Your Google Ads account already tells you who your competitors are. Auction insights names them. Competitive visibility quantifies how often they appear alongside you. Price benchmarking shows where they undercut you.
That data answers the "who" and "where." This article covers the "what now." It's a practical framework for studying competitor ads, dissecting their offers, evaluating their landing pages, and turning those findings into strategy changes that improve your position. Every section pairs quantitative data with manual research steps you can run this week.
This guide is part of the Shopping Competition pillar. If you haven't pulled your auction insights or competitive visibility data yet, start there.
Identifying Your Real Competitors
Not every retailer that shows up in your auction insights is a meaningful competitor. A domain with an 80% overlap rate competes for almost every impression you do. A domain with 5% overlap shares a handful of keywords at the edges. Your analysis time is limited, so focus it where the overlap is highest.
Using auction insights to build your list
Pull your auction insights report at the campaign level for the last 30 days. Sort by overlap rate descending. The top 5-10 domains are your primary competitors. These are the advertisers who bid on the same products, target the same audiences, and appear in the same auctions as you.
Pay attention to three metrics for each competitor:
- Overlap rate: How often their ad appeared alongside yours. Above 60% means heavy direct competition. Between 30-60% is moderate. Below 30% is peripheral
- Outranking share: How often their ad ranked above yours or appeared when yours didn't. A competitor with 70% outranking share consistently beats your positioning
- Impression share: Their share of total available impressions. Competitors with 40%+ impression share are well-funded and aggressive
Cross-reference with competitive visibility
Auction insights shows campaign-level competition. Competitive visibility from Merchant Center shows category-level competition. The top merchants report reveals which retailers dominate specific product categories. A competitor might dominate electronics but have zero presence in accessories. That category-level detail matters for targeting your analysis.
Combine both data sources into a shortlist. Rank competitors by a simple score: auction insights overlap rate plus their relative visibility in your top categories. The top 5-8 domains on this combined list are where you'll spend your analysis effort.
Analyzing Competitor Shopping Ads
Shopping ads are built from product feed data: title, image, price, promotions, seller ratings. You can't see a competitor's feed directly, but you can see exactly what Google serves by searching for your own products.
Manual research workflow
Open an incognito browser window. Search for 10-15 of your top-selling product keywords. For each search, study the Shopping carousel and note what competitors show. Do this systematically, not casually. Record your findings in a spreadsheet with columns for competitor, product title, price, promotion, image style, and seller rating.
Product titles
Competitor titles reveal their title optimization strategy. Look for patterns: do they lead with brand name or product type? Do they include color, size, or material? Are they keyword-stuffed or clean? If a competitor's title includes "Free Shipping" or "Sale" in the title text itself, that's a feed optimization tactic worth noting.
Compare their title structure to yours. If three of your top five competitors lead with product type + brand while you lead with brand + product type, that difference affects which searches trigger your ad. Google matches Shopping ads to queries based partly on title structure.
Product images
Shopping ad images drive click-through rate more than any other element. Note whether competitors use white backgrounds or lifestyle shots. Check if they show the product in context (e.g., a backpack worn by a person) or isolated. Look for overlays, badges, or text on images, though Google's image requirements prohibit promotional text. Better images mean more clicks at the same position.
Seller ratings and trust signals
Seller ratings (the star rating below the price) appear when a merchant has enough reviews through Google Customer Reviews or third-party review platforms. A competitor with a 4.8-star rating next to your 4.2-star rating will capture more clicks even at the same price. If key competitors have strong ratings and you don't, that gap costs you clicks on every impression.
Promotions and annotations
Google Shopping supports sale price annotations, free shipping badges, and special offer annotations. Search for your products and note which competitors show these. A "Sale -20%" badge next to a competitor's listing makes your standard-price listing less attractive. Track which competitors run promotions consistently versus only during sales events.
Analyzing Competitor Product Pages
The Shopping ad gets the click. The landing page gets the conversion. A competitor can have a worse ad position than you but still outperform on revenue if their product pages convert better. Analyzing competitor landing pages reveals why shoppers might choose them after clicking.
What to evaluate
Click through to 5-10 competitor product pages from their Shopping ads. For each page, assess:
- Page load speed: Run each URL through Google PageSpeed Insights. A page that loads in 1.5 seconds converts significantly better than one that takes 4 seconds. If your competitors load faster, that's a gap to close
- Product photography: Count the number of images, check for zoom functionality, and note whether they include video. More visual information reduces purchase hesitation
- Shipping and delivery: Look for delivery estimates, free shipping thresholds, and express options. Visible delivery dates increase conversion rates. If competitors show "Arrives by Thursday" and you show "Ships in 3-5 business days," they have an edge
- Return policy: Check if the return policy is visible on the product page, not buried in the footer. Free returns and extended return windows reduce purchase risk for the buyer
- Social proof: Count product reviews, check for user photos, and note whether ratings are displayed prominently. 50+ reviews with a 4.5+ average builds strong buyer confidence
- Price presentation: Look for strikethrough pricing, bundle discounts, loyalty program pricing, and quantity breaks. How the price is framed matters as much as the price itself
Conversion rate gap estimation
You can't know a competitor's exact conversion rate. But you can estimate relative strength. If a competitor has faster pages, better imagery, free shipping, free returns, and hundreds of reviews while your pages are slow with minimal reviews and no free shipping, their conversion rate is almost certainly higher. Each of these factors compounds.
