Competitor bidding can bring out a surprisingly emotional side of PPC. Someone searches for your brand, spots another insurer above you and sends the screenshot around the business.
“They’re bidding on us!”
The immediate response is often equally predictable:
“They’re bidding on us!”
The immediate response is often equally predictable:
Sometimes that reaction is justified. But seeing a competitor appear once does not necessarily mean somebody has deliberately built a campaign targeting your brand and even when they have, retaliating simply because they are bidding on you is not much of a strategy. Competitor PPC is far more nuanced than that.
It can involve defending demand you’ve already created, identifying insurers and brokers competing for the same customers, deliberately targeting competitor searches, understanding the intent behind those searches and deciding whether the resulting customers are actually worth acquiring.
Done well, competitor PPC can create valuable incremental business. Done badly, it can become an expensive bidding war where everybody pays Google more without necessarily creating much additional value.
It can involve defending demand you’ve already created, identifying insurers and brokers competing for the same customers, deliberately targeting competitor searches, understanding the intent behind those searches and deciding whether the resulting customers are actually worth acquiring.
Done well, competitor PPC can create valuable incremental business. Done badly, it can become an expensive bidding war where everybody pays Google more without necessarily creating much additional value.
“They’re Bidding on Us!”
Let’s start with the accusation. You search your company name and another insurer appears. They might be deliberately targeting you. But one search isn’t enough evidence to reach that conclusion.
Google’s keyword matching and automated targeting mean advertisers can sometimes enter auctions they haven’t explicitly constructed around a particular competitor. Close variants apply across keyword match types, while Google also provides brand inclusion and exclusion controls specifically to give advertisers more control over brand-related traffic.
Before reacting, you need to understand the pattern. This is where Auction Insights becomes particularly useful.
Google’s keyword matching and automated targeting mean advertisers can sometimes enter auctions they haven’t explicitly constructed around a particular competitor. Close variants apply across keyword match types, while Google also provides brand inclusion and exclusion controls specifically to give advertisers more control over brand-related traffic.
Before reacting, you need to understand the pattern. This is where Auction Insights becomes particularly useful.
How Serious Is It? Start With Auction Insights
If I see Competitor A appearing against a client’s brand, one of the first places I’ll investigate is the Auction Insights report.
For Search campaigns, Google provides data including impression share, overlap rate, position above rate, top-of-page rate, absolute-top rate and outranking share. Reports can also be viewed at keyword, ad group and campaign level where sufficient data exists. That gives us considerably more actionable data and context than a screenshot.
If Competitor A appears against your brand on a manual search, but Auction Insights shows that they’re present in less than 10% of your auctions, I’d be reluctant to conclude that they’re aggressively targeting you.
They may not be deliberately targeting you at all. If they are, their coverage, budget or success appears relatively limited. That’s not a Google-defined 10% threshold. It’s simply the sort of practical context I’d use when deciding how seriously to take what I’ve seen.
If, on the other hand, a competitor consistently overlaps with you, regularly appears above you and its presence has been increasing, that’s different.
Whether somebody deliberately added your brand as a keyword or Google’s matching contributed to the overlap becomes almost secondary. They’re competing for meaningful visibility against your brand, so it’s worth understanding the commercial impact.
For Search campaigns, Google provides data including impression share, overlap rate, position above rate, top-of-page rate, absolute-top rate and outranking share. Reports can also be viewed at keyword, ad group and campaign level where sufficient data exists. That gives us considerably more actionable data and context than a screenshot.
If Competitor A appears against your brand on a manual search, but Auction Insights shows that they’re present in less than 10% of your auctions, I’d be reluctant to conclude that they’re aggressively targeting you.
They may not be deliberately targeting you at all. If they are, their coverage, budget or success appears relatively limited. That’s not a Google-defined 10% threshold. It’s simply the sort of practical context I’d use when deciding how seriously to take what I’ve seen.
If, on the other hand, a competitor consistently overlaps with you, regularly appears above you and its presence has been increasing, that’s different.
Whether somebody deliberately added your brand as a keyword or Google’s matching contributed to the overlap becomes almost secondary. They’re competing for meaningful visibility against your brand, so it’s worth understanding the commercial impact.
Auction Insights Can Help You Find Competitors Too
Auction Insights isn’t only useful for brand defence. It can also help identify who your real PPC competitors are.
Imagine you’re an insurer targeting searches around insurance for imported cars.
