Impression share tells you the percentage of available impressions your Shopping ads captured. That number is useful, but it leaves out critical context: which competitors are taking the impressions you miss, and in which product categories are they strongest?
Competitive visibility fills that gap. Available through the Merchant Center Reports API, it breaks down your Shopping presence at the category level and names the specific domains competing against you. Instead of a single percentage, you get a map of who shows up where, how often they appear alongside your listings, and whether their visibility is trending up or down.
This guide explains what competitive visibility data includes, how to read each report type, and how to turn the numbers into bid and feed decisions that improve your category-level positioning.
What Is Competitive Visibility?
Competitive visibility is a set of reports from the Merchant Center Reports API that show how your Shopping presence compares to other merchants. The data is broken down by Google product category and by country, giving you a category-by-category view of who you're competing against.
The reports track three things: which other domains appear in the same Shopping results as you, how your visibility trends compare to category averages, and who the top merchants are in each category you compete in.
How it differs from impression share
Impression share (IS) is a single metric: the percentage of total eligible impressions your ads received. If your IS in a category is 40%, you know you missed 60% of possible impressions. But you don't know who captured that 60%, or whether one dominant competitor took most of it, or whether it was spread across dozens of smaller players.
Competitive visibility answers those questions. It tells you that competitor-a.com appeared in 72% of the auctions where your products also showed, that their relative visibility is 1.8x yours in that category, and that they rank #2 among top merchants. That level of detail changes how you respond. Losing share to one dominant competitor requires a different strategy than losing it to a fragmented field. For deeper IS analysis, see our product-level impression share guide.
Data source
Competitive visibility data comes from the Merchant Center Reports API, not the Google Ads API. You need a Merchant Center account with active product listings to access it. The data covers both organic Shopping listings and paid Shopping ads, depending on the report type.
Three Types of CV Data
Merchant Center provides three distinct competitive visibility report types. Each answers a different question about your competitive position.
Competitor view
The competitor view lists specific domains that appeared in Shopping results alongside your products. For each competitor domain, you see metrics like page overlap rate (how often you both appeared on the same results page) and relative visibility (how their impression frequency compares to yours).
This is the most actionable report. It names your actual competitors per category, not theoretical ones. A brand you've never heard of might dominate your top-selling category. Or a competitor you track closely might have zero overlap in categories where you assumed they competed.
Benchmark view
The benchmark view compares your visibility trend against the category average. Rather than naming individual competitors, it shows whether your share of Shopping visibility is growing or shrinking relative to the market. Think of it as a category-level health check.
If your visibility is rising while the category average is flat, you're gaining share. If both are rising but the average is rising faster, competitors are scaling more aggressively. The benchmark view strips away individual competitor noise and shows the broader trend.
Top merchant view
The top merchant view ranks the highest-visibility merchants in each product category, typically showing the top 5 to 10 domains. It reveals who dominates each category and where you rank among them.
This report is particularly useful for identifying categories where you should realistically compete versus categories dominated by players with far deeper catalogs or budgets. If the top merchant in a category has 10x your visibility and it's Amazon or a major retailer, the competitive dynamics differ from a category led by a similar-sized specialist.
Reading the Reports
Three metrics appear across the competitive visibility reports. Understanding what each one measures prevents misinterpretation.
Relative visibility
Relative visibility compares how often a competitor's products were shown versus how often yours were shown, within the same category and country. A relative visibility of 1.5 for competitor-x.com means their products appeared 50% more often than yours in that category. A value of 0.7 means they appeared 30% less often.
The metric is directional, not absolute. A competitor with a relative visibility of 2.0 isn't necessarily getting twice your clicks or revenue. They're getting roughly twice the Shopping impressions in that category. What they do with those impressions depends on their click-through rates and prices.
Ads organic ratio
This metric shows how a competitor's visibility splits between paid Shopping ads and organic (free) Shopping listings. A high ads ratio means they're buying most of their visibility. A low ads ratio means they rank well organically, likely driven by strong feed quality and competitive pricing.
The ads organic ratio helps you understand the cost of competing. If a competitor's visibility is 80% organic, outbidding them won't close the gap much. You need better feed data, pricing, or product coverage. If their visibility is 90% paid, increasing your bids and budgets could directly reclaim share.
Page overlap rate
Page overlap rate measures how often a competitor appeared on the same Shopping results page as you. A 65% overlap with competitor-y.com means that 65% of the time your products showed, their products showed too.
High overlap means you're consistently competing for the same queries. Low overlap might mean the competitor targets different product segments within the category, or focuses on different price points. Combined with relative visibility, overlap rate tells you how direct the competition actually is.
| Metric | What it measures | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Relative visibility | Competitor's impression frequency vs yours | 1.5 = competitor shows 50% more often |
| Ads organic ratio | Split between paid and organic visibility | 0.8 = 80% of visibility from paid ads |
| Page overlap rate | How often you appear on the same page | 0.65 = co-appear in 65% of results |
Category-Level Competitive Strategy
Competitive visibility data becomes strategic when you analyze it at the category level. Not every category deserves the same investment. The reports help you sort your categories into three groups.
