By now, we’re all familiar with Google AI Overviews. Many queries you search on Google now surface responses through this quick and prominent search feature.
But AI Overview results aren’t always reliable or accurate.
Google’s algorithms can promote negative or misleading content, making online reputation management (ORM) difficult.
Here’s how to stay on top of AI Overviews and your ORM – by removing, mitigating, or addressing negative content.
How AI Overviews source information
AI Overviews relies on a mix of data sources across Google and the open web, including:
Google’s Knowledge Graph: The Knowledge Graph is Google’s structured database of facts about people, places, and things. It’s built from a range of licensed data sources and publicly available information.
Google’s tools and databases: Google also draws on structured data from its own systems. This includes information from:
Business Profiles.
The Merchant Center.
Other Google-managed datasets that commonly appear in search results.
Websites: AI Overviews frequently cites content from websites across the open web. The links that appear beside answers point to a wide variety of sources, ranging from authoritative publishers to lower-quality sites.
User-generated content (UGC): UGC can also surface in AI Overviews. This may include posts, reviews, photos, or publicly available content from community-driven platforms like Reddit.
Several other factors influence how this data is organized into answers, including topical relevance, freshness, and the authority of the source.
However, even with relevance and authority taken into consideration, harmful or false content can still appear in results.
This can happen for a variety of reasons, including:
Where the information is sourced.
How Google’s AI fills in gaps.
Instances where it may misunderstand the context of a user’s query.
Damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.
Defamation standards vary by jurisdiction, and public figures may face a higher legal standard.
Because of this, proper documentation and professionalism are essential when filing a lawsuit, and working with a legal professional is likely in your best interest.
The other (and perhaps easier) route to take is working with an online reputation management specialist.
These teams are extremely well-versed at handling the multi-layered process of removals.
In an online crisis, they have the tools to respond and mitigate damage. They’re also trained to balance ethical considerations you might not always account for.
Clearer signals make it easier for AI Overview to present your brand correctly. Focus on the following areas.
Strengthening signals through publishing
One effective method is strategic publishing.
This means building a strong, positive presence around your company, business, or personal brand so AI Overviews have authoritative information to draw from.
A few approaches support this:
Publishing on credible domains: ORM firms often publish content on platforms like Medium, LinkedIn, and reputable industry sites. This strengthens your presence in trusted environments.
Employing consistent branding and factual accuracy: Content must also be factual and consistently branded. This reinforces authority and signals reliability.
Leveraging press releases and thought leadership: Press releases, thought leadership pieces, and expert commentary help create credible backlinks and citations across the web.
Supporting pages that build the narrative: ORM specialists also create supporting pages that reinforce key narratives. With the right linking and content clusters, AI Overviews is more likely to surface this material.
Leveraging structured data and E-E-A-T
Another effective method to establish credibility on AI Overviews is to focus on technical enhancements and experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).
ORM specialists typically focus on two areas:
Structured data and schema markup: This involves adding more context about your brand online by:
Enhancing author bios.
Highlighting positive reviews.
Reinforcing signals that reflect credibility.
Establishing E-E-A-T signals: This includes building a trusted online presence by:
Referencing work published in reputable outlets.
Highlighting real client examples.
Showcasing customer relationships.
Outlining accolades and expertise through your bio.
Monitoring AI Overviews and detecting issues early
A final key aspect of staying on top of AI Overviews is to monitor the algorithm and detect issues early.
Using tools to track AI Overviews is extremely efficient, and these systems can help business owners monitor keywords and detect potential damage.
For instance, you might use these tools to track your brand name, executive names, or even relevant products.
As discussed, it’s also crucial to have a plan in place in case a crisis ever hits.
This means establishing press outreach contact points and a legal department, and knowing how to suppress content via the suppression methods already mentioned.
Ethical considerations
Online reputation management isn’t just generating think pieces. It’s a layered process grounded in ethical integrity and factual accuracy.
To maintain a truthful and durable strategy, keep the following in mind:
Facts matter: Don’t aim to manipulate or deceive. Focus on promoting factual, positive content to AI Overview.
Avoid aggression: Aggressive tactics rarely work in ORM. There’s a balance between over-optimization and under-optimization, and an ORM firm can help you find it.
Think long-term: You may want negative or false content removed immediately, but lasting suppression requires a long-term plan to promote positive content year after year.
Managing how AI Overviews presents your brand
AI Overviews is already a dominant part of the search experience.
But its design means negative or false content can still rise to the top.
As AI Overviews become more prominent, business owners need to monitor their online reputation and strengthen the positive signals that surface in these results.
Over time, that requires strategic publishing, long-term planning, the right technical signals, and a commitment to factual, honest content.
By following these principles, AI Overviews can become an asset for growth instead of a source of harm.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/How-to-remove-or-suppress-negative-content-from-AI-Overviews-dqkp94.webp?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=110801920http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-11-18 13:00:002025-11-18 13:00:00Google AI Overviews: How to remove or suppress negative content
Google is preparing a new Search bidding model called Journey Aware Bidding, designed to factor in the entire customer journey — not just the final biddable conversion — to improve prediction accuracy and campaign performance.
How it works:
Journey Aware Bidding learns from your primary conversion goal plus additional, non-biddable journey stages.
Advertisers who fully track and properly categorize each step of their purchase funnel stand to benefit the most.
Google recommends mapping the entire journey — from lead submission to final purchase — and labeling all touchpoints as conversions within standard goals.
Why we care. Performance advertisers have long struggled with fragmented signals across the funnel. Journey Aware Bidding brings more of their conversion funnel into Google’s prediction models, potentially improving efficiency for long, multi-step journeys like lead gen.
Instead of optimizing on a single end-stage signal, Google can learn from every meaningful touchpoint, leading to smarter bids and better alignment with real business outcomes. This update rewards advertisers with strong tracking and could deliver a meaningful performance lift once fully launched.
What advertisers need to do:
Choose a single KPI-aligned stage (e.g., purchase, qualified lead) as the optimization target.
Mark other journey stages as primary conversions, but exclude them from campaign-level or account-default bidding optimization.
Ensure clean tracking and clear categorization of every step.
Pilot status. A closed pilot is due to launch this year for a small group of advertisers, with broader availability expected afterward as Google refines the model.
The bottom line. Journey Aware Bidding could represent a major shift in Search optimization: Google wants its bidding systems to understand not just what converts — but how users get there.
First seen. The details of this new bidding model was shared by Senior Consultant Georgi Zayakov on LinkedIn, amongst other products that were featured at Think Week 2025.
Attribution in the modern marketing age can be confusing. But the pressure on marketing teams to “prove what’s working” never goes away.
Traditionally, marketers had certain data we could always rely on, but the data pool we can pull from seems to be growing and shrinking at the same time. Between privacy constraints, zero-click searches, AI Overviews, and channel-walled gardens, marketers are flying blind in more ways than they realize. Attribution has always been an imperfect science. And in 2025, it’s gone from fuzzy to fragmented.
If you’re planning marketing budgets and trying to defend where your spend is going, there’s no need to freak out. Marketing attribution is possible. It doesn’t look like it used to, though. And if you’re still only relying on touch-based models or last-click reports, you might be measuring the wrong things entirely.