Run Auction Insights against tightly defined non-brand activity and you can see which advertisers repeatedly enter those auctions alongside you. Because Google allows Auction Insights to be viewed for selected Search campaigns, ad groups and keywords, you can use it to investigate competition around specific areas of demand rather than only looking at the account as a whole.
That can produce some interesting results. The businesses your board may consider your biggest competitors aren’t necessarily the businesses you’re most frequently competing against in paid search.
In specialist insurance markets particularly, you may discover another broker or insurer repeatedly competing for precisely the customers you’re trying to acquire, despite not featuring prominently on your original competitor list.
That potentially gives you another business to research and, if the economics and wider commercial considerations make sense, another competitor to consider targeting deliberately.
Identifying those businesses doesn’t automatically mean you should start bidding on their brands. But it can uncover potential acquisition opportunities you weren’t previously considering. We’ll come back to what makes those opportunities worth pursuing later.
Imagine you’re an insurer targeting searches around insurance for imported cars.
Run Auction Insights against tightly defined non-brand activity and you can see which advertisers repeatedly enter those auctions alongside you. Because Google allows Auction Insights to be viewed for selected Search campaigns, ad groups and keywords, you can use it to investigate competition around specific areas of demand rather than only looking at the account as a whole.
That can produce some interesting results. The businesses your board may consider your biggest competitors aren’t necessarily the businesses you’re most frequently competing against in paid search.
In specialist insurance markets particularly, you may discover another broker or insurer repeatedly competing for precisely the customers you’re trying to acquire, despite not featuring prominently on your original competitor list.
That potentially gives you another business to research and, if the economics and wider commercial considerations make sense, another competitor to consider targeting deliberately.
Identifying those businesses doesn’t automatically mean you should start bidding on their brands. But it can uncover potential acquisition opportunities you weren’t previously considering. We’ll come back to what makes those opportunities worth pursuing later.
Don’t build your PPC competitor list purely from who the business thinks its competitors are. Look at who you’re actually competing with for demand.
Ready to find (then eliminate) the hidden waste in your account?
Get a Precision Audit, a concise, expert review highlighting inefficiencies and missed opportunities in your PPC setup.
Defence: Protect Commercial Value, Not Ego
Let’s assume competitors genuinely are appearing regularly against your brand. What should you do? There isn’t a universal answer.
I’ve written previously on my Linkedin newsletter PPC Intelligence for Insurers about why businesses investing heavily in creating demand shouldn’t automatically give away the final click when someone subsequently searches for their brand. Competitor activity is another reason brand coverage should be an active commercial decision rather than something configured once and forgotten.
But that doesn’t mean the correct response to every competitor impression is simply to bid harder. I’d want to understand what’s actually changing.
– Is your brand impression share falling?
– Are competitors appearing consistently or occasionally?
– Are your CPCs increasing?
– Are you losing meaningful clicks, quotes or customers?
– Is competitor presence increasing over time?
– And crucially, would additional brand investment actually protect enough commercial value to justify the cost?
There can be a tendency for competitor bidding to become personal.
“They’re bidding on us, so we’ll bid on them.”
Google probably won’t complain about the additional auction pressure. Your finance director might.
I’ve written previously on my Linkedin newsletter PPC Intelligence for Insurers about why businesses investing heavily in creating demand shouldn’t automatically give away the final click when someone subsequently searches for their brand. Competitor activity is another reason brand coverage should be an active commercial decision rather than something configured once and forgotten.
But that doesn’t mean the correct response to every competitor impression is simply to bid harder. I’d want to understand what’s actually changing.
– Is your brand impression share falling?
– Are competitors appearing consistently or occasionally?
– Are your CPCs increasing?
– Are you losing meaningful clicks, quotes or customers?
– Is competitor presence increasing over time?
– And crucially, would additional brand investment actually protect enough commercial value to justify the cost?
There can be a tendency for competitor bidding to become personal.
“They’re bidding on us, so we’ll bid on them.”
Google probably won’t complain about the additional auction pressure. Your finance director might.
Defend commercial value, not ego.
Strategy: Should You Bid on Competitors?
This is one of those frustrating PPC questions where the most accurate answer is: it depends.
Competitor campaigns can absolutely generate incremental customers. I’ve seen them play a valuable role within acquisition strategies on a large scale. But the decision involves considerably more than whether Google will let you buy the traffic.
There are obvious on-platform considerations. What are the CPCs? How much search volume exists? What budget is available? How does competitor traffic convert? What does it cost to generate a quote or acquire a customer? Could that budget generate greater incremental value elsewhere?
