Auction Insights can offer valuable data, but it has notable limitations that can hinder your strategic decision-making. By focusing only on overlapping search terms and lacking integration with reporting tools, it offers an incomplete picture of your competitive landscape.
Key limitations of Auction Insights:
Overlapping terms only: The data in Auction Insights can provide a skewed view of your competitors’ overall strategy, as it only shows search terms where both you and your competitors have bid. Even for the same terms, the data is limited to times when you’ve overlapped with them in the auction.
Limited visibility of competitor activity: You can only access Auction Insights for auctions where you’re involved, which means you might be missing important insights about your competitors’ behavior on those terms when you’re not present in the auction.
No Looker Studio integration: The lack of Looker Studio integration for Auction Insights means that reporting now takes more time, as it’s harder to seamlessly integrate this data into your existing reports and dashboards.
Impression share threshold: Auction Insights has a minimum 10% impression share threshold for your own activity. If your impression share falls below this threshold, the data won’t appear in your report, limiting your ability to fully assess your performance. Therefore, while it may seem like you have a full view of the competition, a significant amount of critical data remains hidden.
(Venn diagram showing limited terms you actually get to see in Auction Insights)
What you can do about it
Here’s how Adthena can help you bridge that gap and drive more impactful results.
1. See terms your competitors appear on
With Adthena, you can identify where your competitors are bidding, but you aren’t. This includes prospective terms for categories you want to compete in, to ensure you can successfully launch new activity
For example, PrettyLittleThing leveraged Adthena’s competitive insights to identify exactly which search terms their competitors were targeting, enabling them to connect with consumers who were ready to buy. This approach allowed them to appear on 1,400 additional terms with text and shopping ads compared to the previous year, resulting in a 47% increase in share of clicks on generic text ads and a 225% increase in Google Shopping ads year-over-year.
“Search is the channel we rely on to drive lower-funnel decisions that bring in new revenue. With Adthena’s data, we were able to increase share and appeal to our trendy, fashion-forward customers who are already in the market for our products. We now use Adthena for intel in six of our markets globally – and as we expand, we’ll continue to look to Adthena for insights.” — Matt Holmes, Head of Digital Marketing, PrettyLittleThing
2. See the full competitive landscape
Unlike Auction Insights, which only provides insights on terms where you overlap with competitors, Adthena offers visibility into what happens when you’re not in the auction to get full visibility on what is happening in the market. This enables you to identify market opportunities and observe terms of interest, helping you to effectively compete in new categories.
For example, Journey Further obtained a market-wide view of their client’s performance relative to category competitors. As a result, they delivered a 97% increase in revenue from Google Shopping campaigns and a 27% increase in impression share. Additionally, the return on ad spend (ROAS) grew by 38%, making the client’s shopping campaigns a big success.
“Adthena gives us visibility into our entire market, and that has been a tremendous help for our Google Shopping campaigns. We had a hunch that we could be doing more on Google Shopping, but without the right data, it was hard to see how. By using Adthena, we’ve been able to see exactly how we rank against competitors, where we can become more aggressive, and how we can drive more revenue from our campaigns.” — E-Commerce Manager at Home Furnishings Retailer
3. Enhanced performance metrics
Adthena provides metrics for search term performance that Google doesn’t; metrics like Avg. Position, Share of Spend, Share of Clicks, and Share of Impressions – for you and all of your competitors. By using these insights, you can evaluate and benchmark the performance of your campaigns vs competitor campaigns, and make more informed optimization decisions to secure a better ROI
For example, Dentsu achieved a 360% increase in demand and a 140% increase in traffic for their client during Black Friday by using Adthena’s insights. They identified that a top competitor reduced its budget in the Image and Micro categories while offering lower discounts. This allowed Dentsu to increase spending strategically, resulting in a 37% increase in impression share and significant revenue growth during this competitive period.
“Thanks to strategic insights from Adthena, we’ve been able to identify our best compared to our competitors, allowing us to increase our revenue during the most important month of the year. This would not have been possible to do in a timely manner without the help of Adthena, which also saves us time.” — Celia Rosado, Paid Search Analyst, and Rubén Fernandéz-Avilés, Paid Search Manager
4. Unlock insights for shopping and PMax campaigns
If you’re running Google Shopping or Performance Max (PMax) campaigns, the lack of granular data can be frustrating. Adthena fills that gap, offering product-specific data on impressions, ad listings, and prices seen in your ads, and the ads served by your competitors.
You can build a view like this for your competitive metrics (Share of Impressions, Clicks, Spend & Avg. Position). For you and all of your competitors.
(Key competitive metrics for a Google Shopping or Performance Max (PMax) campaign in the Adthena app)
For PMax campaigns, you’ll have visibility into extra search terms that trigger your ads, which Google often fails to provide, as well as a search term report for terms specifically triggering your shopping ads, which Google currently doesn’t provide any visibility on, unless you have a Standard Shopping campaign.
This transparency allows you to fine-tune your campaigns by optimising your shopping feed, text ads, negative keywords, and more.
For example, VodafoneZiggo aimed to enhance their PMax campaigns and drive more revenue. By leveraging Adthena’s insights, they identified terms that were driving up costs and increased spending on non-brand terms by 45%, resulting in a 70% boost in impression share and a 500% increase in orders. They also paused spending on five “Lone Ranger“ terms, saving five figures annually.
“The valuable insights we get from Adthena are simply unavailable elsewhere. Adthena shows us not only where we have opportunities to bring in more sales and revenue, but also where we can save money. It helps ensure that every hour and Euro we invest in paid search is spent wisely.” — Jerry Jacobs, Paid Search Lead
5. Streamline reporting with seamless integrations with Looker Studio
Adthena integrates directly with tools like Looker Studio, providing a seamless way to incorporate detailed competitive data into your reports. This means your reporting will be more comprehensive, allowing you to showcase a complete picture of campaign performance to stakeholders, without missing out on crucial data.
(Example of the Adthena Performance Dashboard integrated with Looker Studio.)
Curious about other ways Google limits visibility into your campaigns? Check out our blog on how hidden search terms are impacting your google ads to learn how much of your ad spend could be slipping through the cracks.
Take back control with Adthena
By leveraging Adthena’s powerful search intelligence platform, you’ll gain a competitive edge. With a comprehensive view of the competitive landscape and robust metrics, you can optimize your campaigns with confidence and maximize your ad investment.
Regardless of your industry, Adthena empowers you to tackle your biggest digital marketing challenges, save money, and enhance ROI and conversion quality. Our AI-driven technology offers a comprehensive view of your search landscape, guiding you toward paid search success.
Discover how the Adthena platform can help you make smarter, data-driven decisions.