Let’s break down where attribution is failing, what’s making it harder, and what forward-looking marketers are doing to close the gap.
Key Takeaway
Attribution challenges have multiplied due to AI, automation, and privacy shifts.
Walled gardens, offline sales, and dark social are major blind spots, and they often overlap.
Deterministic, touch-based attribution is giving way to modeled and probabilistic methods.
AI isn’t just the problem, it’s also part of the solution.
You don’t need perfect data. You need data that helps you make better decisions.
The New Face of Attribution
Attribution used to be about stitching together clicks. Now, we’re lucky if we get clicks at all thanks to zero-click search.
Today’s buyers bounce between different platforms on multiple devices and AI-curated content. They’re influenced by ads on a connected TV or product mentions in a ChatGPT thread, and neither of those leaves a clean digital trail.
Meanwhile, ad platforms like Meta and Google have leaned hard into automation. That means fewer transparent levers to optimize and more “black box” performance metrics. According to NP Digital analysis, there are over 90% fewer optimization permutations in Google and Meta Ads today compared to 2023. So yes, marketing attribution is back. But the infrastructure around it seems more broken than ever.
Finding Marketing Blindspots
Unfortunately, the reality is that attribution blind spots don’t come with a warning light. You may be staring directly at your dashboard and not notice traffic is piling up in areas you’re not tracking. And the amount of potential blindspots is growing.
Here are the big ones:
Walled Gardens: Platforms like Google, Meta, and Amazon are all powerful, but have become much more mysterious as search evolves. You’re renting their space, but if you don’t play by their rules, you may not get complete visibility.
Offline Sales: Leads turn into deals in CRMs, call centers, or retail. They may have started as a click, but the customer journey ends at a brick-and-mortar location or an entirely different platform than the original click.
Cross-Device Journeys: That ad someone saw on mobile might convert from their phone, but they could just as easily become a sale on their desktop or smart TV.
Building Awareness: Upper funnel spend (like digital out-of-home (OOH) or video) gets undervalued because it rarely leads to a direct conversion.
Dark Social: Private sharing (think WhatsApp, SMS, Signal) shows up in attribution models as “direct”, but it’s not.
LLM Traffic: People are discovering brands via large language models, and those referrals are often invisible in GA4.
To make matters worse, these blind spots can stack. Before you know it, you find yourself in a nightmare marketing scenario where you’re not just missing one data signal, you’re missing combinations of them, making optimization even harder.
New Attribution Trends and Technology
You can keep up with all of this. It just requires a switch in perspective. Marketers should evaluate their campaigns using a combination of modeled attribution and traditional touch-based metrics. You may never fully connect every dot, and that’s okay. The goal isn’t perfection, just enough clarity to defend marketing budget allocations.
Modern marketers are using these tools:
Incrementality testing: Geo holdouts and lift studies to isolate what’s actually moving the needle.
MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling): Especially useful for larger budgets or mixed channel strategies.
Correlation analysis: Pre/post testing, contextual lift, and even proxy signals like brand search volume.
Unified first-party data: Clean, consistent CRM and web data feeding both your models and your platforms.
The best strategies blend these methods based on spend level, complexity, and conversion volume. Leveraging AI in your marketing efforts is one of the best ways to automate this research as much as possible and maximize the benefit of these tactics.
AI and Blind Spots
Some marketers may feel like AI is eroding attribution. While that could be true, the technology is also helping to rebuild it.
Here’s how AI is stepping in:
Generative AI: LLMs like ChatGPT are now discovery platforms. They drive traffic, but don’t always identify themselves unless you tag them.
AI coworkers: Agentic AI simulates user behavior, tests messaging, and can even help set up GA4 tracking automatically.
Machine learning models: Used in MMMs and platform attribution to refine forecasts, assign contribution, and make predictions.
Still, only 55% of marketers trust AI-generated insights, according to CoSchedule. The key is to treat AI as an assistant, not the authority. Use it to speed up testing and build models, but validate with your own data.
Analytics platforms like Adobe Analytics are also making steps to better capture attribution from AI tools. In October they released a new referrer type called “Conversational AI Tools” to segment out traffic from ChatGPT and other LLMs from the other channels marketers have historically monitored.
Closing The Gap With Attribution Strategies
So, how do you go from blind spots to better planning? You don’t need perfect clarity. You need consistent signals and a smarter strategy.
Here are some ways marketers are closing attribution gaps:
Clean your first-party data: Data from internal sources like your website and CRM needs to be trustworthy. These are your most important sources of truth.
Use multipliers: Adjust performance based on geo lift or experiment results. Not every click counts equally.
Invite questions: Models are approximations. Encourage teams to challenge them and make improvements as time goes on.
Survey your customers: Ask where they heard about you. It’s old school, but incredibly effective for context.
Use offer codes and landing pages: Even if not perfect, they create new signals across dark social or offline.
Track “AI Referrers”: Create custom =channels in your web analytics, including in GA4, to segment out performance from LLM-driven traffic.
Linking Attribution To Business Outcomes
Attribution and business outcomes go hand-in-hand. Understanding where your most profitable leads originate is essential to growing any business, regardless of its size.
You want to connect your data to actual decisions, such as forecasts, budgets, and resource allocation. But, with the marketing landscape changing so quickly and drastically, how do you know which metrics to follow?
Here are the metrics that matter now:
Total conversions and incremental conversions
Conversion value over time
Cost per incremental conversion
Spend thresholds by tactic
Directional change (old model vs. new)
Remember: even if your models aren’t perfect, if they get you closer to optimal spend, it’s working. Continuous improvement for your attribution strategy will get you closer and closer still.
FAQs
What is a marketing attribution blind spot?
It’s any part of the customer journey you can’t track, like dark social shares, offline sales, or LLM referrals that may be influencing conversions without showing up in your data.
Can AI help with attribution?
Yes, but only if used smartly. AI can simulate behavior and identify patterns, but it’s not a silver bullet. Use it to complement your experiments and first-party data.
What’s the best attribution model?
There isn’t one. The most effective models mix touch-based data with testing and contextual clues. Choose based on your business size, channel mix, and data maturity.
Conclusion
When it comes to effective attribution, you just need to see enough to move forward.
Mastering this skill in the modern marketing world is less about getting the credit right and more about making smarter calls with what you can measure. The key is to stop chasing perfection and start building a system that helps you plan and adapt to the data you gather from your testing in real-time. Attribution isn’t the whole picture, but it remains the best tool we have to illuminate the path forward, including its blind spots.
Naturally, we can still learn from tried and true marketing methods. We may just have to think outside the box on how to apply them to today’s search environment and customer journey. It’s worth checking out our guides on which marketing campaigns drive the best impact and how to track your marketing ROI. Combining this extra knowledge with your new attribution perspective could be the secret sauce to put you ahead of the pack in 2026.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-11-17 20:00:002025-11-17 20:00:00Minimizing Marketing Blind Spots: The New Era of Attribution
Google submitted a compliance plan to the European Commission that proposes changes to its ad-tech operations — but rejects calls to break up its business
How it works:
Google is offering product-level changes — for example, giving publishers the ability to set different minimum prices for different bidders in Google Ad Manager.
