Who here has had a notification from Google where you’ve had to authenticate your business and provide specific information to your Google Ads account? If you haven’t, you will at some stage. 

This recent update to Google’s “My Ad Centre” enhances your competitor intelligence by seeing exactly what your competitors are advertising on Google.

Previously, advertisers have been reliant on tools like SpyFu, SEMRush or other 3rd party services to gain insights into what their competition was advertising via Google ads. These tools are only somewhat helpful as they rely on sample data, and often don’t pick up meaningful results.

Now, you can do your competitive research directly on Google and analyse your competitors’ ads across search, display and YouTube. You also have the ability to filter the results by time range, location, and ad format.

How do you find your competitors’ ads results on Google:
  1. Search for your competitor’s brand name or a keyword they are likely bidding on directly in Google.
  2. Find one of their text ads, and click on the downwards pointing arrow, next to the URL in the ad.
  3. Scroll down and click on the link for “See more ads this advertiser has shown using Google”
  4. A new tab will open with all the ad intelligence you could hope for in one go. 
Rod Admatic image

You are presented with the exact ads your competitors are using right now on Google (with the ability to look back as more data flows through in the months to come).


What are your competitors doing on Google:

  1. What calls-to-action they are using as these will play a big part in their attempt to drive the target audience to convert.
  2. What offers are they currently making, as well as what products and services they prioritise.
  3. What consumer benefits, USPs, and features are they highlighting to try to convince the user to click on their ad, or even using to try further qualify users to not click on their ad (if it’s the wrong audience).

Armed with this insight (and the ability to look back) you can identify trends and detect patterns to see what your competitors are doing, and what is potentially working well for them. Over time, you should pick up on trends, and ideally anticipate their next move.

Written by Rod Russell 
CEO, AdMatic and facilitator of MA's 'Google Ads the Profitable Way' workshop