Then there are considerations that Google Ads knows absolutely nothing about. An insurer or broker may have existing commercial relationships with another business. There may be distribution agreements, partnerships or sensitivities that make aggressively targeting a particular company inappropriate.
Brand positioning matters. Compliance matters. Product appetite matters. Wider business relationships matter.
A PPC specialist can identify a technically viable acquisition opportunity while the commercially correct decision is still not to pursue it.
That’s why I’d be wary of competitor strategies built by simply compiling a list of every recognisable business in the market and uploading their names as keywords. Start with the business case.
Competitor campaigns can absolutely generate incremental customers. I’ve seen them play a valuable role within acquisition strategies on a large scale. But the decision involves considerably more than whether Google will let you buy the traffic.
There are obvious on-platform considerations. What are the CPCs? How much search volume exists? What budget is available? How does competitor traffic convert? What does it cost to generate a quote or acquire a customer? Could that budget generate greater incremental value elsewhere?
Then there are considerations that Google Ads knows absolutely nothing about. An insurer or broker may have existing commercial relationships with another business. There may be distribution agreements, partnerships or sensitivities that make aggressively targeting a particular company inappropriate.
Brand positioning matters. Compliance matters. Product appetite matters. Wider business relationships matter.
A PPC specialist can identify a technically viable acquisition opportunity while the commercially correct decision is still not to pursue it.
That’s why I’d be wary of competitor strategies built by simply compiling a list of every recognisable business in the market and uploading their names as keywords. Start with the business case.
Opportunity: Give People a Reason to Choose You
If you do decide to target competitors, the keyword is only the beginning. One of the weakest approaches is also one of the most common:
Someone searches for Competitor A.
Your advert effectively says:
“Looking for Competitor A? Try us instead.”
Why?
The customer already knows the other brand. They may already have a relationship with it. Simply announcing that your business also sells insurance isn’t necessarily a compelling reason for them to change direction. This is where competitor research can become much more interesting.
I’ve used AI to help analyse competitor reviews and identify recurring themes within large volumes of customer feedback. The objective isn’t to ask AI to write an advert attacking the competitor. It’s to understand why customers become frustrated and where your own proposition may genuinely offer something different.
Suppose a recurring complaint involves navigating complicated automated telephone menus.
If your business genuinely differentiates itself by having calls answered by people, that could become part of the proposition you emphasise.
If customers repeatedly complain about struggling to get beyond automated chatbots and your business genuinely provides accessible human support, that’s another potentially meaningful differentiator.
The competitor doesn’t need to become the hero of your advert. The customer’s problem/pain-point should.
Someone searches for Competitor A.
Your advert effectively says:
“Looking for Competitor A? Try us instead.”
Why?
The customer already knows the other brand. They may already have a relationship with it. Simply announcing that your business also sells insurance isn’t necessarily a compelling reason for them to change direction. This is where competitor research can become much more interesting.
I’ve used AI to help analyse competitor reviews and identify recurring themes within large volumes of customer feedback. The objective isn’t to ask AI to write an advert attacking the competitor. It’s to understand why customers become frustrated and where your own proposition may genuinely offer something different.
Suppose a recurring complaint involves navigating complicated automated telephone menus.
If your business genuinely differentiates itself by having calls answered by people, that could become part of the proposition you emphasise.
If customers repeatedly complain about struggling to get beyond automated chatbots and your business genuinely provides accessible human support, that’s another potentially meaningful differentiator.
The competitor doesn’t need to become the hero of your advert. The customer’s problem/pain-point should.
Don’t make the competitor the focus of your ad. Make the customer’s reason for considering an alternative the focus.
There is an important compliance caveat here. Google does not prohibit advertisers simply from using trademarks as keywords, although it can restrict trademark use within ads following complaints in certain circumstances. UK advertising rules also require identifiable competitor comparisons to be non-misleading and based on objective, relevant, verifiable and representative features.
For financial promotions, FCA requirements around communications being fair, clear and not misleading also apply.
AI can help identify patterns worth investigating. It shouldn’t be treated as evidence that a comparative advertising claim is true. Research the opportunity. Verify it. Then communicate something you can genuinely substantiate.
For financial promotions, FCA requirements around communications being fair, clear and not misleading also apply.
AI can help identify patterns worth investigating. It shouldn’t be treated as evidence that a comparative advertising claim is true. Research the opportunity. Verify it. Then communicate something you can genuinely substantiate.