It’s also proposing greater interoperability between Google’s tools and those of rivals, in order to give publishers and advertisers more flexibility.
The company says these tweaks would resolve the European Commission’s concerns without a “disruptive break-up.”
Why we care. Google’s proposed “non-disruptive” fixes could preserve platform stability and avoid the turbulence of a forced breakup — but they may also shape future auction dynamics, pricing transparency, and access to competitive tools. In short, the outcome will influence how much control, choice, and cost efficiency advertisers have in Europe’s ad ecosystem.
Between the lines. Google is leaning on technical fixes rather than major structural overhaul — but critics argue that without deeper reform, the power dynamics in ad tech may not fundamentally shift.
The bottom line. Google is trying to strike a compromise: addressing the EU’s antitrust concerns while keeping its integrated ad-tech business intact. Regulators now face a choice: accept the tweaks — or push harder for a breakup.
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Undoubtedly, one of the hot topics in SEO over the last few months has been how to influence LLM answers. Every SEO is trying to come up with strategies. Many have created their own tools using “vibe coding,” where they test their hypotheses and engage in heated debates about what each LLM and Google use to pick their sources.
Some of these debates can get very technical, touching on topics like vector embeddings, passage ranking, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and chunking. These theories are great—there’s a lot to learn from them and turn into practice.
However, if some of these AI concepts are going way over your head, let’s take a step back. I’ll walk you through some recent tests I’ve run to help you gain an understanding of what’s going on in AI search without feeling overwhelmed so you can start optimizing for these new platforms.
Create branded content and check for results
A while ago, I went to Austin, Texas, for a business outing. Before the trip, I wondered if I could “teach” ChatGPT about my upcoming travels. There was no public information about the trip on the web, so it was a completely clean test with no competition.
I asked ChatGPT, “is Gus Pelogia going to Austin soon?” The initial answer was what you’d expect: He doesn’t have any trips planned to Austin.
That same day, a few hours later, I wrote a blog post on my website about my trip to Austin. Six hours after I published the post, ChatGPT’s answer changed: Yes, Gus IS going to Austin to meet his work colleagues.
ChatGPT prompts with a blog post published in between queries, which was enough to change a ChatGPT answer.
ChatGPT used an AI framework called RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) to fetch the latest result. Basically, it didn’t have enough knowledge about this information in its training data, so it scanned the web to look for an up-to-date answer.
Interestingly enough, it took a few days until the actual blog post with detailed information was found by ChatGPT. Initially, ChatGPT had found a snippet of the new blog post on my homepage and reindexed the page within the six-hour range. It was using just the blog post’s page title to change its answer before actually “seeing” the whole content days later.
Some learnings from this experiment:
New information on webpages reaches ChatGPT answers in a matter of hours, even for small websites. Don’t think your website is too small or insignificant to get noticed by LLMs—they’ll notice when you add new content or refresh existing pages, so it’s important to have an ongoing brand content strategy.
The answers in ChatGPT are highly dependent on the content published on your website. This is especially true for new companies where there are limited sources of information. ChatGPT didn’t confirm that I had upcoming travel until it fetched the information from my blog post detailing the trip.
Use your webpages to optimize how your brand is portrayed beyond showing up in competitive keywords for search. This is your opportunity to promote a certain USP or brand tagline. For instance, “The Leading AI-Powered Marketing Platform” and “See everyday moments from your close friends” are used, respectively, by Semrush and Instagram on their homepages. While users probably aren’t searching for these keywords, it’s still an opportunity for brand positioning that will resonate with them.
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Test to see if ChatGPT is using Bing or Google’s index
The industry has been ringing alarm bells about whether ChatGPT uses Google’s index instead of Bing. So I ran another small test to find out: I added a <meta name=”googlebot” content=”noindex”> tag on the blog post, allowing only Bingbot for nine days.
If ChatGPT is using Bing’s index, it should find my new page when I prompt about it. Again, this was on a new topic and the prompt specifically asked for an article I wrote, so there wouldn’t be any doubts about what source to show.
The page got indexed by Bing after a couple of days, while Google wasn’t allowed to see it.
New article has been indexed by Bingbot
I kept asking ChatGPT, with multiple prompt variations, if it could find my new article. For nine days, nothing changed—it couldn’t find the article. It got to a point that ChatGPT hallucinated (actually, tried its best guess) a URL.
ChatGPT made-up URL: https://www.guspelogia.com/learnings-from-building-a-new-product-as-an-seo Real URL: https://www.guspelogia.com/learnings-new-product-seo
GSC shows that it can’t index the page due to “noindex” tag
I eventually gave up and allowed Googlebot to index the page. A few hours later, ChatGPT changed its answer and found the correct URL.
On the top, ChatGPT’s answer when Googlebot was blocked. On the bottom, ChatGPT’s answer after Googlebot was allowed to see the page.
Interestingly enough, the link to the article was presented on my homepage and blog pages, yet ChatGPT couldn’t display it. It only found that the blog post existed based on the text on those pages, even though it didn’t follow the link.
Yet, there’s no harm in setting up your website for success on Bing. They’re one of the search engines that adopted IndexNow, a simple ping that informs search engines that a URL’s content has changed. This implementation allows Bing to reflect updates in their search results quickly.
While we all suspect (with evidence) that ChatGPT isn’t using Bing’s index, setting up IndexNow is a low effort task that’s worthwhile.
We’re all talking about being included in AI search results, but what happens when a company or product loses a mention on a page? Imagine a specific model of earbuds is removed from a “top budget earbuds” list—would the product lose its mention, or would Google find a new source to back up its AI answer?
While the answer could always be different for each user and each situation, I ran another small test to find out.
In a listicle that mentioned multiple certification courses, I identified one course that was no longer relevant, so I removed mentions of it from multiple pages on the same domain. I did this to keep the content relevant, so measuring the changes in AI Mode was a side effect.
Initially, within the first few days of the course getting removed from the cited URL, it continued to be part of the AI answer for a few pre-determined prompts. Google simply found a new URL in another domain to validate its initial view.
However, within a week, the course disappeared from AI Mode and ChatGPT completely. Basically, even though Google found another URL validating the course listing, because the “original source” (in this case, the listicle) was updated to remove the course, Google (and, by extension, ChatGPT) subsequently updated its results as well.
This experiment suggests that changing the content on the source cited by LLMs can impact the AI results. But take this conclusion with a pinch of salt, as it was a small test with a highly targeted query. I specifically had a prompt combining “domain + courses” so the answer would come from one domain.
Nonetheless, while in the real world it’s unlikely one citation URL would hold all the power, I’d hypothesize that losing a mention on a few high-authority pages would have the side effect of losing the mention in an AI answer.
Test small, then scale
Tests in small and controlled environments are important for learning and give confidence that your optimization has an effect. Like everything else I do in SEO, I start with an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), learn along the way, and once/if evidence is found, make changes at scale.
Do you want to change the perception of a product on ChatGPT? You won’t get dozens of cited sources to talk about you straight away, so you’d have to reach out to each single source and request a mention. You’ll quickly learn how hard it is to convince these sources to update their content and whether AI optimization becomes a pay-to-play game or if it can be done organically.
