Google's Ad Insights Feature + Competitive Research Tips

Reviewing competitor ads is an essential part of ad creation for any marketer. Knowing who your competitors are and what they are offering, can help make your products, services and marketing efforts stand out. 

Prior to Google’s Ads Research feature, marketers used third-party tools, like Semrush or SpyFu. These tools are not 100% reliable, however, since they rely on sample data and often do not yield comprehensive examples.

Needless to say, our team was thrilled to learn about Google’s new feature as it allows more seamless competitor research directly on the platform! 

How to Find the Google Ads Research Feature

Hover over the 3 vertical dots next to a paid ad.

Screenshot from a search for ‘clean beauty’

Click on ‘See More Ads’ link.

You can filter ads by date range, location and ad format.

How to Analyze Paid Search Ad Copy

Whether you’re looking at search ads or display ads, you can organize insights, detect trends, and analyze your competition based on this list of steps.

Call to Action

One of the most important parts of the ad is the CTA – this is what drives users to convert.

Take note of any incentives, offers, and urgency messaging within the ad.

Experienced marketers mention the CTA more than once. The first mention may include urgency messaging, with other mentions elaborating on specific incentives.

If the product or service is not sold online, it is still best practice to use a CTA. The CTA should include how to buy the product (i.e. Visit Our Store).

Product or Service Name

Don’t overthink this. Clearly state what product you’re selling or service you’re providing. 

Take note of how your competition mentions specific products and services by name.

Product or Service Feature

Whether visual or text-based, ads devote significant real estate to describing the notable attributes of the promoted product or service.

Take note of what those are and what qualifying descriptions or visualizations are used.

For text-based ads, identify the adjectives and adverbs — are they superlative or factual?

For non-text ads, track how the product is shown and if the imagery is lifestyle-based or brand-based.

Benefits

While features help describe the use case for a product or service, it is the benefits that will convince a user to engage with your ad. Mentioning the benefits of your product is important as this helps potential customers understand the value of your products.

Take note of what solution-oriented language or imagery is leveraged. 

Tone

The ad tone, along with the CTA, are crucial indicators of which user journey the advertiser is targeting.

A more informative, casual tone would suggest targeting a user earlier in their journey.

Alternatively, an ad that has more direct language is likely aimed at a user in a transactional frame of mind.

Length

Last but not least is the ad text length (or video length and image size for non-text-based ads).

Ads that convey the most compelling story often have the highest likelihood of success.

On the flip side, just because an ad has the option to include a lot of text or include a video of a certain length, it is not always the best-performing approach. Oftentimes, less is more.

Wrapping Up

The tendency is often to mirror what others are doing. However, that can lead to all players having similar messaging. This only makes it harder for users to differentiate the available options.

While it is worth borrowing ideas from your competitors, resist the urge to copy a perceived market leader. Rather, gather insights from multiple players and then systematically test specific elements.