To find out who is bidding on your keywords, preview the results page with Google Ads' Ad preview and diagnosis tool instead of a Google search, which can skew your stats. If you already run ads, the auction insights report lists the advertisers in your auctions. The Ads Transparency Center and ad research tools show their ads; Should I Bid also shows their landing pages.
Key takeaway: Knowing who bids on your keywords only matters if it helps you spend better: defend your brand searches first, then only pay for a competitor's keyword when its clicks can turn into your customers.
Write down your main keywords and your brand, with common variants like 'reviews', 'pricing' or 'contact'. Those are the searches where a competitor's presence matters most.
Enter each search in the Ad preview and diagnosis tool, with your customers' location, language and device. Note the advertisers, their position and their copy.
If you already run ads, select your keywords or campaigns and open the report. Spot the advertisers with a high overlap rate and the ones that often rank above you.
Check who they are in the Ads Transparency Center. Find their other keywords and ad copy in an ad research tool or in the Competitors module, which also shows their landing pages.
Prepare a complaint if your trademark appears in their ad text, after talking to a lawyer. Adjust your ads, then analyze their keywords before you bid on them.
Your first instinct is to type your keywords into Google, and that's exactly what Google advises against. In its help article on how to find your ad on Google, Google explains that running your own searches that trigger your ad can hurt its performance data, since clickthrough rate compares how often an ad shows with how often it's clicked. It adds that if you keep searching for your ad without ever clicking it, you might stop seeing it entirely: the system stops showing you ads it thinks you aren't interested in.
The Ad preview and diagnosis tool shows you the results page without adding impressions. It sits in the Tools menu of your Google Ads account, under Troubleshooting. You enter a keyword, then set the location, language and device. According to Google Ads Help, you get results similar to a search you'd run yourself, without accumulating ad impressions or affecting your performance statistics. Google says the tool shows the Google search results for that search, so you'll usually see other advertisers' ads there too, in their order and with their copy. The 'Share this search' feature lets you send the preview to a colleague or a client.
Each preview is a snapshot, so take several. It covers one search, one location, one device and one moment, and Google warns that its results may change over time. Check your main keywords on mobile and desktop, at different times of the week.
Don't click a competitor's ad to see where it goes. Google defines invalid clicks as clicks that don't represent genuine interest, including manual clicks that increase an advertiser's costs. A curiosity click teaches you nothing extra: you can find the landing page in other ways, covered further down.
An example shows what you get: an advertiser name, a piece of ad copy and a position. As an illustration, take a US company that makes custom window blinds, which we'll call Harbor Blinds (an invented name). It enters 'harbor blinds' in the tool, with the United States, English and a mobile device. The preview shows, above its own website, an ad from a competitor that also sells custom blinds. That's the starting point. What's left to find out is how long this has been going on, on which other searches, and which page the ad sends clicks to.
If you already run ads, the auction insights report is the most direct source on who you're up against. According to Google's help page, it compares your performance with other advertisers participating in the same auctions you are. It's available for Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns. To open it, go to Campaigns, Ad groups or Search keywords in the Campaigns menu, check the items you want, then select Auction insights.
Its limit comes from where it starts: it only sees auctions your ads take part in. A competitor buying keywords that aren't in your campaigns won't show up. Google also notes that the report shows no insights when impression share is below 10%, and that keywords, ad groups or campaigns need a minimum level of activity for the period. It shows neither other advertisers' ad copy nor their landing pages, and it won't help you before your first launch.
For Search campaigns, the report gives six statistics, defined by Google in the list below. You can run it for one or more keywords, ad groups or campaigns, and segment the results by time and device. Overlap rate and position above rate tell you the most: they show who keeps crossing your path and who gets ahead of you.
The Ads Transparency Center shows the ads of an advertiser you can already name. According to Google's page on ads transparency, it's a searchable repository where you look up an advertiser by its name or its website, to see the ads it has run over a period of time on Search, Display, Gmail or YouTube. You can filter results by date and targeted location. Google presents it as a way for people who see its ads to learn more about the advertisers behind them.
It doesn't tell you which keywords that advertiser is bidding on. According to the same page, Google discloses the advertiser's name, its location, the entity that pays for its ads and the ads it has run, plus targeting information in some countries. The keywords it buys aren't on that list. To find out who shows up on your searches, start from your keywords, with methods 1, 2 and 5.