Perhaps you’re a source that’s mentioned often when people search for a product, like earbuds. Run your MVPs to understand how much changing your content influences AI answers before you claim your influence at scale, as the changes you make could backfire. For example, what if you stop being a source for a topic due to removing certain claims from your pages?
There’s no set time for these tests to show results. As a general rule, SEOs say results take a few months to appear. In the first test on this article, it took just a few hours to see results.
Running LLM tests with larger websites
Working in large teams or on large websites can be a challenge when doing LLM testing. My suggestion is to create specific initiatives and inform all stakeholders about changes to avoid confusion later, as they might question why these changes are happening.
By changing the footer, ChatGPT 5 started mentioning its new tagline within 36 hours for a prompt like “tell me about Seer Interactive.” I’ve checked, and while every time the answer is different, they still mention the “97% retention rate.”
Imagine if you decide to change the content on a number of pages, but someone else has an optimization plan for those same pages. Always run just one test per page, as results will become less reliable if you have multiple variables.
Make sure to research your prompts, have a tracking methodology, and spread the learnings across the company, beyond your SEO counterparts. Everyone is interested in AI right now, all the way up to C-levels.
Another suggestion is to use a tool like Semrush’s AI SEO toolkit to see the key sentiment drivers about a brand. Start with the listed “Areas for Improvement”—this should give you plenty of ideas for tests beyond “SEO Reason,” as it reflects how the brand is perceived beyond organic results.
Checklist: Getting started with LLM optimization
Things are changing fast with AI, and it’s certainly challenging to keep up to date. There’s an overload of content right now, a multitude of claims, and, I dare to say, not even the LLM platforms running them have things fully figured out.
My recommendation is to find the sources you trust (industry news, events, professionals) and run your own tests using the knowledge you have. The results you find for your brands and clients are always more valuable than what others are saying.
It’s a new world of SEO and everyone is trying to figure out what works for them. The best way to follow the curve (or stay ahead of it) is to keep optimizing and documenting your changes.
To wrap it up, here’s a checklist for your LLM optimization:
Before starting a test, make sure your selected prompts consistently return the answer you expect (such as not mentioning your brand or a feature of your product). Otherwise, the new brand mention or link could be a coincidence, not a result of your work.
If the same claim is made on multiple pages on your website, update them across the board to increase chances of success
Use your own website and external sources (e.g., via digital PR) to influence your brand perception. It’s unclear if users will cross-check AI answers or just trust what they’re told.
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A leaked file reveals the user interactions that OpenAI is tracking, including how often ChatGPT displays publisher links and how few users actually click on them.
By the numbers. ChatGPT shows links, but hardly anyone clicks on them. For one top-performing page, the OpenAI file reports:
610,775 total link impressions
4,238 total clicks
0.69% overall CTR
Best individual page CTR: 1.68%
Most other pages: 0.01%, 0.1%, 0%
ChatGPT metrics. The leaked file breaks down every place ChatGPT displays links and how users interact with them. It tracks:
Date range (date partition, report month, min/max report dates)
Publisher and URL details (publisher name, base URL, host, URL rank)
Impressions and clicks across:
Response
Sidebar
Citations
Search results
TL;DR
Fast navigation
CTR calculations for each display area
Total impressions and total clicks across all surfaces
Where the links appear. Interestingly, the most visible placements drive the fewest clicks. The document broke down performance by zone:
Main response: Huge impressions, tiny CTR
Sidebar and citations: Fewer impressions, higher CTR (6–10%)
Search results: Almost no impressions, zero clicks
Why we care. Hoping ChatGPT visibility might replace your lost Google organic search traffic? This data says no. AI-driven traffic is rising, but it’s still a sliver of overall traffic – and it’s unlikely to ever behave like traditional organic search traffic.
About the data. It was shared on LinkedIn by Vincent Terrasi, CTO and co-founder of Draft & Goal, which bills itself as “a multistep workflow to scale your content production.”
We’re always looking for new ways to help you understand your data and make smarter decisions when it comes
to Google Search. That’s why we’re happy to announce a new feature within the Search Console performance
reports: Custom annotations. This feature is designed to empower you to add your own contextual notes directly
to your performance charts. Think of it as a personal notebook for your Search data.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/web-design-creative-services.jpg?fit=1500%2C600&ssl=16001500http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-11-17 05:00:002025-11-17 05:00:00Adding context to your Search Console data with custom annotations
Did you know that even a one-second delay in page loading speed can cause up to 11% fewer page views? That’s right, you might have the best content strategy and a solid plan to drive traffic, but visitors won’t stay long if your site lags. Page speed is one of the biggest factors in keeping users engaged and converting.
In this guide, we’ll uncover the most common causes of slow websites and explore proven ways to boost website performance. Whether your site feels sluggish or you simply want to make it faster, these insights will help you identify what’s holding it back and how to fix it.
Key takeaways
Page speed significantly affects user experience and conversion rates, with even minor delays leading to increased bounce rates
What do we mean by ‘website performance’ and why is it important for you?
Website performance is all about how efficiently your site loads and responds when someone visits it. It’s not just about how fast a page appears; it’s about how smoothly users can interact with your content across devices, browsers, and locations. In simple terms, it’s the overall quality of your site’s experience that should feel fast, responsive, and effortless to use.
When your page loading speed is optimized, you’re not only improving the user experience but also setting the foundation for long-term website performance.
Here’s why it matters for every website owner:
Fast-loading sites have higher conversion rates and lower bounce rates
Attention spans are notoriously short. As the internet gets faster, they’re getting shorter still. Numerous studies have found a clear link between the time it takes a page to load and the percentage of visitors who become impatient while waiting.
By offering a fast site, you encourage your visitors to stay longer. Not to mention, you’re helping them complete their checkout journey more quickly. That helps improve your conversion rate and build trust and brand loyalty. Think of all the times you’ve been cursing the screen because you had to wait for a page to load or were running in circles because the user experience was atrocious. It happens so often, don’t be that site.
A fast page improves user experience
Google understands that the time it takes for a page to load is vital to the overall user experience. Waiting for content to appear, the inability to interact with a page, and even noticing delays create friction.
That friction costs time, money, and your visitor’s experience. Research shows that the level of stress from waiting for slow mobile results can be more stressful than watching a horror movie. Surely not, you say? That’s what the fine folks at Ericsson Research found a few years back.
Ericsson Mobility Report MWC Edition, February 2016
Improving your site speed across the board means making people happy. They’ll enjoy using your site, make more purchases, and return more frequently. This means that Google will view your site as a great search result because you are delivering high-quality content. Eventually, you might get a nice ranking boost.
Frustration hurts your users and hurts your rankings
It’s not just Google – research from every corner of the web on all aspects of consumer behavior shows that speed has a significant impact on outcomes.
Nearly 70% of consumers say that page speed impacts their willingness to buy (unbounce)
20% of users abandon their cart if the transaction process is too slow (radware.com)
The BBC found that they lost an additional 10% of users for every additional second their site took to load
These costs and site abandonment happen because users dislike being frustrated. Poor experiences lead them to leave, visit other websites, and switch to competitors. Google easily tracks these behaviors (through bounces back to search engine results pages, short visits, and other signals) and is a strong indicator that the page shouldn’t be ranking where it is.