The Words Around the Competitor’s Name Matter
Not every search containing a competitor’s brand represents the same opportunity. Consider the difference between:
[Competitor] insurance and: [Competitor] renewal
Someone searching around a competitor’s renewal may be approaching a natural decision point. They could be assessing their renewal price, considering alternatives or deciding whether to stay.
If you’re going to appear at that moment, generic competitor copy wastes an opportunity. Messaging around not simply auto-renewing and considering your options may be considerably more relevant to the searcher’s situation.
Other searches could indicate different levels of consideration:
[Competitor] insurance and: [Competitor] renewal
Someone searching around a competitor’s renewal may be approaching a natural decision point. They could be assessing their renewal price, considering alternatives or deciding whether to stay.
If you’re going to appear at that moment, generic competitor copy wastes an opportunity. Messaging around not simply auto-renewing and considering your options may be considerably more relevant to the searcher’s situation.
Other searches could indicate different levels of consideration:
Each tells you something slightly different about what that person may be trying to achieve.
Now compare those with:
Now compare those with:
These may simply be existing customers trying to access their current insurer. In many circumstances, I’d rather exclude that traffic than pay to intercept it.
This is why competitor campaigns need a considered negative keyword strategy rather than simply a list of competitor names. Not forgetting, you will not see every search term your ads are triggering for, so if you do not implement a robust negative keyword approach, you’ll inevitable end up paying for search terms you’d have little to no chance of ever converting.
This is why competitor campaigns need a considered negative keyword strategy rather than simply a list of competitor names. Not forgetting, you will not see every search term your ads are triggering for, so if you do not implement a robust negative keyword approach, you’ll inevitable end up paying for search terms you’d have little to no chance of ever converting.
The words around the competitor’s name can be more important than the competitor’s name itself.
Competitor targeting isn’t just about choosing which brands you’re prepared to pay for. It’s about choosing which intentions you’re prepared to pay for.
When a “Conversion” Is Actually a Wrong Number
Phone calls deserve particular attention. Imagine someone searches:
Competitor A customer service number
Your ad appears with a call asset. They tap it. Depending on your conversion configuration and the length of the call, Google Ads may report something that looks encouraging. But what actually happened on the phone?
Perhaps:
“Hi, I’m calling about my existing policy.”
“I’m sorry, you’ve reached [Your Company], not Competitor A.”
Call over.
That’s not a new-business opportunity. It’s somebody who dialled the wrong insurer.
I’ve found call duration in the call details report in Google Ads particularly useful for spotting this sort of behaviour. If competitor activity appears to be generating calls but a suspicious proportion of them are extremely short, I’d investigate further.
Where the technology and processes allow it, go beyond duration. What was the call outcome? Was a quote generated? Did the caller actually meet the criteria for a new-business opportunity? Did anything enter the CRM? Did they eventually buy?
A platform conversion isn’t automatically a business conversion.
Competitor A customer service number
Your ad appears with a call asset. They tap it. Depending on your conversion configuration and the length of the call, Google Ads may report something that looks encouraging. But what actually happened on the phone?
Perhaps:
“Hi, I’m calling about my existing policy.”
“I’m sorry, you’ve reached [Your Company], not Competitor A.”
Call over.
That’s not a new-business opportunity. It’s somebody who dialled the wrong insurer.
I’ve found call duration in the call details report in Google Ads particularly useful for spotting this sort of behaviour. If competitor activity appears to be generating calls but a suspicious proportion of them are extremely short, I’d investigate further.
Where the technology and processes allow it, go beyond duration. What was the call outcome? Was a quote generated? Did the caller actually meet the criteria for a new-business opportunity? Did anything enter the CRM? Did they eventually buy?
A platform conversion isn’t automatically a business conversion.
What Good Competitor PPC Looks Like
There are plenty of bad reasons to run competitor activity.
Good competitor PPC is much more deliberate.
Other industries offer useful lessons here too.
SaaS competitor advertising can be particularly aggressive, but some of the more interesting strategies happen after the click. Search for competing software products and you’ll often find businesses using detailed alternative or comparison pages rather than trying to squeeze an entire competitive argument into an advert.
Insurance isn’t SaaS and those tactics can’t simply be copied wholesale, particularly given the regulatory environment. But the principle is useful.
SaaS competitor advertising can be particularly aggressive, but some of the more interesting strategies happen after the click. Search for competing software products and you’ll often find businesses using detailed alternative or comparison pages rather than trying to squeeze an entire competitive argument into an advert.
