Discover how to check competitors' Google Ads budgets using Kaya, SEMrush, and Similarweb. Learn more about competitor ad analysis and tracking.
Hailey Chong
November 15, 2024
Startups new to paid ads often face challenges with their Google Ads budget—how much to spend, how high is too high, and how low is too low.
Here’s an important tip: Commit to a budget you can manage and allow 1 to 3 months for the ad platform to gather data and optimize your performance. That said, you might still wonder what specific figures to start with. This is where competitor ad analysis becomes invaluable. By understanding your competitor ad budget, you get real benchmarks to guide your strategy.
However, since Google does not publicly disclose Google Ads budget data, your best option is to leverage reputable third-party tools. This article highlights 3 tools for checking competitors' Google Ads budget, with a step-by-step guide on how to use them.
You can monitor competitors' Google Ads budgets to get an idea of what to invest, especially if you’re just starting with paid ads. Here are other reasons.
The goal of studying your competitor’s ad budget is not to do exactly what they’re doing. Rather, you want to identify gaps in their paid marketing strategy and fine-tune your ad copies, creatives, and budget strategy.
The three tools in focus provide competitors' Google Ad budget estimates based on traffic and cost-per-click (CPC) data, as well as other available data. They are:
Here is a snapshot of how the tools compare. Use this to select the best fit for your needs based on factors like pricing, data coverage and actionable insights.
If you're looking for an all-in-one solution for finding competitor ads, Kaya's Competitor Ad Intelligence Tool is the best value for money. At an affordable price point, you get an extensive coverage of data and insights on your competitors' ad spend and creatives across all major ad platforms. Alternatively, you may also consider SEMRush or Similarweb but both require higher tiers to access similar data coverage and lack insights backed by experienced marketers.
Kaya’s Competitor Ad Intelligence Tool automates your competitor ad analysis, revealing the advertising spend of your competitors and how much effort they're committing to each channel. It shows you the monthly budget, search volume, cost per click, competitors bidding on the same keyword, competitor with the highest budget, etc.
You can find your competitor’s ad budget insights in only 3 steps using Kaya, as follows:
Step 1: Provide your competitor's website links.
Step 2: Kaya's Competitor Ad Intelligence tool gathers the data and analyzes them.
Step 3: You receive actionable insights on competitor's ad spend and effort per channel.
Kaya is built to simplify and support your decision-making in the following ways.
Kaya goes beyond showing you just the numbers. It offers expert advice and support from its experienced marketers, including a complementary 30-minute consultation call to help you make better sense of the data. Get free access to insights to outpace your competitors.
Semrush is an all-in-one digital marketing software with tools for SEO, pay-per-click (PPC), social media, and content marketing. It offers several PPC tools such as Ads Launch Assistant, PPC Keyword Tool, PLA Research, Ad Tracking, etc. Semrush also allows you to check competitors’ Google Ads budgets using two tools.
AdClarity is an ad intelligence app developed by Biscience Ltd and integrated into the SEMrush app center. It estimates any advertiser’s ad spend on Google display ads, social ads, or YouTube video ads.
AdClarity allows you to search for data by publisher, advertiser, campaigns, keywords, groups or comparisons. To start, you will need the display ad subscription, which costs $169 per month.
How to estimate competitor ad’s budget using AdClarity
Step 1: AdClarity is available to anyone with a Semrush account. Create a Semrush account, then opt for an AdClarity display ad subscription.
Step 2: Set up your user settings. To do that, go to the top-right corner of the app interface and click on user settings. This allows you to set a default currency and if you want widgets to display numbers or percentages.
Step 3: Click the search bar at the top of the app interface and enter relevant search terms. You can search by competitor's name, campaign titles or other keywords. You can also narrow your search by time frame, location, or device you'd want to focus on.
After you search, AdClarity reveals a range of competitor budget data, such as:
Step 4: Click on ‘Ad buying methods’ to see every ad delivery method and how much was spent on each for the timeframe you selected. Add these numbers to get an estimate of your competitor's Google display ad spending.
Advertising Research is a Semrush tool for analyzing your closest paid search competitors. It shows your competitors' ad budgets and copies, desktop and mobile keywords they are bidding on, emotional triggers used in their ad copy, etc.
It can also estimate any PPC advertiser’s spending on Google Search Ads based on the keywords their ads rank for. You can access Advertising Research with any Semrush free trial or paid subscription. So, to use this, you can go with the Pro plan at $139.95 per month.
How to estimate competitor Google ad’s budget using Advertising Research
Step 1: Sign up for a Semrush account and subscribe to any paid plan. For instance, you can start with the pro plan or opt for the 7-day free trial.
Step 2: Enter the domain of your competitor. Click on ‘search’ and wait for the report to load. The page will load your competitor's details, such as keywords, traffic, traffic cost, paid search trends, paid search positions, etc.
Step 3: Click on ‘Traffic cost.’ The 'traffic cost' is an estimate of your competitor's monthly cost to rank for the listed keywords in Google Ads. SEMrush estimates this data based on cost-per-click (CPC) and position.
With the estimated figures, you can then compare them against your Google Ads campaign budget.
Note: You can only see the current month’s ad spending estimate when using the Pro plan. You will need the Guru or Business plan to get historical figures of up to 12 months.
Similarweb is a software that gives users behind-the-scenes analytics for every website online.
Similarweb's 'PPC Spend' insights offer an estimate of competitor spending on PPC search terms over the analyzed period. It also reveals your competitor's estimated ad spend and evaluates their potential budgets. Its PPC Spend calculation is based on three data points:
Here are the steps to spy on your competitor’s Google ad budget using Similarweb’s PPC Spend.
Step 1: Sign up for Similarweb and subscribe to any of your preferred plans.
Step 2: Navigate to the 'Competitive Research’ module.
Step 3: Go to the 'Website Analysis' section, and click on ‘Paid Search'.
Similarweb’s PPC Spend allows you to sort your report by device so you can view your competitor’s ad budget estimates based on devices or combined total traffic. So, what can you do with this data and insight?
The goal of analyzing your competitor’s Google ad budget is not to simply follow what they do. Rather, you want to use their figures as a guide to evaluate your investment per channel or adjust your ad spending. Here are ways to use the data.
You can check your competitor’s ad spend using Kaya’s Competitor Ad intelligence tool, Similarweb’s PPC Spend feature, or any of AdClarity or Advertising Research on Semrush. To use Kaya’s, simply share your competitors' website links. Kaya's tool gathers and analyzes the data, and you receive fresh insights.
You can analyze competitor ads using reputable tools such as Kaya’s Competitor Ad intelligence tool, SpyFu, Semrush, or by using ad platform tools such as Google Ads Transparency Center, Meta Ad Library, LinkedIn Ad Library, etc.
While you may not be able to find out the exact figures publicly, Kaya’s Competitor Ad Intelligence Tool reveals your competitor’s ad spend and the effort committed to each channel.
Budgeting for your ad is an iterative process. So, always ensure you revise it as you set up and launch campaigns. As a rule of thumb, commit a figure you can manage. It should be low enough not to reach the point of diminishing returns and high enough to give ad platforms adequate data to optimize your campaigns.
While these guidelines are a good starting point, checking your competitor’s Google Ads budget puts a figure to it. Kaya, Semrush, and Similarweb offer tools to check competitors' budget estimates on Google Ads.
Given that these estimates are made using CPC, traffic data and other relevant data, you can be confident enough to use them to build an analysis. Kaya goes beyond the numbers by giving you access to its team of expert marketers. That helps you make sense of the data and provides adequate context to help you make the right decisions. Reach out to us today to get insights into how to surpass your competitors.