Google needs fast sites
Speed isn’t only good for users – it’s good for Google, too. Slow websites are often inefficient. They may load too many large files, haven’t optimized their media, or fail to utilize modern technologies to serve their page. That means that Google has to consume more bandwidth, allocate more resources, and spend more money.
Across the whole web, every millisecond they can save, and every byte they don’t have to process, adds up quickly. And quite often, simple changes to configuration, processes, or code can make websites much faster with no drawbacks. That may be why Google is so vocal about its education on performance.
A faster web is better for users and significantly reduces Google’s operating costs. Either way, that means that they’re going to continue rewarding fast(er) sites.
Improving page speed helps to improve crawling for search engines
Modern sites are incredibly wieldy, and untangling that mess can make a big difference. The larger your site is, the greater the impact page speed optimizations will have. That not only impacts user experience and conversion rates but also affects crawl budget and crawl rate.
When a Googlebot comes around and crawls your webpage, it crawls the HTML file. Any resources referenced in the file, like images, CSS, and JavaScript, will be fetched separately. The more files you have and the heavier they are, the longer it will take for the Googlebot to go through them.
On the flip side, the more time Google spends on crawling a page and its files, the less time and resources Google has to dedicate to other pages. That means Google may miss out on other important pages and content on your site.
Optimizing your website and content for speed will provide a good user experience for your visitors and help Googlebots better crawl your site. They can come around more often and accomplish more.
Page speed is a ranking factor
Google has repeatedly said that a fast site helps you rank better. It’s no surprise, then, that Google has been measuring the speed of your site and using that information in its ranking algorithms since 2010.
In 2018, Google launched the so-called ‘Speed Update,’ making page speed a ranking factor for mobile searches. Google emphasized that it would only affect the slowest sites and that fast sites would not receive a boost; however, they are evaluating website performance across the board.
In 2021, Google announced the page experience algorithm update, demonstrating that page speed and user experience are intertwined. Core Web Vitals clearly state that speed is an essential ranking factor. The update also gave site owners metrics and standards to work with.
Of course, Google still wants to serve searchers the most relevant information, even if the page experience is somewhat lacking. Creating high-quality content remains the most effective way to achieve a high ranking. However, Google also states that page experience signals become more important when many pages with relevant content compete for visibility in the search results.
Google mobile-first index
Another significant factor in page speed for ranking is Google’s mobile-first approach to indexing content. That means Google uses the mobile version of your pages for indexing and ranking. This approach makes sense as we increasingly rely on mobile devices to access the internet. In recent research, Semrush found out that 66% of all website visits come from mobile devices.
To compete for a spot in the search results, your mobile page needs to meet Core Web Vitals standards and other page experience signals. And this is not easy at all. Pages on mobile take longer to load compared to their desktop counterparts, while attention span stays the same. People might be more patient on mobile devices, but not significantly so.
Take a look at some statistics:
The average website loading time is 2.5 seconds on desktop and 8.6 seconds on mobile, based on an analysis of the top 100 web pages worldwide (tooltester)
The average mobile web page takes 15.3 seconds to load (thinkwithgoogle)
On average, webpages on mobile take 70.9% longer to load than on desktop (tooltester)
A loading speed of 10 seconds increases the probability of a mobile site visitor bouncing by 123% compared to a one-second loading speed (thinkwithgoogle)
All the more reasons to optimize your website and content if your goal is to win a spot in the SERP.
Understanding the web page loading process
When you click a link or type a URL and press Enter, your browser initiates a series of steps to load the web page. It might seem like magic, but behind the scenes, there’s a lot happening in just a few seconds. Understanding this process can help you see what affects your page loading speed and what you can do to boost website performance.
The process of loading a page can be divided into three key stages:
Network stage
This is where the connection begins. When someone visits your site, their browser looks up your domain name and connects to your server. This process, known as DNS lookup and TCP connection, enables data to travel between your website and the visitor’s device.
You don’t have much direct control over this stage, but technologies like content delivery networks (CDNs) and smart routing can make a big difference, especially if you serve visitors from around the world. For local websites, optimizing your hosting setup can still help improve overall page loading speed.
Server response stage
Once the connection is established, the visitor’s browser sends a request to your server asking for the web page and its content. This is when your server processes that request and sends back the necessary files.
The quality of your hosting, server configuration, and even your website’s theme or plugins all influence how quickly your server responds. A slow response is one of the most common issues with slow websites, so investing in a solid hosting environment is crucial if you want to boost your website’s performance.
One popular choice is Bluehost, which offers reliable infrastructure, SSD storage, and built-in CDN support, making it a go-to hosting solution for many website owners.
Browser rendering stage
Now it’s time for the browser to put everything together. It retrieves data from your server and begins displaying it by loading images, processing CSS and JavaScript, and rendering all visible elements.
Browsers typically load content in order, starting with what’s visible at the top (above the fold) and then proceeding down the page. That’s why optimizing the content at the top helps users interact with your site sooner. Even if the entire page isn’t fully loaded yet, a quick initial render can make it feel fast and keep users engaged.
Key causes that are causing your website to slow down
While you can’t control the quality of your visitors’ internet connection, most slow website issues come from within your own setup. Let’s examine the key areas that may be hindering your site’s performance and explore how to address them to enhance your website’s performance.
Your hosting service
Your hosting plays a big role in your website’s performance because it’s where your site lives. The speed and stability of your host determine how quickly your site responds to visitors. Factors such as server configuration, uptime, and infrastructure all impact this performance.
Choosing a reliable host eliminates one major factor that affects speed optimization. Bluehost, for example, offers robust servers, reliable uptime, and built-in performance tools, making it a go-to hosting choice for anyone serious about speed and stability.
Your website theme
Themes define how your website looks and feels, but they also impact its loading speed. Some themes are designed with clean, lightweight code that’s optimized for performance, while others are heavy with animations and complex design elements. To boost website performance, opt for a theme that prioritizes simplicity, efficiency, and clean coding.
Large file size
From your HTML and CSS files to heavy JavaScript, large file sizes can slow down your website. Modern websites often rely heavily on JavaScript for dynamic effects, but overusing it can cause your pages to load slowly, especially on mobile devices. Reducing file sizes, compressing assets, and minimizing unnecessary scripts can significantly improve the perceived speed of your pages.
Badly written code
Poorly optimized code can cause a range of issues, from JavaScript errors to broken layouts. Messy or redundant code makes it harder for browsers to load your site efficiently. Cleaning up your code and ensuring it’s well-structured helps improve both performance and maintainability.
Images and videos
Unoptimized images and large video files are among the biggest causes of slow websites. Heavy media files increase your page weight, which directly impacts loading times. If your header image or hero banner is too large, it can delay the appearance of the main content. Optimizing your media files through compression, resizing, and Image SEO can dramatically improve your website’s speed.
Too many plugins and widgets
Plugins are what make WordPress so flexible, but adding too many can slow down your site. Each plugin adds extra code that your browser needs to process. Unused or outdated plugins can also conflict with your theme or other extensions, further reducing performance. Audit your plugins regularly and only keep the ones that truly add value.
