Every home services company running Google Ads has the same blind spot: they know their own cost-per-click and conversion rate cold, but they have no idea what the guy three ad slots over is actually doing. That gap costs you money. Once you know which competitors show up for your keywords and how they run their paid search campaigns, you can stop guessing at your own bids, keywords, and ad copy and start reacting to what's actually happening in the auction.
Why This Matters Before You Touch a Single Bid
Auction data tells you things your own dashboard never will. Your click-through rate might look fine in isolation, but if a competitor is winning the top spot on the same keyword at a lower cost, that's a signal your ad copy or quality score needs work, not your budget.
Competitor research also surfaces keywords and angles you haven't tried. A roofer running ads in your metro might be bidding on "storm damage inspection" while you're only chasing "roof replacement." You won't find that gap by staring at your own account.
Start With What You Can See for Free
Google Search Itself
Search your own target keywords and note who shows up in the paid slots at the top and bottom of the results page. Do this a few times over a couple of weeks, not once, because not every competitor advertises every day. Click through to their landing pages and read what they're promising. This costs nothing and takes fifteen minutes.
The catch: search results only show you who's active right now, not their keyword list, bid strategy, or budget. It's a starting point, not the full picture.
Auction Insights Inside Your Own Account
Google Ads has a built-in report called Auction Insights, and most local business owners never open it. It sits at the campaign or keyword level and shows you exactly which other advertisers are showing up in the same auctions as you, using real numbers instead of guesswork.
The metrics that matter most:
- Impression share: the percentage of eligible auctions where your ad actually showed. Low impression share against a specific competitor means they're outbidding or outranking you consistently.
- Overlap rate: how often a competitor's ad appears in the same auction as yours. High overlap on your best keywords tells you exactly who to watch.
- Outranking share: how often your ad lands in a higher position than theirs when you both show up. This is the closest thing to a real head-to-head scoreboard Google gives you.
- Top-of-page rate: how often your ad shows above the organic results. If a competitor's top-of-page rate is climbing while yours flattens, expect their spend or quality score to be moving up.
Check this report monthly at minimum. It's free, it's already in your account, and it's more accurate than any third-party estimate.
Third-Party Tools Fill In the Gaps
Auction Insights only shows you advertisers you're already competing against directly. Tools like SEMrush and SpyFu let you plug in any competitor's domain, even one you haven't triggered an auction with yet, and pull estimated ad spend, historical keyword lists, and ad copy variations over time. Treat the spend numbers as directional, not exact. They're modeled off traffic and CPC estimates, not pulled from anyone's actual Google Ads account.
What's genuinely useful in these tools: the historical ad copy archive (you can see how a competitor's messaging has changed over months or years) and the keyword overlap reports (which keywords they rank or bid on that you don't touch yet). That second one is usually where the real opportunity sits, because it surfaces terms you never thought to bid on.
Read Their Ads Like a Copywriter, Not a Tourist
Once you've got a list of competitors, actually read their ad copy line by line. What's the headline promising? Same-day service, free estimate, financing? What's the call to action, and does it create urgency or just say "learn more"? Pull up their landing page too. If their ad says "24/7 emergency service" and the landing page buries that under three paragraphs of company history, that's a gap you can exploit by matching your ad promise directly to what's above the fold on your own page.
Do the same with format. Are they running static text ads only, or do they have ad extensions loaded (sitelinks, call buttons, price extensions)? A contractor running bare-bones text ads next to your fully-extended listing is losing real estate on the results page, and that's worth noting.
Timing and Geography Tell You Where They're Weak
Watch when competitor ads show up. If you notice a competitor's ads disappear on weekends or after 6pm, that's either a deliberate schedule or a budget that runs out early in the day, and either way it's a window where you can own the auction with less competition. Geographic targeting works the same way: a competitor running ads across the whole metro might be spreading budget thin across zip codes that barely convert, while you can concentrate spend in the three or four zip codes that actually produce jobs.
Turning Research Into Action
None of this matters if it stays in a spreadsheet. The point of watching competitors is to make three specific changes: add keywords they're capturing that you're not, rewrite ad copy to close gaps in their messaging, and shift budget toward the days, hours, and zip codes where they're weakest. Revisit Auction Insights monthly and re-run a third-party lookup on your top two or three competitors quarterly. Ad strategies shift, especially in home services where seasonality drives spend up and down all year.
If tracking this on top of running your business isn't realistic, that's exactly the kind of ongoing account management we handle for clients through our Google Ads management service. We watch the auction so you don't have to guess where your budget is going. Get in touch if you want a second set of eyes on your account.
Common Questions
Can I see competitor ads for free?
Yes. The Google Ads Transparency Center lets you look up any advertiser and see the ad copy and formats they're currently running, though it won't show you keywords or spend. Searching your own target terms on Google and noting who shows up in the paid slots works too, and costs nothing but time.
What's the difference between Auction Insights and a third-party tool?
Auction Insights only shows advertisers you're already triggering auctions against, but the data is exact because it comes straight from Google. Third-party tools can show you competitors you haven't matched up against yet, but their spend and traffic figures are estimates built from modeling, not real account data.
Can I see the exact keywords my competitors are targeting?
Not their exact list. No tool has access to another advertiser's actual keyword targeting. What SEMrush, SpyFu, and similar tools show you is which keywords a domain ranks or shows ads for based on public search data, which is a strong proxy but not a copy of their account.
How accurate are competitor budget estimates?
Treat them as a rough range, not a number to plan around. These tools model spend from estimated traffic and average cost-per-click, and actual budgets swing based on conversion rates and campaign changes that no outside tool can see. Use the estimate to gauge whether a competitor is a serious player or a minor one, not to reverse-engineer their exact budget.