It also tells you who is behind an ad. For a verified advertiser, Google shows its legal name or trademark name, its location and a 'Verified' badge, plus the name of the paying entity when it differs. This helps before a trademark complaint, which has to target a specific advertiser. Our guide to Google's Ads Transparency Center explains how to use it.
Ad research tools start from a domain and list its paid keywords and ads. They're the most direct answer to 'what keywords are my competitors bidding on?'. SpyFu shows competitors' PPC keywords and ads, with ad history going back 10+ years from its 'Pro + AI' plan up (not in 'Basic'). Semrush's Advertising toolkit covers competitors' paid keywords and ads, and its Ads History report tracks their ad appearances over the last 12 months. Ahrefs offers 'Paid keywords' and 'Ads' reports on competitors.
With SpyFu and Semrush, the strength is ad history: how long a competitor has been running its ads, and how they've changed. A keyword kept for months is still only a hint: a competitor's presence doesn't prove those clicks pay off, for them or for you.
No outside tool can see inside a Google Ads account. A competitor's exact bids, budget and conversions stay with them. Any spend figure shown from the outside is an estimate, to read as a ballpark. To compare these tools, see our Google Ads competitor analysis tools comparison, and our SpyFu alternative page for a workflow that combines research and bid decisions.
Should I Bid records the ads that actually show on your analyzed keywords. To analyze a keyword, it reads the Google results page and records the ads at the top and bottom of the page: advertiser, position, copy, landing page, country and device. Those records feed a shared, anonymous database, updated each time a keyword is analyzed again. Each observation is dated: it's neither an estimate nor real time. The Competitors module brings these records together.
For each advertiser, you see the share of your keywords it appears on, how often it takes the first ad, its average position and when it was last seen. Your declared competitors are flagged. The profile of any domain you enter lists the keywords where it was seen in an ad, country by country, with its ad copy and landing pages. The competitive gap compares your declared competitors with you over 90 days, and isolates the keywords they buy and you don't.
One view answers the branded terms question directly. It shows, over 90 days, other advertisers' ads on searches that contain your brand, among the searches Should I Bid has read. A badge flags the ads that name your brand. In each analysis' results, share of voice also shows who holds the ads on those keywords.
The module comes with every plan, and browsing it uses no credits. Only analyzing a keyword uses a credit. Plans are described on the pricing page, with 5 free analyses to try it, no credit card.
Should I Bid isn't market-wide ad research. It only sees the ads recorded on the pages it has read, for analyzed keywords. It doesn't monitor your keywords continuously or send alerts: a keyword is refreshed when it's analyzed again. Its percentages count the keywords where an advertiser was seen; they don't measure impressions. It doesn't estimate your competitors' budgets or bids, and it provides no search volumes, no cost-per-click estimates and no rank tracking.
Every ad sends clicks to a landing page, and that page shows what the competitor wants to sell on your keyword. The ad shows a URL built from the domain, sometimes followed by one or two short paths. According to Google's definition, this display URL gives people an idea of where they'll arrive, while the final URL, the actual landing page, tends to be more specific. The visible URL doesn't always tell you the exact page.
To see the exact page without clicking, you need a tool that recorded it. In Should I Bid, an advertiser's profile lists the landing pages of its observed ads, along with their copy. For ad research tools, we haven't verified whether they show each ad's landing page, so check their documentation.
The type of page often hints at what the competitor is after. Take these readings as illustrations, not rules: a page comparing their brand with yours usually targets your customers who are on the fence; a product page, the same demand as you; a promotion page tends to bet on price. For our fictional blinds company, a comparison page calls for an answer in its own ads; a generic home page points more to a broad presence across the whole category.
Each method sheds light on part of the question, as summed up below.
On your own brand, the first decision is whether to bid on it. If a competitor shows up on your name and you have no ad there, theirs can appear above your website in the results. A brand ad means paying for clicks from people who were already looking for you; having none leaves that spot to someone else. Treat your brand like any other keyword: check who shows up and with what copy, then measure in your account what those clicks bring in.