Absence of a CDN
A content delivery network (CDN) helps your website load faster for users worldwide. It stores copies of your site’s static content, such as images and CSS files, across multiple servers located in different regions. This means that users access your site from the nearest available server, reducing loading time. If your audience is global, using a CDN is one of the easiest ways to boost website performance.
Redirects
Redirects are useful for managing URLs and maintaining SEO, but too many can slow down your site. Each redirect adds an extra step before reaching the final page. While a few redirects won’t hurt, long redirect chains can significantly affect performance. Whenever possible, try to link directly to the final URL to maintain consistent page loading speed.
For WordPress users, the redirect manager feature in Yoast SEO Premium makes handling URL changes effortless and performance-friendly. You can pick from redirect types such as 301, 302, 307, 410, and 451 right from the dashboard. Since server-side redirects tend to load faster than PHP-based ones, Yoast lets you choose the type your stack supports, allowing you to avoid slow website causes and boost website performance.
A smarter analysis in Yoast SEO Premium
Yoast SEO Premium has a smart content analysis that helps you take your content to the next level!
How to measure page speed and diagnose performance issues
Before you can improve your website performance, you need to know how well (or poorly) your pages are performing. Measuring your page speed helps you identify what’s slowing down your website and provides a direction for optimization.
What is page speed, really?
Page speed refers to how quickly your website’s content loads and becomes usable. But it’s not as simple as saying, ‘My website loads in 4 seconds.’ Think of it as how fast a visitor can start interacting with your site.
A page might appear to load quickly, but still feel slow if buttons, videos, or images take time to respond. That’s why website performance isn’t defined by one single metric — it’s about the overall user experience.
Did you know?
There is a difference between page speed and site speed. Page speed measures how fast a single page loads, while site speed reflects your website’s overall performance. Since every page behaves differently, measuring site speed is a more challenging task. Simply put, if most pages on your website perform well in terms of Core Web Vitals, it is considered fast.
Core metrics that define website performance
Core Web Vitals are Google’s standard for evaluating how real users experience your website. These metrics focus on the three most important aspects of page experience: loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. Improving them helps both your search visibility and your user satisfaction.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures how long it takes for the main content on your page to load. Aim for LCP within 2.5 seconds for a smooth loading experience
Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Replaces the older First Input Delay metric and measures how quickly your site responds to user interactions like taps, clicks, or key presses. An INP score under 200 milliseconds ensures your site feels responsive and intuitive
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Tracks how stable your content remains while loading. Elements shifting on screen can frustrate users, so keep CLS below 0.1 for a stable visual experience
How to interpret and improve your scores
Perfection is not the target. Progress and user comfort are what count. If you notice issues in your Core Web Vitals report, here are some practical steps:
If your LCP is slow: Compress images, serve modern formats like WebP, use lazy loading, or upgrade hosting to reduce load times
If your INP score is high: Reduce heavy JavaScript execution, minimize unused scripts, and avoid main thread blocking
If your CLS score is poor: Set defined width and height for images, videos, and ad containers so the layout does not jump around while loading
If your TTFB is high: Time to First Byte is not a Core Web Vital, but it still impacts loading speed. Improve server performance, use caching, and consider a CDN
Remember that even small improvements create a noticeable difference. Faster load times, stable layouts, and quicker interactions directly contribute to a smoother experience that users appreciate and search engines reward.
Tools to measure and analyze your website’s performance
Here are some powerful tools that help you measure, analyze, and improve your page loading speed:
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights is a free tool from Google that provides both lab data (simulated results) and field data (real-world user experiences). It evaluates your page’s Core Web Vitals, highlights problem areas, and even offers suggestions under ‘Opportunities’ to improve load times.
Google Search Console (Page Experience Report)
The ‘Page Experience’ section gives you an overview of how your URLs perform for both mobile and desktop users. It groups URLs that fail Core Web Vitals, helping you identify whether you need to improve LCP, FID, or CLS scores.
Lighthouse (in Chrome DevTools)
Lighthouse is a built-in auditing tool in Chrome that measures page speed, accessibility, SEO, and best practices. It’s great for developers who want deeper insights into what’s affecting site performance.
WebPageTest
WebPage Test lets you test how your website performs across various networks, locations, and devices. Its ‘waterfall’ view shows exactly when each asset on your site loads, perfect for spotting slow resources or scripts that delay rendering.
Chrome Developer Tools (Network tab)
If you’re hands-on, Chrome DevTools is your real-time lab. Open your site, press F12, and monitor how each resource loads. It’s perfect for debugging and understanding what’s happening behind the scenes.
A quick checklist for diagnosing performance issues
Use this checklist whenever you’re analyzing your website performance:
Run your URL through PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals data
Check your Page Experience report in Google Search Console
Use Lighthouse for a detailed technical audit
Review your WebPageTest waterfall to spot bottlenecks
Monitor your server performance (ask your host or use plugins like Query Monitor)
Re-test after every major update or plugin installation
Speed up, but with purpose
As Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘There is more to life than increasing its speed.’ The same goes for your website. While optimizing speed is vital for better engagement, search rankings, and conversions, it is equally important to focus on creating an experience that feels effortless and meaningful to your visitors. A truly high-performing website strikes a balance between speed, usability, accessibility, and user intent.
When your pages load quickly, your content reads clearly, and your navigation feels intuitive, you create more than just a fast site; you create a space where visitors want to stay, explore, and connect.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-11-13 12:22:002025-11-13 12:22:00From slow to super fast: how to boost site speed the right way
Ad intelligence software promises to show you everything your competitors are doing: their keywords, budgets, creatives, and landing pages.
But many surface insights you could get for free.
Meta’s Ad Library shows what advertisers are currently running. Google’s Transparency Center does the same for search and YouTube. TikTok’s Creative Center reveals top performers by industry.
So, when does paid software earn its cost?
You’re tracking multiple competitors across platforms and losing hours to manual checks
You need historical data on which ads they tested and killed
You rely on spend benchmarks and real-time alerts to catch shifts before your clients do
That’s the gap paid tools fill. If they’re good.
Many aren’t. They bury useful insights under dashboards that create more work than they save. The data looks complete until you actually try to use it.
This guide covers six platforms that deliver real intelligence (if you know what you’re looking at).
We’re not promising magic improvements. We’re showing what each tool reveals, who it’s built for, and what you give up at each price point.
What Is the Best Ad Intelligence Software?
Ad Intelligence Tools
Best For
Price
Similarweb
Best for stalking competitors’ ads at scale — plus, their SEO, traffic, and market moves
$649+/month. (Only higher-tier plans come with ad intelligence.)
Semrush Advertising Toolkit
Best for multi-platform ad intelligence, from Meta and TikTok to Google Shopping
$99-$220/month
SpyFu
Best for affordable Google Ads intelligence with deep historical data
$39-$249/month
PowerAdSpy
Best for analyzing ad engagement across social media platforms
$69-$399/month
Adbeat
Best for tracking competitor display ads and landing pages
$249+/month
Pathmatics
Best for enterprise-level ad spend intelligence across mobile, social, and video
Pricing is not publicly available
1. Similarweb
Best for stalking competitors’ ads at scale — plus, their SEO, traffic, and market moves
Similarweb reveals your competitors’ complete paid strategies, from their winning ad creatives to their most successful publishers.