Improving your landing page experience affects every click you pay for. A 0.5 percentage point improvement in conversion rate on 10,000 monthly Shopping clicks means 50 additional orders per month at no extra ad spend. That often delivers more return than any bidding optimization. See our optimization guide for more on improving Shopping performance beyond bids.
Analyzing Competitor Pricing and Promotions
Price is the single most visible competitive factor in Shopping ads. It's displayed right in the ad alongside the product image. Price benchmarking data from Merchant Center gives you a structured view, but manual research adds context that data alone misses.
Reading your price benchmarking data
Merchant Center's price competitiveness report shows your price versus the benchmark for each product. Products priced above the benchmark get fewer clicks and lower impression share. Products priced below it capture more traffic. But the benchmark is an aggregate; it doesn't tell you who specifically undercuts you or by how much.
Cross-reference benchmark data with manual checks. For your top 20 products by ad spend, search each one and record the exact prices shown by your top 5 competitors. This gives you a pricing matrix: your price versus each competitor, product by product. Patterns emerge quickly. One competitor might consistently price 5-10% below you. Another might match your price but offer free shipping, which effectively makes them cheaper.
Promotional patterns
Track competitor promotions over time, not just in a single snapshot. Some retailers run perpetual sales with inflated original prices and permanent discounts. Others reserve promotions for seasonal peaks. Knowing their pattern lets you time your own promotions to counter.
- Seasonal sales: Black Friday, back-to-school, holiday clearance. Most competitors run these, so differentiation comes from timing (starting earlier or extending longer) and discount depth
- Bundle offers: Competitor selling a camera body + lens + bag at a bundle price undercuts your individual product listings even if your per-item price matches. Note any bundling strategies
- Free shipping thresholds: A competitor offering free shipping at $50 while you set it at $75 gains an edge on mid-range orders. This is functionally a price cut that doesn't show in the product price
- Loyalty and member pricing: Some retailers show member-only prices in their Shopping ads. This gives them a displayed price advantage that new customers may not actually receive
When to compete on price and when not to
Matching every competitor's price on every product is a race to zero margin. Instead, be strategic. Match prices on your top 20 products by visibility, where price directly affects impression share and clicks. Maintain margins on long-tail products where competition is lighter and buyers are less price-sensitive. Use market share data to identify which product segments are worth fighting for on price.
Finding Competitive Gaps
The most valuable outcome of competitor analysis isn't matching what competitors do. It's finding what they don't do. Competitive gaps are opportunities where demand exists but supply from your rivals is thin. Three types of gaps matter most for Shopping advertisers.
Category gaps
Competitive visibility data shows which merchants dominate which categories. If your top competitor has 40% relative visibility in "Electronics > Headphones" but only 3% in "Electronics > Portable Speakers," they either don't carry speakers or haven't optimized their feed for that category. If you have strong inventory in portable speakers, that's a gap you can exploit with focused feed optimization and higher bids.
Pull competitive visibility by category for your top 5 competitors. Create a matrix showing each competitor's relative visibility per category. Blank or low cells represent gaps. Prioritize gaps where you have good inventory and the category has meaningful search volume.
Price tier gaps
Most competitors cluster at similar price points. Premium products ($200+ headphones, for example) often have fewer competing advertisers than mid-range products ($50-100). If you carry both tiers, check whether competitors thin out at the premium end. Fewer competitors means higher impression share, lower CPCs, and often better conversion rates because buyers at higher price points are more deliberate and less price-comparison-driven.
The reverse gap exists too. Budget products sometimes have less Shopping competition because large retailers focus on higher-margin items. If you can profitably serve the budget segment, low competition makes it efficient.
Availability gaps
Out-of-stock products disappear from Shopping ads. When a major competitor runs out of a popular item, their impression share drops to zero on those keywords. Google redistributes those impressions to the remaining advertisers. You can spot this in auction insights as a sudden drop in a competitor's overlap rate, or in competitive visibility as a decline in their relative visibility.
Seasonal availability gaps are predictable. Competitors sell out of popular items during holiday peaks, then have supply chain gaps in January. If your inventory planning accounts for these patterns, you capture their lost impressions at a lower cost.
Gap prioritization
Not all gaps are worth pursuing. A category gap in a segment with 100 monthly searches won't move your revenue. Prioritize gaps by estimated search volume, your inventory strength, and your ability to compete on price and landing page quality in that segment. The best gaps are high-volume categories where you have strong products and competitors are weak or absent.
Building a Competitor Monitoring Workflow
One-time competitor analysis gives you a snapshot. Ongoing monitoring turns that snapshot into a trend line that informs strategy. A monthly cadence works well for most advertisers; increase to weekly during peak seasons.
