Competitor benchmark report

Competitor Benchmark Report

A skill for analyzing competitive position in Google Ads using auction insights, industry benchmarks, and account performance.

What this skill does

Combines three data sources to produce a competitive picture:

1. Auction insights - who's bidding against the user, at what overlap and impression share
2. Industry benchmarks - typical CTR, CPC, conv. rate, CPA for the user's vertical
3. The user's own performance - where they sit vs. competitors and vs. industry typical

Output:

• Top 5 competitors by overlap rate, with characterization (heavy bidders, niche players, brand-defenders)
• Performance vs. each competitor on each campaign
• Performance vs. industry benchmark (above/below)
• Three competitive gap categories with action items
• Strategic recommendations: where to push, where to defend, where to retreat

Required inputs

1. Auction insights export - at the campaign level, ideally for the highest-spend campaigns
2. The user's own campaign performance - same period as auction insights
3. Industry/vertical - for benchmark comparison; ask if not provided
4. Geographic market - benchmarks vary by country
5. Brand vs. non-brand designation for each campaign - interpretation differs

If auction insights data is missing, tell the user:

"I need the Auction Insights report to do this analysis. In Google Ads, go to a campaign → Auction insights tab → Download. Export at the campaign level for your top 3–5 highest-spend campaigns, then attach. Without this, I can only give you industry benchmark comparison, not who specifically is outbidding you."

If the user can't access auction insights for technical reasons, fall back to the benchmark-only mode (skip the competitor sections, focus on industry comparison).

Workflow

Step 1: Validate and characterize competitors

For each campaign's auction insights data, look at:

• Overlap rate - how often a competitor's ad appeared when yours did
• Position above rate - how often they showed above you
• Top of page rate - how often they showed at the top
• Outranking share - how often they ranked higher than you
• Abs. top of page rate - absolute top placement rate

Group competitors by behavior (read references/competitor-archetypes.md):

Archetype	Signal
Heavy bidder	High top-of-page rate (>50%), high overlap
Niche player	Low overlap (<10%) but high outrank when present
Brand defender	Only appears in brand auctions; low overlap on non-brand
Aggregator/marketplace	Wide overlap across many ad groups, mid position
Test-and-retreat	Variable presence over time, suggests testing

Step 2: Per-campaign competitive position

For each user campaign, build a matrix:

Competitor	Overlap rate	Position above us	Top of page %	Archetype

Sort by overlap rate descending.

Step 3: Industry benchmark comparison

Compare the user's campaign metrics to industry typicals. Read references/industry-benchmarks.md for the lookup table by vertical.

For each metric (CTR, CPC, conv. rate, CPA), classify the user's campaign:

• Above benchmark (top quartile)
• At benchmark (50th percentile range)
• Below benchmark (bottom quartile)

The user wants to know which metrics are dragging their competitive position. A campaign at-benchmark on CTR but below-benchmark on conv. rate has a landing page or audience-quality issue, not an auction issue.

Step 4: Competitive gap categorization

Group findings into three buckets:

Push opportunities - where the user can gain ground:

• Auctions where the user's avg position is winnable with modest bid increases
• Competitors with declining presence (if time-series data available)
• Keywords where the user's CTR beats benchmarks but IS lost to rank is high - they're efficient enough to bid more

Defend - where the user must protect existing position:

• Brand auctions where competitors have any overlap (always defend)
• Top-converting non-brand keywords where a competitor escalated recently
• Categories where dropping IS by 10+ points would compound (recent share losses)

Retreat - where the user shouldn't fight:

• Auctions where overlap with a heavy bidder is high AND the user's CPA is already over target
• Categories where a niche specialist dominates and the user is generalist (or vice versa)
• Geographic or audience segments where structural cost disadvantages exist

Step 5: Strategic recommendations

3–5 specific recommendations. Each:

• Action (specific, not "review")
• Expected business impact
• Timeline
• Resource cost

Examples:

• "Push: increase Long Tail Search bids 15% to overtake Competitor B (currently outranks you on 35% of overlapping queries). Estimated: +28 conversions/week, ~$8K incremental spend, 2-week implementation."
• "Defend: add Competitor X's brand variants as exact-match negatives on non-brand campaigns immediately - they're pulling 12% of your branded auction volume."
• "Retreat: pause keyword cluster Y where Competitor C's ecosystem advantage is structural. Reallocate $3K/month to Push #1."

Step 6: Output

A markdown report structured as:

# Competitive Benchmark Report - [Period]

## Headline finding
[One paragraph summary of competitive position]

## Top 5 competitors
[Table sorted by overlap]

## Per-campaign competitive matrix
[One section per top-spend campaign]

## Industry benchmark comparison
[Table of user metrics vs. benchmarks]

## Competitive gap analysis
### Push opportunities
### Defend priorities
### Retreat areas

## Strategic recommendations
[3–5 prioritized actions]

If the user needs this for a stakeholder presentation, generate as a PowerPoint deck (pptx skill) with one slide per section. If it's for internal record-keeping, Word doc (docx skill).

What this skill must NOT do

• Don't name competitors that the auction insights data didn't include. The data anonymizes some entrants ("Other"); don't speculate beyond what's shown.
• Don't recommend bid escalation against heavy bidders without confirming the user's unit economics support it. More CPC × stable conv. rate = worse CPA. Always check.
• Don't treat industry benchmarks as targets to beat. They're context, not goals. A campaign 30% below benchmark CTR may still be hitting the user's actual business goals.
• Don't recommend defending every losing auction. Some auctions are correctly losses - fighting them harms the account.
• Don't assume competitors with high overlap are direct competitors. Sometimes a marketplace or comparison site overlaps highly without being a real threat.
• Don't make claims about competitors' strategies you can't substantiate. "They're testing a new product" is speculation; "their position-above rate jumped 20% in the last month" is fact.

Reference files

• references/competitor-archetypes.md - how to characterize competitors from auction insights signals
• references/industry-benchmarks.md - vertical-specific CTR/CPC/CPA/conv. rate benchmarks