It also includes SEO and competitive intelligence tools in every subscription, so you get the full picture of how your rivals attract and convert traffic across every channel.
This cross-channel context is especially helpful if you already use native ad libraries but want scalable intel that ties everything together.
Learn Your Competitors’ Highest-Performing Publishers and Ad Networks
If your competitors are running ads, Similarweb shows you where (and how to beat them).
You’ll see:
Which ad networks and placements work best for your top competitors
Where their ad budgets go, broken down by channel
Industry-wide trends that reveal missed opportunities
Say Similarweb shows that multiple competitors spend over 50% of their display budgets on a single publisher.
That’s a data-backed signal you can’t ignore.
Use that data to target the same publisher to test similar placements. Or find underused publishers in the same category for more affordable traffic.
Get Inspired by Proven Ad Creatives
Similarweb’s database makes it easy to browse display ads by publisher, network, and format.
See the messaging and offers competitors use to get conversions
Learn how many days each ad was active, so you know which ones excelled (and which ones failed)
Find out which formats your competitors are using, including product, display, and video ads
Of course, copying your competitors’ ads word-for-word isn’t the goal.
The real value is in spotting patterns: the hooks they repeat, the formats they invest in, and the offers they continually test.
These insights let you design campaigns that build on what already works in your market.
When you’re juggling multiple accounts, this saves hours of creative testing, and points you directly toward proven formats.
Reverse-Engineer Competitors’ Search and Shopping Campaigns
Similarweb shows you which keywords your competitors bid on and how much they’re spending.
This helps you identify high-value keywords that drive conversions and avoid wasting budget on terms that don’t perform.
From there, you can build stronger landing pages that target your competitors’ most successful keywords and match intent.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Tracks 500M+ ads across publishers, networks, and formats for deep competitive insights
Ad intelligence tools only available with the most expensive plan
Uncovers competitors’ top-performing publishers and ad placements
Can feel overwhelming for smaller teams due to the platform’s depth
Includes SEO, traffic, and market data for a full competitive picture
If you only want ad intelligence, you’ll be paying for much more than you need
Pricing
Similarweb offers multiple plans, but only the most expensive one includes dedicated tools for ad intelligence.
This plan costs $649/month ($540 billed annually). Similarweb also offers business and enterprise plans, but pricing and tools are not publicly available online.
Best for multi-platform ad intelligence, from Meta and TikTok to Google Shopping
When you’re managing multiple clients or campaigns, switching between Meta, TikTok, and Google dashboards gets messy fast.
Semrush’s Advertising Toolkit consolidates that chaos into one workspace — letting you analyze competitor campaigns and build your own in the same place.
You’ll get deep intel on keywords, budgets, ad copy, and creative trends.
Plus, actionable advice on how to turn that data into high-performing campaigns.
Track Competitor Keywords and Budgets
The Advertising Research tool reveals everything, and we mean everything, about your competitors’ Google Ads strategies.
Enter any domain and you’ll see:
Estimated ad traffic
Cost per click (CPC)
Highest- and lowest-performing keywords
Organic search position
Keyword difficulty
URL
No more wasting ad budget on terms that don’t perform. You’ll know exactly which ones to target in your next campaign.
The tool also tracks keyword trends over time.
See which keywords competitors continuously invest in month after month.
When a keyword consistently appears in their paid strategy with stable or growing volume, that’s a clear sign it’s profitable.
With this data, you might test variations of the keyword in multiple ads to capitalize on its success.
Or use them to inform your broader content strategy beyond paid campaigns.
Spy on Google Shopping Ads
Have an ecommerce brand?
The PLA Research tool shows you which products your competitors promote most heavily in Google Shopping.
You’ll see position, volume, price, product titles, URLs, and trend data for each listing.
When a product shows up month after month, it’s likely a top seller.
If you don’t carry that product yet, you might consider adding it to your catalog.
Already sell it? Increase your Shopping ads to compete directly.
You can also view all of your competitors’ Google Shopping ads in one place.
Analyze their copy, images, and offers.
Then, apply these insights to your own listings:
Adjust your product titles to match high-performing formats
Test pricing strategies that undercut or match theirs
Prioritize ads for products where you have a competitive advantage. Think better reviews, faster shipping, or exclusive features they don’t offer.
Here’s another cool feature:
Instead of bouncing between tools, Semrush’s AI-powered Ad Launch Assistant lets you create and optimize Google and Meta ads directly inside the platform.
The tool generates copy and visuals tailored to your brand, from attention-grabbing headlines to conversion-focused descriptions.
Instead of writing everything from scratch, all you have to do is review each element:
Headlines
Descriptions
Site links
Callouts
Images
Videos
Simply refine the voice and messaging as needed. You’ll be able to test multiple variations in minutes instead of hours.
Unlock Deeper Insights with AdClarity
AdClarity is Semrush’s advanced cross-channel ad intelligence tool.
Need complete visibility into competitor display, social, and video campaigns?
This is where you’ll find it.
You’ll get a lot of data with this tool.
Including how much rivals spend, which publishers drive the most impact, and the exact creatives they’re using across platforms:
Facebook
Instagram
X
Google Display
Pinterest
YouTube
TikTok
LinkedIn
Say a competitor suddenly doubles their TikTok spend. You’ll spot the shift immediately and can adjust your strategy in real time.
AdClarity also automatically identifies your competitors’ top publishers and campaigns.
So there’s no guessing or testing which ones work well for your target audience.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Combines robust multi-site ad intelligence with Meta and Google campaign execution in one platform
The base plan includes only Google and Meta ad intelligence
Google Shopping insights are especially strong for ecommerce brands
AdClarity is only included the higher-tier plan
AdClarity offers advanced ad intelligence across display, social, and video
Doesn’t include SEO tools; you’ll need a separate toolkit for that
Pricing
The Semrush Advertising Toolkit is $99 per month.
It includes Advertising Research, PLA Research, Ads Launch Assistant, and more.
The higher-tier plan ($220/month) includes AdClarity, along with all of the above.
3. SpyFu
Best for affordable Google Ads intelligence with deep historical data
SpyFu is built for one thing: uncovering Google Ads strategies.
If your strategy leans heavily on Google, it’s one of the most detailed and budget-friendly advertising intelligence software options available.
Download Competitor Keywords Without Limits
SpyFu shows you everything your competitors do on Google Ads — and lets you export it all with no limits.
Many ad intelligence platforms cap your keyword downloads, so this is a plus.
Type in any competitor’s domain and you’ll see:
Every keyword they’ve ever bought on Google Ads
Estimated monthly clicks and CPC
Total spend on paid search
For example, say you’re in SaaS project management and Asana is your top competitor.
Search their domain, and SpyFu shows you their current and historical ad keywords. We’re talking thousands of terms, not just the top 50 or 100.