Monthly review checklist
- Auction insights shift analysis: Compare this month's overlap rates, outranking shares, and impression shares to last month. Flag any competitor whose overlap rate changed by more than 10 percentage points. Rising overlap means they're expanding into your space. Falling overlap means they're pulling back
- Competitive visibility trends: Check the top merchants report by category. Note any new merchants that appeared in your top categories or existing merchants whose relative visibility increased significantly. New entrants deserve a quick ad and landing page review
- Price benchmarking check: Review how many of your products are priced above, at, or below the benchmark. If the share of above-benchmark products increased, competitors may have lowered prices. Investigate the top 10 products that shifted from "at benchmark" to "above benchmark"
- Manual ad audit: Search for 5 of your top keywords in incognito mode. Note any changes in competitor titles, images, promotions, or pricing since last month. Record new promotions or strategies you haven't seen before
- New and departed competitors: Check if any domains appeared in auction insights for the first time this month or disappeared entirely. New entrants may be small now but could scale quickly. Departures free up impressions you can capture
- Strategy update: Based on findings, adjust bids on categories where competition increased, update your product titles if competitors are using better structures, and reprice products where you've fallen below the benchmark
Quarterly deep dive
Every three months, repeat the full analysis from this article: rebuild your competitor shortlist, audit 10-15 product pages, map the complete pricing matrix for your top 20 products, and reassess competitive gaps. Markets shift. A competitor that was peripheral three months ago may now be your primary rival due to expanded inventory or increased budgets.
Tools and tracking
Keep it simple. A spreadsheet tracking competitor names, overlap rates, key pricing positions, and notes from manual audits is enough for most advertisers. If you manage large catalogs across multiple markets, tools like Merchant Center's competitive reports and SKU Analyzer automate the data collection so you can focus on the analysis and strategy decisions.
Avoid analysis paralysis
The purpose of competitor analysis is to inform action, not to produce a comprehensive report that sits in a folder. Each monthly review should produce 2-3 specific action items: a pricing adjustment, a title change, a bid modification, a feed fix. If your analysis doesn't generate actionable next steps, you're tracking too much or looking at the wrong metrics.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many competitors should I track for Google Shopping?
Focus on 5-10 competitors maximum. These should be domains with the highest overlap rates in your auction insights report, typically above 30-40%. Tracking more dilutes your attention without adding insight. The goal is deep understanding of your closest rivals, not a surface-level view of everyone in the market.
How often should I do competitor analysis for Shopping campaigns?
Run a light review monthly and a deep analysis quarterly. Monthly reviews should check auction insights shifts, new or departed competitors, and major pricing changes. Quarterly deep dives should cover full ad copy audits, landing page reviews, and strategy adjustments. During peak seasons like Black Friday, increase frequency to weekly checks.
Can I see my competitors' actual Google Shopping ads?
Yes. Search for your product keywords on Google and study the Shopping results. You'll see competitor titles, images, prices, promotions, and seller ratings directly in the ad carousel. Google's Ads Transparency Center also lets you search for any advertiser and view their active ads. For automated monitoring, third-party tools track competitor Shopping ads over time.
What data do I need for competitor analysis in Google Shopping?
Start with three data sources available inside Google Ads: auction insights (overlap rate, outranking share, impression share), competitive visibility from Merchant Center (relative visibility, page overlap rate, top merchants by category), and price benchmarking (benchmark prices by product). Combine these with manual research by actually searching for your products and studying competitor ads and landing pages.
How do I find competitive gaps in Google Shopping?
Look for three types of gaps: category gaps where competitors have low or zero visibility in categories you serve, price tier gaps where no competitor covers a specific price range, and availability gaps where competitors are out of stock or have limited selection. Use competitive visibility data for category gaps, price benchmarking for price tier gaps, and manual product searches for availability gaps.
Conclusion
Competitor analysis for Google Shopping is part data, part manual research. The data tells you who competes with you and how you compare on visibility and price. The manual research reveals the qualitative differences that drive clicks and conversions: better titles, stronger images, faster pages, more compelling offers.
Key takeaways:
- Start with your data. Auction insights overlap rate and competitive visibility top merchants identify your real competitors. Focus on the top 5-10 by overlap, not every domain that appears
- Search for your own products in incognito mode and study competitor titles, images, prices, promotions, and seller ratings. Record findings in a spreadsheet, not just mental notes
- Click through to competitor product pages and assess speed, imagery, shipping, returns, and social proof. Landing page quality determines conversion rate after the click
- The highest-value insight is often what competitors aren't doing: categories they ignore, price tiers they skip, products they're out of stock on
- A structured monthly review of auction insights shifts, pricing changes, and ad updates keeps your strategy current. Each review should produce 2-3 action items, not a report
Competitor intelligence compounds over time. Each review builds on the last. After three months of structured monitoring, you'll know your competitors well enough to anticipate moves rather than react to them. Combine this framework with market share tracking and auction insights analysis for a complete view of your competitive position.