[Custom column] Increased Competition Detector

Here’s a creative use case for custom columns in your Google Ads UI: the Increased Competition Detector.

This custom column looks at decreases in click-through rate (>10%) and increases in CPC (>10%) to gauge potential market competition and activity. 

It is extremely helpful for monitoring activity on brand keywords (e.g., competitor poaching), but it’s valuable information for key non-brand terms as well.

Here’s what it looks like:

Here’s how to create it:

And here’s the formula for easy copy-pasting:

if(and((Avg_CPC.between_dates(report_range_end, report_range_end) / Avg_CPC.between_dates(report_range_start, report_range_start)- 1 ) > 0.1, (CTR.between_dates(report_range_end, report_range_end)/CTR.between_dates(report_range_start, report_range_start)-1  ) < -0.1 ), "incr comp", "-")

Go ahead, add it to your custom column set, it only takes 3 mintues!

Hat tip to Laura Schiele for sharing this on SEL earlier this year.

– Nils