Download the complete dataset and…
Feed it into your analytics tools or Google Sheets
Share it with your team for campaign planning
Build custom reports for leadership
Cross-reference it with your CRM to see which keywords actually convert
Spot Overlaps and Waste in PPC Strategies
SpyFu’s Kombat tool compares your PPC strategy against up to two competitors at once.
But instead of having to sift through 10,000 keywords, the ad intelligence tool automatically groups them into helpful buckets:
Core Keywords: Terms all competitors are bidding on
Consider Buying: Valuable keywords they use, but you don’t
Potential Ad Waste: Terms that neither competitor uses but you do
So, you know exactly which terms to focus on (and which to remove from your campaigns).
This is especially helpful if you’re newer to paid campaigns.
Or have limited time (or tolerance) for turning data into actionable insights.
SpyFu also tags certain terms as “Great Buys” and estimates how many impressions you’ll get for each one.
Plus, it shows which competitors already bid on them, so you can piggyback on proven opportunities.
For example, the report below reveals that Asana’s competitor, Monday.com, uses “top task management apps” and “work time tracker app” in its ad strategy.
Asana could (and probably should) target both terms since SpyFu’s data shows they’re worth the investment.
Learn From Ads That Worked (or Failed)
SpyFu’s Ad History tool shows every ad variation competitors have tested for a given keyword.
If an ad copy ran for 14 consecutive months, you know it was effective.
If it vanished after a week? Probably a dud.
This kind of insight lets you write ads with fewer flops and faster wins.
This is especially valuable if you handle multiple accounts. You can skip obvious mistakes and start from proven winners.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Unlimited keyword exports with no download caps
Focused exclusively on Google Ads; no social or display coverage
10+ years of historical ad data for deep competitive analysis
Historical data (10+ years) requires paying for higher-tier plans
Kombat tool automatically identifies keyword overlaps and wasted spend
The base plan doesn’t come with unlimited downloads
Pricing
SpyFu offers three main plans, all of which come with ad intelligence and SEO reports.
The most affordable plan is $39 per month.
However, you’ll need to upgrade to a higher tier to get 10+ years of historical insights ($59-$249/month).
You’ll also see landing page insights, so you get intel on the complete customer journey.
See Which Landing Pages Are Actually Converting
Adbeat shows you which landing pages drive the most ad traffic. And how long each page has been live.
For example, Squarespace’s longest-running landing page has been active for 794 days.
That’s over two years.
When a page stays live that long, you know it’s consistently converting.
This intel helps you see which page layouts, offers, and messaging are worth replicating.
If you work for an agency and have multiple clients, this is particularly valuable. It’s a fast way to benchmark what “good” looks like in each vertical.
Reveal Media Buying Strategies and Publisher Insights
The Advertiser Dashboard breaks down where competitors allocate their budgets across channels, networks, and publishers.
You’ll also see share-of-voice data to understand their market presence.
For example, Adbeat found that Squarespace ran 524 ads in one month.
And 78% of their spend went to programmatic ads.
Details like this highlight which channels matter most in your niche. And where you can reallocate budget to get better performance for your own campaigns.
Benchmark Campaign Performance and Spot Trends
Adbeat’s ad intelligence software lets you monitor how your competitors’ budgets shift over time.
But what’s especially helpful is that they break it down by ad type: standard, native, and video.
For example, Squarespace’s longest-running video ad has been live for 413 days.
If they’ve kept it running that long, it’s a moneymaker.
In other words, it’s worth considering if you’re investing enough in video ads. And studying individual high performers for hooks, visuals, and offers.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Lets you analyze ads and landing pages together for complete funnel insights
Limited coverage of search and social campaigns
Reveals media spend, publisher performance, and traffic sources
Pricing is higher than ad-creative-only tools
Great for agencies, affiliate marketers, and display-heavy advertisers
Enterprise pricing is not publicly available
Pricing
Adbeat’s pricing starts at $249 per month for display, programmatic, and native ad intelligence.
For advanced filters, alerts, and historical data, you’ll need the higher plan ($399 per month).
There’s also an enterprise plan, but pricing isn’t listed publicly.
6. Pathmatics by Sensor Tower
Best for enterprise-level ad spend intelligence across mobile, social, and video
Pathmatics is built for large teams and big brands.
Household names like P&G and Unilever use this platform, so expect enterprise-level pricing and complexity.
But if you’re managing high-volume spend or reporting to leadership, it offers the transparency and benchmarking you can’t get from native tools.
Uncover Competitors’ Ad Spend Across Every Channel
Pathmatics shows you where every ad dollar goes in a pretty granular way.
It breaks down spend by platform, campaign, or creative — and tracks impressions, reach, and frequency over time.
Say you notice a competitor’s Instagram spend suddenly increased by a significant amount in a single week during Q4.
That signals a major campaign launch — possibly holiday shopping or Black Friday prep.
With this data, you can adjust your strategy immediately. And compete head-to-head with your main competitors.
Pathmatics also lets you benchmark your ad spend against multiple competitors at once.
If you’re investing $500K on display while your top three competitors each spend $2M+, you’ll see that gap.
Use this data to justify budget increases to leadership.
Or to identify where smaller reallocations could close the gap faster.
Benchmark Market Share and Share of Voice
Pathmatics tracks your share of voice against competitors in your industry and region.
If three brands dominate 80% of impressions in your category, you’ll see who owns what percentage.
This data helps you understand your position in the market.
Are you a distant fourth? Or neck-and-neck with the leader?
You can also identify which competitors dominate specific channels and spot opportunities where they’re underinvesting.
If the market leader owns Facebook but ignores TikTok, that’s your opening.
Evaluate Creatives That Resonate
Every ad includes details like format, placement, messaging, CTAs, and audience profiles.
See which creatives competitors keep running and which ones they kill after a few days.
Track the exact messaging and offers that stick around for months or years.
Use these insights to refine your own creative strategy.
Double down on formats that consistently deliver, and try localized messaging in new markets where your competitors are seeing success.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Provides cross-channel visibility across social, display, mobile, video, and OTT
Pricing is custom and can be expensive for smaller teams and startups
Combines creative data with detailed spend, reach, and audience insights
Steeper learning curve due to platform depth and data complexity
Ideal for enterprise-level teams, app publishers, and multi-channel marketers
Some users report data accuracy issues
Pricing
Pathmatics’ pricing is custom.
Request a quote if you’re interested.
Turn Competitive Intel into Campaign Wins
The right ad intelligence software isn’t the one with the most features.
It’s the one you can trust.
This means reliable data, less manual work, and the ability to scale campaigns across platforms with ease.
On a budget and focused mainly on Google Ads? Start with SpyFu.
Need deep, multi-site advertising intelligence across search and social with campaign execution built in?
Go for Semrush’s Advertising Toolkit.
Once you’ve picked your platform and gathered competitive intel, the next step is making sure your paid and organic strategies work together.
Learn how to align SEO and PPC to maximize visibility, reduce wasted spend, and improve your ROI.
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We’re excited to announce that we’re now expanding the options for merchants to provide shipping
and returns information, even if they don’t have a Merchant Center account. Merchants can now
tell Google about their shipping and returns policies in two distinct ways: by configuring them
directly in Search Console or by using new organization-level structured data.
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