing or exporting data from the interface, you cannot segment by campaign. This makes it difficult to segment your data and slice and dice. Your only option is to pre-filter the campaigns before you download the data.
Data Studio Auction Insights
Data Studio has had some updates since the last time we explored it, one of which is auction insights functionality. The major draw of using Data Studio is its ability to pull data at the campaign level. Here’s a quick snap of how I set up this report:
Once you set up the report, click “View”. Then use the dropdown menus to select the account and date range, and any specific campaigns if applicable.
Next, hover over the table until you see three dots appear in the upper right-hand corner. Click these dots and then choose “Download CSV”
Repeat the process, but for campaign data –
From here, you can simply use the filters in Excel to view and pivot data, but I like to use Google Sheets to take advantage of the Query functionality. Another reason to pull the data out of Data Studio is that while I was testing this out, I could not graph auction insights data. The final product in Sheets generates a graph of the top competitors, by week.
I like to look at lost impression share due to rank and budget to provide recommendations on increasing reach. If you’re losing a lot of impression share due to rank, take a look at your bids and quality score.
Always Double Check Your Data
I always recommend that you doublecheck your data with the interface when pulling into reports like this one. In a few cases while I was testing this I noticed that Data Studio was reporting some competitors as having 170% impression share for some weeks. When I checked Auction Insights in the interface, this certainly was not the case.
The Future of Auction Insights Reporting
I would love to see Google give us more robust reporting options directly in the Ads interface in the future. The new Data Studio capabilities is a good start, but it also has its flaws (I need graphs!). But for now – what are your favorite ways to report on Auction Insights and competitor data? Let us know @ppchero!