Insurance isn’t SaaS and those tactics can’t simply be copied wholesale, particularly given the regulatory environment. But the principle is useful.
The ad doesn’t necessarily have to win the comparison. Sometimes its job is to earn the opportunity to make the comparison.
A strong landing page can explain your proposition, service, cover and genuine points of differentiation far more effectively than a handful of RSA assets.
Measure the Customer, Not the Competitor Campaign
Competitor traffic can be expensive. That doesn’t automatically make it inefficient.
As I discussed recently in another Linkedin article More Quotes. More Cost. Same Revenue, the lead isn’t the final commercial outcome. That distinction becomes particularly important with competitor activity.
Imagine a competitor campaign has a higher CPL than your generic Search campaigns. Viewed purely through Google Ads, reducing its budget might seem obvious.
But what if those leads convert into policies at a significantly higher rate? What if they generate greater revenue? What if the customers retain particularly well?
Conversely, an apparently cheap competitor campaign could look fantastic until you discover a significant proportion of its conversions are people looking for another insurer’s customer-service department.
Follow the journey:
As I discussed recently in another Linkedin article More Quotes. More Cost. Same Revenue, the lead isn’t the final commercial outcome. That distinction becomes particularly important with competitor activity.
Imagine a competitor campaign has a higher CPL than your generic Search campaigns. Viewed purely through Google Ads, reducing its budget might seem obvious.
But what if those leads convert into policies at a significantly higher rate? What if they generate greater revenue? What if the customers retain particularly well?
Conversely, an apparently cheap competitor campaign could look fantastic until you discover a significant proportion of its conversions are people looking for another insurer’s customer-service department.
Follow the journey:
Search → Quote → Policy → Revenue → Profit
That’s ultimately how I’d judge whether competitor activity deserves more investment. Not whether we managed to outrank another insurer.
Competitor PPC Isn’t a Bidding War
Competitor bidding can be defensive, strategic and opportunistic. Sometimes protecting valuable brand demand is the right decision. Sometimes a competitor appearing against you warrants very little reaction at all. In other cases, Auction Insights may uncover businesses competing for the same non-brand customers that weren’t previously on your radar, creating an entirely new acquisition opportunity.
The important part is understanding which situation you’re dealing with. Before reacting, establish what’s actually happening. Before targeting a competitor, understand the commercial case for doing so. And if you decide that competitor traffic is worth pursuing, think beyond simply bidding on a brand name. Search intent, messaging, negative keywords, landing pages and what happens after the enquiry all play a part in whether that activity ultimately creates value.
Competitor PPC shouldn’t become an expensive battle to see who can appear highest for somebody else’s brand. It’s not about winning the auction. It’s about winning the right customer.
The important part is understanding which situation you’re dealing with. Before reacting, establish what’s actually happening. Before targeting a competitor, understand the commercial case for doing so. And if you decide that competitor traffic is worth pursuing, think beyond simply bidding on a brand name. Search intent, messaging, negative keywords, landing pages and what happens after the enquiry all play a part in whether that activity ultimately creates value.
Competitor PPC shouldn’t become an expensive battle to see who can appear highest for somebody else’s brand. It’s not about winning the auction. It’s about winning the right customer.
Need a Second Opinion on Your Insurance PPC Strategy?
If you’re investing heavily in paid search and want to understand where the next opportunities lie, Precisionly can provide an independent view of your current strategy and performance.
That might mean identifying opportunities to improve competitor activity, understanding who’s really competing with you for valuable searches, protecting existing demand more efficiently, or looking beyond PPC metrics to understand which campaigns are actually generating policies and commercial value.
Our Insurance PPC consultancy and audit services are designed to give insurers, brokers and other financial services businesses experienced, independent support without automatically assuming the answer is more spend, more campaigns or a change of agency.
That might mean identifying opportunities to improve competitor activity, understanding who’s really competing with you for valuable searches, protecting existing demand more efficiently, or looking beyond PPC metrics to understand which campaigns are actually generating policies and commercial value.
Our Insurance PPC consultancy and audit services are designed to give insurers, brokers and other financial services businesses experienced, independent support without automatically assuming the answer is more spend, more campaigns or a change of agency.
Does Your Financial Services Business Need More Precision?
With strict compliance rules, high competition and high cost per acquisition, a targeted is essential for insurance, banking and fintech advertisers.
