The True Competition Metric
Use auction-insights math to tell a genuine competitive threat from a harmless close-variant accident
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
A way to identify real competitive conquesting in Google Search rather than reacting to ego-driven assumptions or SEM-Rush personalization artifacts. Using Google's auction-insights data, you build metrics — notably combining 'position above rate when we show' with the times competitors show when you don't — to compute how often a competitor genuinely ranks above you across all auctions you're eligible for, tracked over time to separate consistent conquesting from an accidental close-variant blip.
Origin
Attributed to Jacob Brown at PPC Hero, who defined the 'true competition metric' from Google auction insights; Davis applies and visualizes it.
Core principles
- 01Impression share alone is 'ego marketing' — being on top always is less valuable than showing to the right user
- 02Many apparent competitor attacks are accidental Google 'close variants', not malicious conquesting
- 03A baseline tracked over time distinguishes a consistent threat from a transient blip
- 04Personalization in your own Google searches or SEM-Rush can falsely suggest a competitor is outranking you
How to run it
- 1
Pull auction-insights data
Gather Google's auction-insights data for the keywords in question rather than eyeballing a live search (which is personalized) or trusting a tool like SEM-Rush.
Watch out A competitor appearing above you in your own Googling may just be personalization, not a real pattern.
- 2
Compute the true competition metric
Combine 'position above rate when we show' with the number of times competitors show and you don't, to derive how often each competitor genuinely ranks above you across all eligible auctions.
Pro tip The PPC Hero article by Jacob Brown details the four derived metrics — it's dense, so keep the link handy.
- 3
Baseline it over time and react only to consistency
Track the metric over time against a baseline; react to a competitor line that is consistently above you, not to a temporary spike that later disappears (often a close-variant that got fixed).
Pro tip Before assuming malice, check for trademark misspellings (e.g. Shopify with two i's) you can file a claim on, and remember competitors may be conquesting by accident.
Watch out Reacting to an accidental or transient blip wastes effort and is just ego marketing in disguise.
In the wild
On Davis's visualization, one competitor's orange line stayed consistent (with a brief two-e misspelling dip), while a green competitor started above and faded to almost nothing over time — likely a close variant they identified and removed, then fully cleaned up weeks later.
→ The chart distinguished a real, persistent competitor from an accidental close-variant that self-resolved, preventing an overreaction.
Common mistakes
Treating a live personalized search as competitive evidence
Your own Googling is personalized and SEM-Rush can mislead; only auction-insights-based analysis reveals whether a threat is genuine.
Is it for you?
Best for
Google Search advertisers worried about competitor conquesting who want to react to real threats only
Not ideal for
Channels without auction-insights data, or accounts too small for meaningful auction competition signals
From the transcript
“the writer there his name is Jacob Brown this is what he calls the true competition metric”
“two of those metrics are position above rate when we show and amount of times they show and we don't added together and it will…”
“let's run this report and see if it's a genuine threat as opposed to just maybe ego marketing going on”
From the episode
The ultimate guide to performance marketing
Timothy Davis (Shopify)