If a competitor's ad uses your trademark in its text, you can file a complaint. According to Google's trademark policy, Google Ads doesn't restrict the use of trademarks as keywords. It can, however, restrict their use in an ad from a direct competitor, or in a confusing or misleading way, after reviewing a complaint from the trademark owner. The trademark has to be used in the ad itself, not only on its landing page. Some uses stay allowed, for example a reseller whose landing page actually sells your products.
Build a complaint on evidence and legal advice. Google only accepts complaints against specific advertisers identified by their URLs, in the countries and industries where you've shown trademark rights. So note the advertiser's domain, the ad copy, the search and the date of each observation. Local trademark law applies too: have a lawyer review your case before you act.
Then adjust your own ads based on what you saw. If a competitor highlights fast shipping or a free trial, your ad needs to state clearly what sets you apart. On your brand searches, copy that repeats your name helps the customer looking for you recognize you. Draft and compare your versions in our free Google Ads ad mockup, which shows the ad on desktop and mobile.
Finally, decide one keyword at a time which of your competitors' keywords to bid on. A competitor buying a keyword doesn't prove the click will pay off for your business: they may well be losing money on it. Look at the results page. If it shows buyers for what you sell, the keyword is worth a test; if it shows tutorials or job listings, skip it. Our guide to bidding on competitor keywords covers the method. Should I Bid's intent analysis returns that verdict for each keyword, with a score out of 100: Bid at 70 or above, Test from 50 to 69, Skip below 50.
| Tool | Starting price | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Should I Bid | Per credit (see Pricing page) | Per credit (1 credit = 1 keyword analyzed). 5 free analyses to try, no credit card, then paid subscription plans with no commitment and credits renewed every month. Plans described on the Pricing page. | Source |
| SpyFu | from $39/mo ($29/mo billed annually) | “Basic” plan: $39 per month billed monthly, $29 per month billed annually. “Pro + AI”: $59 the first month, then $119 per month ($89 annually). 30-day guarantee. | Source |
| Semrush | from $139/mo ($117.33/mo billed annually) | Entry “SEO” plan: $139 per month billed monthly, $117.33 per month billed annually. 7-day trial, limited free plan with no credit card. Separate “Advertising” toolkit: Base plan at $99 per month. | Source |
| Ahrefs | from $29/mo | Limited “Starter” plan at $29 per month, “Lite” plan at $129 per month. “Search intents” filter from the “Standard” plan ($249 per month). Free tier (Ahrefs Free) for your own site. | Source |
Prices verified on . Public prices observed on the vendors’ websites on the date shown. They may have changed since: the source prevails.
Use the Ad preview and diagnosis tool in Google Ads: it shows a preview of the results page for a search without touching your stats, whereas a regular Google search can skew them. If you already run ads, the auction insights report lists the advertisers in your auctions. To see their other keywords and ad copy, use an ad research tool or Should I Bid's Competitors module.
The keywords an advertiser buys aren't among the details Google says it discloses: its Ads Transparency Center shows an advertiser's ads without listing its keywords. Ad research tools start from a domain and list its paid keywords, such as SpyFu, Semrush's Advertising toolkit or Ahrefs' 'Paid keywords' report. Should I Bid shows the keywords where a domain was seen in an ad, among the keywords analyzed in its database.
Every ad leads to a landing page. The URL shown on the ad gives you the domain, but Google says the final URL tends to be more specific. To see the exact page without clicking the ad, use a tool that recorded it, such as the advertiser profile in Should I Bid's Competitors module. The type of page, a comparison, a product or a promotion, often hints at what the competitor wants to win from you.
According to Google's trademark policy, Google Ads doesn't restrict the use of trademarks as keywords. It can, however, restrict your trademark in a direct competitor's ad text after you submit a complaint and Google reviews it. The trademark has to appear in the ad itself, not only on the landing page. Local trademark law applies too, so have a lawyer review your case before you act.
No. An advertiser's exact bids, budget and conversions stay inside its Google Ads account. The auction insights report gives relative rates, such as overlap rate or position above rate, and only for auctions you take part in. Any spend figure a third-party tool shows is an estimate: read it as a ballpark, never as an actual number.
Yes, for analyzed keywords. Its Competitors module lists the advertisers seen on your keywords, their ad copy and landing pages, plus other advertisers' ads on searches that contain your brand over 90 days. It comes with every plan, and browsing it uses no credits. It isn't real time: each observation is dated, and a keyword is refreshed when it's analyzed again.