Google’s Auction Insights: Bridging the visibility gap

How much of your spend is being allocated to search terms hidden under Google’s “other” category, versus those in your reports?

Adthena analyzed accounts from various locations and discovered that, on average, 51% of spend is associated with search terms that Google doesn’t surface, categorizing them as “other terms” or similar. 

As marketers, this begs the question: How much of our budget is slipping through the cracks?

This lack of transparency also extends to Performance Max (PMax) campaigns. In Adthena’s research, only 26% of PMax traffic was tied to visible search terms, leaving a large portion of your performance in the dark.

Why visibility gaps in search terms could be costing you

Google’s failure to disclose certain search terms creates blind spots in performance analysis and reporting. 

It’s alarming to know that 51% of your ad budget could be wasted on non-converting terms.

This data gap skews performance metrics and risks leading future strategies in the wrong direction.

The hidden reporting challenges you didn’t know about

Without full insight into search terms, reporting becomes incomplete.

A significant portion of your budget may be going toward underperforming search terms, yet you lack the data to identify them accurately. 

This reporting gap hinders your ability to provide accurate performance assessments and make data-driven decisions for future campaigns.

Unlock true campaign optimization with complete data

Without visibility into hidden terms, identifying negative keywords becomes nearly impossible, which limits campaign optimization.

How to solve the search term visibility problem

Adthena bridges the data gap by providing deeper intelligence and insights, allowing advertisers to optimize their campaigns based on more comprehensive data.

For instance, VodafoneZiggo used Adthena’s insights to optimize its paid search strategy, achieving a 500% increase in orders. 

By reallocating ad spend to non-brand terms and pausing underperforming keywords, VodafoneZiggo improved its impression share by 70%, and saved significant costs by eliminating five inefficient “Lone Ranger” terms.

• “The valuable insights we get from Adthena are simply unavailable elsewhere. Every hour and Euro we invest in paid search is spent wisely,” said Jerry Jacobs, Paid Search Lead, VodafoneZiggo.

The limitations of Auction Insights explained

Auction Insights provides valuable data but has limitations that can hinder your decision-making:

1. Overlapping terms only: Auction Insights only shows terms where your bids overlap with competitors. Even for the same terms, the data is limited to times when you’ve overlapped with them in the auction.
2. Limited visibility of competitor activity: You can only access Auction Insights for auctions where you’re involved, which means you might be missing important insights about your competitors’ behavior on those terms when you’re not present.
3. Impression share threshold: You lose visibility when your activity falls below the 10% minimum impression share threshold, limiting your ability to fully assess your performance in the auction landscape.
4. No Looker Studio integration: Lack of Looker Studio integration makes it harder to seamlessly incorporate competitive data into your reporting, increasing manual work.

What you can do about it

Here’s how Adthena can help you bridge that gap and drive more impactful results.

1. See terms your competitors appear on

With Adthena, you can identify where your competitors are bidding, but you aren’t. This includes prospective terms for categories you want to compete in, to ensure you can successfully launch new activity.

For example, PrettyLittleThing leveraged Adthena’s competitive insights, to identify exactly which search terms their competitors were targeting, enabling them to connect with consumers who were ready to buy.

This approach allowed them to appear on 1,400 additional terms with text and shopping ads compared to the previous year, resulting in a 47% increase in share of clicks on generic text ads and a 225% year-over-year increase in Google Shopping ads.

• “Search is the channel we rely on to drive lower-funnel decisions that bring in new revenue. Adthena’s data helped us increase share and appeal to our trendy, fashion-forward customers who are already in the market for our products,” said Matt Holmes, Head of Digital Marketing, PrettyLittleThing.

2. View the full competitive landscape

Unlike Auction Insights, Adthena gives visibility into competitor activity even when you aren’t in the auction. This enables you to identify market opportunities and observe terms of interest, helping you to effectively compete in new categories.

For example, Journey Further obtained a market-wide view of their client’s performance relative to category competitors.

As a result, Journey Further delivered a 97% increase in revenue from Google Shopping campaigns and a 27% increase in impression share.

Return on ad spend (ROAS) also grew by 38%, making the client’s shopping campaigns a resounding success.

• “Adthena gives us visibility into our entire market, and that has been a tremendous help for our Google Shopping campaigns. We had a hunch that we could be doing more on Google Shopping, but without the right data, it was hard to see how. By using Adthena, we’ve been able to see exactly how we rank against competitors, where we can become more aggressive, and how we can drive more revenue from our campaigns,” according to the ecommerce manager for a Home furnishings retailer.

3. Enhanced performance metrics

Adthena provides unique metrics for search term performance like AveragePosition, Share of Spend, Share of Clicks and Share of Impressions – for you and all your competitors.

Use these insights to evaluate and benchmark the performance of your campaigns versus competitor campaigns and make more informed optimization decisions to secure a better ROI.

For example, Adthena’s insights helped Dentsu achieve a 360% increase in demand and a 140% increase in traffic for their client for Black Friday.

Dentsu identified that a top competitor reduced its budget in the Image and Micro categories while offering lower discounts. 

This allowed Dentsu to increase spending strategically, resulting in a 37% increase in impression share and significant revenue growth during this competitive period.

• “Thanks to strategic insights from Adthena, we’ve been able to identify our best opportunities compared to our competitors, allowing us to increase our revenue during the most important month of the year,” said Celia Rosado, Paid Search Analyst, and Rubén Fernandéz-Avilés, Paid Search Manager, Dentsu.

4. Unlock insights for shopping and PMax campaigns

If you’re running Google Shopping or PMax campaigns, the lack of granular data can be frustrating. 

Adthena fills that gap, offering product-specific data on impressions, ad listings and prices seen in your ads, and the ads served by your competitors.

You can build a view like this for your competitive metrics (Share of Impressions, Clicks, Spend & Average Position).

For PMax campaigns, you’ll have visibility into extra search terms that trigger your ads, which Google often fails to provide, as well as a search term report for terms specifically triggering your shopping ads, which Google doesn’t provide any visibility on, unless you have a Standard Shopping campaign. 

This transparency allows you to fine-tune your campaigns by optimizing your shopping feed, text ads, negative keywords, and more.

Take an interactive platform tour of Adthena to learn how we can provide you with shopping insights to help you plan now.

5. Streamline reporting with seamless integrations with Looker Studio

Adthena integrates directly with Looker Studio, making it easy to incorporate detailed competitive data into your reports.

This means your reporting will be more comprehensive, allowing you to showcase a complete picture of campaign performance to stakeholders without missing crucial data.

Take back control with Adthena

Adthena’s search intelligence platform will give you a competitive edge.

Our technology gives you a comprehensive view of the search landscape, enabling you to optimize campaigns with confidence, boost ROI and ensure every penny is invested wisely.

Book a quick demo with our search consultants to see how Adthena can bridge the gap in Google’s Auction Insights. Transform your search strategy.