Before you start
- A live Google Ads account (the platform still gets called AdWords by many teams; the modern name is Google Ads but Auction Insights and the broader workflow are identical)
- At least 30 days of impression history in your account - Auction Insights needs data to surface competitors
- Access to Google Ads Keyword Planner (free with any active campaign)
- Optional: SpyFu, SEMrush, or Ahrefs for deeper competitor keyword extraction
The playbook
7 steps
Open Auction Insights on your top campaigns
Google Ads → Campaigns → pick your top-spend campaign → Auction Insights tab. This is the free, native feature that surfaces every advertiser competing with you on those keywords. Filter to the last 30 days. Note the domains showing >5% impression share against you - that's your active AdWords competitive set.
# Auction Insights extraction: # 1. Campaigns → select campaign → Auction Insights # 2. Date range: Last 30 days # 3. Segment by: Day (optional, shows trend) # 4. Export to CSV # 5. Filter: impression_share > 5% # 6. These are your real AdWords competitors on this keyword setExpected outcome
A validated list of 5-10 active AdWords competitors per top campaign, with impression-share data.
Pull their keyword footprint with a third-party tool
Auction Insights tells you WHO competes; it doesn't tell you ALL the keywords they bid on. For that, run each competitor through Ahrefs Site Explorer → Paid keywords or SpyFu's PPC keyword export. The intersection of Auction Insights (validated competitors) + paid-tool extraction (their full keyword list) gives you the full picture.
Expected outcome
A full keyword inventory per AdWords competitor, with traffic and position estimates per keyword.
Cross-reference against your own keyword list
Export your Google Ads search terms report (Reports → Predefined → Search Terms) for the last 90 days. Subtract this from each competitor's keyword list. What remains is the gap - keywords they bid on that you don't. This is your AdWords-specific opportunity pile.
Expected outcome
Gap-keyword CSV per competitor, sorted by their position and your missing-keyword count.
Validate gaps with Keyword Planner
Drop the top 20 gap keywords into Google Ads Keyword Planner → Discover new keywords. Check the suggested bid range, monthly search volume, and competition score. If Keyword Planner shows the keyword as 'low' competition with a sensible bid range, it's a viable add. 'High' competition with $20+ suggested bids needs more scrutiny.
TipKeyword Planner's suggested bid is conservative - usually 60-80% of actual. Budget for the higher end when forecasting.Expected outcome
A Keyword Planner-validated gap list with bid ranges and search volumes per keyword.
Pull their ad-copy archive
For each viable gap keyword, look up the competitor's ad-copy variants in SpyFu's AdWords archive (12+ months of history). Document the proven headlines and the longest-running ads. These are the angles you'll mirror in your own ad copy.
Expected outcome
Ad-copy patterns per gap keyword with longest-running variants flagged as proven winners.
Build the AdWords campaign structure
Don't drop gap keywords into your existing campaigns - their bid signals will pollute your historical learning. Create a new 'competitor-gap' campaign per competitor with its own daily budget cap. Use exact and phrase match; avoid broad match on competitor-derived keywords until you have data.
# Campaign structure: # Campaign: GAP-<competitor-name> # Ad group: GAP-<keyword-cluster> # Keywords: [exact match], ["phrase match"] # Negatives: any irrelevant intent terms # Daily budget: $50-100 to start; scale on ROASExpected outcome
Isolated competitor-gap campaigns with clean attribution and budget control.
Set the monitoring cadence
AdWords competitor activity shifts weekly. Set a 20-minute weekly slot: re-check Auction Insights for new entrants, re-export competitor keyword lists for diff, look for impression-share drops on your own keywords. Catching shifts within a week beats catching them in a month.
Expected outcome
A weekly AdWords competitor monitoring routine with documented diffs and response actions.
Shuttergen
AdWords gaps found. Match them with sharper creative.
Competitor gap keywords on AdWords only convert when your ad creative beats theirs. Shuttergen generates competitor-matched ad variants tuned to each gap keyword.
Pitfalls
What goes wrong
Treating Auction Insights as a complete competitor view
Auction Insights only shows competitors on keywords YOU bid on. Competitors bidding on adjacent keywords you don't yet target are invisible to Auction Insights - you need third-party tools to surface those. Use both sources.