Categories where you're strong
High relative visibility and a top-3 ranking in the top merchant view. These are your strongholds. The priority here is defense: maintain your feed quality, keep prices competitive, and monitor for new entrants gaining share. Don't cut budgets just because performance looks stable. A competitor can close a visibility gap in weeks if you pull back.
Categories where specific competitors dominate
Low relative visibility against one or two competitors who appear in most of your auctions (high page overlap rate). These categories are worth analyzing deeper. Look at the competitors' ads organic ratio. If their visibility is mostly paid, you can compete with higher bids and budgets. If it's mostly organic, you need better product data, more SKU coverage, or sharper pricing in that category.
Check price benchmarking data for these categories. A competitor with 2x your visibility and consistently lower prices is hard to outbid profitably. A competitor with similar prices but better visibility might just have better feed optimization or broader product coverage.
Categories with opportunity
Low competitor density (few domains with high visibility) combined with a product catalog you already have. These are expansion targets. The auction insights for these categories will typically show lower average CPCs and less aggressive bidding. Test increased investment here before pouring more budget into your most contested categories.
Connecting CV to Action
Competitive visibility data only matters if it changes what you do. The scenarios below come up repeatedly.
Low visibility + high margin = increase bids
If you have low relative visibility in a category where your products carry strong margins, the math usually supports higher bids. You can afford to pay more per click and still hit your profitability targets. Segment these products into their own campaign or asset group so you can set aggressive targets without dragging down performance in other categories.
High visibility + low conversion = fix the experience
If you already have strong visibility but conversions lag behind competitors in the same category, the problem isn't exposure. It's what happens after the click. Check your landing page experience, product page load times, pricing relative to competitors, and whether your product titles match the search queries driving traffic. The optimization guide covers these levers in detail.
Declining visibility + stable spend = competitor scaling
If your visibility drops in a category while your spend stays flat, a competitor is scaling up. Check the competitor view to identify who. Then decide: match their investment, differentiate on product selection, or accept lower share in that category and redirect budget to higher-opportunity areas.
High organic visibility = protect your feed
If the benchmark view shows strong organic visibility, your free Shopping listings are performing well. Protect that by keeping your product data accurate, your prices competitive, and your feed free of errors. Organic visibility can drop quickly if feed quality slips or Google re-evaluates your product data against competitors.
Review cadence
Pull competitive visibility data weekly or biweekly, not daily. Day-to-day fluctuations are noisy. The real signals emerge over 2-4 week periods when you can spot consistent trends in competitor visibility shifts. Use regular reporting to track these trends alongside your performance metrics.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between competitive visibility and impression share?
Impression share tells you the percentage of total available impressions your ads captured. Competitive visibility goes further by showing which specific domains competed against you, how often they appeared alongside your ads, and their relative visibility compared to yours. Impression share is a single percentage; competitive visibility is a breakdown by competitor and category.
Where do I find competitive visibility data in Merchant Center?
Competitive visibility data is available through the Merchant Center Reports API. In the Merchant Center interface, you can find basic competitive data under Performance > Competitiveness. For the full competitor-level and top merchant breakdowns, you need to query the API or use a tool that connects to it.
How often is competitive visibility data updated?
Competitive visibility data typically updates daily with a 2-3 day lag. The data reflects aggregated performance over the reporting period, so daily fluctuations are smoothed out. For trend analysis, weekly or monthly comparisons give more reliable signals than day-over-day changes.
Can I see competitive visibility for specific products?
Competitive visibility data is reported at the category level, not the individual product level. Google aggregates your products into their assigned Google product categories and reports competitor data at that level. If you need product-level competitive data, impression share by product is the closest alternative, though it doesn't show specific competitor domains.
What is a good relative visibility score?
Relative visibility is indexed where higher means more visible than a competitor. A score above 1.0 means you appear more frequently than that competitor in the category. The top merchant typically has 2-5x the visibility of mid-tier competitors. Focus on trends rather than absolute numbers. A declining score against a specific competitor signals they are gaining ground, regardless of the starting value.
Conclusion
Impression share tells you how much of the market you're capturing. Competitive visibility tells you who else is in that market and where they're strongest. Both matter, but CV data gives you the specifics needed to make targeted decisions by category and by competitor.
Key takeaways:
- The three report types (competitor view, benchmark view, top merchant view) each answer a different question. Use them together for the full picture
- Relative visibility, page overlap, and ads organic ratio are the core metrics. Read them together, not in isolation
- Not every category deserves equal investment. Use CV data to sort categories into defend, challenge, expand, or deprioritize
- Low visibility with high margins means bid more. High visibility with low conversion means fix the post-click experience
- Review weekly, not daily. Competitive shifts happen over weeks, not hours
Pair competitive visibility with price benchmarking for a complete view of where you stand. Price and visibility together explain most of the competitive dynamics in Shopping. See the shopping competition hub for all related guides.