Google Ads Competitor Analysis | Free Tool & Analysis Tips

This Google Ads Competitor Analysis Tool eliminates guesswork by revealing exactly where your rivals are spending their ad budgets.

All you need to do is enter a competitor’s domain to see their paid keywords, ad positions, CPC, and volume.

The data from this free tool will give you a direct view into your competitor’s strategies.

These strategies might inspire you to replicate the success of your competitor.

Or you might discover weaknesses that you can tap into and differentiate your own brand with unique messaging.

Here are a few practical ways to put our free tool to good use for your search ads strategy:

Exploding Topics Competitor Ad Analysis Tool At a Glance

Knowing the exact keywords your competitors are targeting and how much they’re likely paying for them is a crucial first step for building your own strategy.

See the Exact Terms Competitors Are Bidding On

Our tool shows you a list of your competitors’ top ads and keyword positions they’re occupying on the SERPs for those ads.

You'll see both broad match and exact match keywords they're targeting, from high-volume head terms to specific long-tail phrases.

This data shows you proven keywords that are already driving traffic and conversions for your rivals.

Although it’s easy to guess some keywords your competitor might be bidding on, it’s very useful to know the traffic share those keywords are driving.

For example, the brand name is usually one of the top keywords that brands target in their search ad campaigns.

But you might also discover competitors bidding on terms that you might not have considered.

Are they focusing on keywords associated with certain product features more heavily?

Or are they going after pricing-related keywords to draw in budget-conscious customers?

A quick review of the keywords listed here will reveal what kind of advantage your competitor is trying to win in their search ad strategy.

And you’ll also get some idea about how well it’s working out for them by looking at the estimated traffic %.

Find their Estimated Ad Spend

Knowing your competitor’s priorities is one of the best ways to figure out what’s driving their decision-making.

The traffic % combined with the keyword position of an ad helps you get some sense of your competitor’s top priorities.

If “CRM software for small business" is generating a good traffic share and ranks high, your competitor is likely spending good money on it.

At the same time, if it looks like they’re barely touching a keyword like "customer management tools”, this is probably intentional.

There’s a good chance they’ve seen strong ROI with one of those keywords and discouraging results with the other in the past.

Or they could just be bad marketers making poor decisions (which is why you can’t blindly copy any competitor).

Prioritize with Ad Rank and Search Volume Data

Search volume data prevents you from chasing keywords that look important but lack sufficient traffic

A competitor ranking #1 for a 50-search keyword might not be worth your attention, while their #3 position on a 5,000-volume term represents a significant opportunity.

The ranking and search volume data help you identify high-volume keywords where competitors have weaker positions.

These represent your best opportunities through improved targeting and bidding strategies.

Uncover CPC Estimates and Keyword Trends

Our tool shows you the estimated cost-per-click (CPC) for each keyword your competitors target.

CPC data helps you budget realistically and identify the most expensive keywords in your market.

If competitors are paying $25+ per click for "enterprise software," chasing this term will only make sense if your conversion rates are proportionally high.

These are high-risk but high-reward ad opportunities that might be worth targeting in the short-term. It can be a good idea to save these for peak sale season in your industry.

On the other hand, long-tail keywords where competitors pay only $2-3 per click can be your usual “bread and butter” terms. These will bring regular leads at an ordinary pace throughout the year.

The search trend data enables you to decide the right moments to go after certain keywords.

Tax preparation software sees CPC spikes from January to April, while fitness equipment CPC might peak in January and September.

These patterns help you time campaign launches and budget adjustments strategically.

Gauge Competition Levels

The keyword difficulty percentage is the competitiveness of search ads for your target terms. This metric estimates the difficulty level for organic positions as well as Google ads.

High-volume keywords are appealing, but they’re also often much more difficult to rank.

If you’re not a recognized brand yet, it’s wiser to stick with low competition keywords.

These are colored green (low KD%) to yellow (moderate KD%) in this tool.

Expanding Ads Analysis Beyond Basic Keyword Data

Our free tool gives you a summary of ad keyword performance for your competitors.

With that, your next step is to analyze the actual ad copies as they appear on the SERPs.

Manual Approach for Ad Analysis

You already know some of the top keywords your competitors are ranking on with search ads based on the data from our tool.

Use those keywords on Google and see what comes up.

Pay attention to:

• Headlines and descriptions of the ad
• Calls-to-action that encourage clicks
• Ad extensions like sitelinks, callouts, lead forms
• Landing page experiences after clicking

Track these ads over several days to identify patterns in messaging and positioning.

Manual analysis works well for understanding creative strategies, but it's time-intensive and provides limited keyword data compared to dedicated tools.

Ad Analysis With Tools

The Google Ads Transparency Center is a good free resource to find your competitor’s ads as they actually appear on the SERPs.

All you need to do is enter a competitor’s website. It will gather all recent Google ads for you and give you a quick preview.

The great thing is that you can also filter ad results by timeline or region. I find it most helpful to be able to view ads by different formats: image, text, and video.

If you’re looking for a specific format, you can use a filter as well.

You’ll also see if they’re using ad extensions such as sitelinks to draw clicks to their main value propositions.

That said, Google Ads Transparency Center doesn’t give you keyword data or let you click through to the landing pages your competitor is promoting.

Semrush Advertising Toolkit vs Free Tools

With our free competitor ad analysis tool, you have a glimpse of the search ad keyword data. The Google Transaprency Center shows you previews of these ads, but the keyword data is missing.

The Semrush Advertising Toolkit gives you the complete ad intelligence about your competitors in a single place: the keyword data as well as the ad copies.

It even shows you all the keywords triggering a specific ad.

Looking at the number of keywords associated with a single ad is one way to predict how aggressively your competitor is promoting certain pages.

It’s how you know those landing pages are converting well.

This is why no analysis of search ads can be complete without reviewing the messaging, positioning, and content inside the page itself.

The convenient thing about ad copy data in Semrush is that you can click these ads to directly visit the page being promoted.

That way, you can quickly gather key competitor pages worth keeping an eye on.

Lastly, Semrush offers useful filters that go beyond the simple filtering in Google Ads Transparency Center.

You can filter ads by specific product titles. This level of precise competitive intelligence is particularly useful for e-commerce stores.

Stand Out With Ad Differentiation

The Google Ads Competitor Analysis Tool above gives you immediate access to your competitors' PPC strategies.

Enter their domain, analyze their keyword priorities, and discover the opportunities they're missing.

For comprehensive competitive analysis across your entire market, upgrade to the Semrush free trial for deeper insights, historical data, and advanced competitive intelligence features.