Mixing competitor-gap keywords into existing campaigns
Gap-keyword launches mess with the learning signals on your established campaigns (Smart Bidding adapts to new bid patterns and conversion noise). Always isolate gap keywords in their own campaign for the first 30-60 days.
Using Keyword Planner's bid suggestions as ceiling
Planner suggestions are intentionally conservative. Actual CPCs for competitive gap keywords often run 1.5-2x the suggested 'high range'. Plan budget for the higher reality, not the planner ideal.
Forgetting to update negative-keyword lists
Stolen competitor keywords often pull in adjacent queries that don't match your product. Each week, review the search terms report for the gap campaign and add negative keywords aggressively. The first 30 days of any gap launch is where 80% of the negative-keyword work happens.
Ignoring the AdWords-vs-Microsoft-Ads spillover
If your competitors also run on Microsoft Ads (Bing), their AdWords keyword strategy often mirrors their Microsoft Ads strategy. Mining one and ignoring the other leaves 10-30% of cheaper competitive inventory on the table. Worth checking both platforms.
Limits
When this playbook won't work
- Your account is brand new (<30 days) - Auction Insights needs impression history to populate
- Your campaigns run primarily on Performance Max - PMax exposes very limited keyword-level data through Auction Insights
- Your spend is too small ($500/mo or less) - the platform's competitive data surfaces thin and unreliable
- Your competitors run exclusively brand or remarketing campaigns - they won't appear on non-brand Auction Insights
- Your geo is small (single city, niche region) - third-party tools index global data and may miss localized AdWords competitors
AdWords vs Google Ads: same platform, lingering terminology
Google rebranded AdWords to Google Ads in July 2018. The product underneath is the same, the workflows are the same, and Auction Insights / Keyword Planner / search terms reports all carried over unchanged. But 'AdWords' remains the search term many practitioners still use - especially those who started before 2018, and especially in non-English markets where the rebrand penetrated slower.
This article uses both terms. Where the modern product feature has a Google Ads name (e.g. 'Performance Max'), we use that. Where the workflow is identical to the old AdWords flow (e.g. 'pull competitor keyword footprint'), we use whichever name matches your search context.
Functionally, nothing in this playbook changes between AdWords and Google Ads. Auction Insights is in the same place, Keyword Planner works the same way, and the third-party tools (SpyFu, SEMrush, Ahrefs) all surface the same data regardless of which brand name you search with.
AdWords gaps found. Match them with sharper creative. Competitor gap keywords on AdWords only convert when your ad creative beats theirs. Shuttergen generates competitor-matched ad variants tuned to each gap keyword.
The Auction Insights gap (and why third-party tools fill it)
Auction Insights is the most underused free feature in Google Ads. It's the only data source where you see, with absolute confidence, which competitors compete for your specific impressions. Most accounts open it monthly at best; weekly is the discipline that creates competitive advantage.
But Auction Insights has a structural blind spot. It only shows competitors on keywords you already bid on. The keywords your competitors bid on that you've never touched - the gap pile - are invisible to Auction Insights by definition. That's the gap third-party tools fill: they index the full paid-keyword footprint of any domain, so you can see what's outside your current bid surface.
The combined workflow is the point. Auction Insights validates which competitors actually matter (vs aspirational competitors that don't show up). Third-party tools reveal the full keyword footprint of those validated competitors. The intersection - validated competitors × full keyword footprint - is what produces a viable AdWords gap-keyword pipeline.
Internal: competitors-keywords-adwords, adwords-download-keywords, competitor-ppc-keywords.
FAQ
Frequently asked
How do I find my AdWords competitors' keywords?
Is AdWords the same as Google Ads?
Does Auction Insights show all my AdWords competitors?
Can I get competitor AdWords keywords for free?
How often should I run AdWords competitor research?
Can I bid on competitor brand names in AdWords?
Why do I see different competitor keyword lists in SpyFu vs SEMrush vs Ahrefs?
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AdWords gaps found. Match them with sharper creative.
Competitor gap keywords on AdWords only convert when your ad creative beats theirs. Shuttergen generates competitor-matched ad variants tuned to each gap keyword.