Advertising Intelligence

Summary#

Advertising Intelligence runs three paid-media tools against one domain at the same time and returns the competitive Google Ads landscape: which keywords they buy, what it plausibly costs them, what the ads say, who else is bidding, and what they list in Shopping. It costs 12 credits.

Purpose#

Before you spend money on paid search you want to know what the money is up against. Doing that properly means three separate lookups — text ads, the paid landscape, and Shopping listings — and then reconciling them. This workflow does all three at once so the answer to "should we bid here, and on what?" arrives as one document.

Overview#

You give it a domain. Three tools fire:

PLA Research is the expensive step and the one that only pays off for retailers. If the domain does not sell products, two-thirds of your 12 credits buy an empty block — see Tips for the cheaper route.

All three are measured DataForSEO probes. Advertising Research in particular never falls back to AI: with no measured paid activity it returns zeros and says so.

Benefits#

• The full paid picture in one document rather than three.
• Real ad copy, not paraphrases — you can see the offers competitors are running.
• Honest zeroes. A domain that runs no ads is reported as running no ads.
• Feeds directly into Ads Launch Assistant, which builds the campaign.
• A failed step does not lose the run.

Use Cases#

• Deciding whether to enter a paid market. If the incumbent's estimated spend is enormous and CPCs are high, organic may be the better route.
• Building a bid list. Their paid keywords are a pre-qualified list of terms someone is already paying for, which means the terms convert.
• Writing better ads. Read their live ad copy and write against it rather than around it.
• Retail competitive analysis. The Shopping step exposes product coverage, price banding and feed health.
• Budget conversations. Estimated monthly spend gives a defensible order of magnitude for a budget request.

Requirements#

• A signed-in account on a paid plan. None of the three tools runs on Free.
• At least 12 credits of monthly allowance available.
• A domain with some paid presence, otherwise you will get honest empty results.
• For the Shopping step to be meaningful: a retailer or an e-commerce domain.

Permissions#

Cost#

12 credits per run. The Quota Cost card reads 12 / 12 credits per run and the run banner says: Running this workflow uses 12 reports (3 tools: PPC Research + Advertising Research + PLA Research).

That is 1 + 3 + 8. The Shopping Ads step alone is 8 of the 12, because it is one of the two heaviest tools in the product.

A step served from the shared cache still charges. See example costs nothing. See Result caching and freshness and How credits work.

Navigation Path#

Dashboard → Get Started → Advertising Intelligence

The sidebar entry carries an orange WORKFLOW badge. Note that there is a separate Advertising Intelligence tool in the Promote section — that is the single 3-credit report, described in Advertising Intelligence Report.

Inputs#

The topbar country picker matters more here than almost anywhere else in the product: CPC, spend and ad copy are all market-specific. Press Enter to run. See example fills nike.com when the field is blank and renders stored samples free.

Step-by-Step Guide#

1. Open Dashboard → Get Started → Advertising Intelligence.
2. Set the country picker to the market you would actually advertise in.
3. Type the domain into domain or URL (e.g. nike.com).
4. Press Run Ad Intelligence · 12 reports, or press Enter.
5. Watch the three rows in Analysis Progress. Expect 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
6. Read the hero quick stats, then the insight set and action plan.
7. Open the three blocks in order: PPC Research, Advertising Research, Shopping Ads.
8. Export or share the report from the hero.

Reading the Results#

The hero. The domain, VERIFIED FROM DATAFORSEO, US · Desktop, the title Advertising Intelligence Report, and N of 3 analyses completed. A Paid Keywords quick-stat tile appears when the figure is above zero.

PPC Research — what they buy.

Advertising Research — the landscape. Total paid keywords, monthly ad spend, display ad count, PLA count, average CPC, top ads, spend history, ad formats and geographic spend. Two readings matter most: ad formats tells you whether they are a search-only advertiser or running display and video too, and geographic spend tells you which markets they are defending — an under-defended market is the cheapest place to start.

This step never guesses. With no measured paid activity it returns $0 figures and the note No paid advertising detected for this domain in Google Ads data. That is a finding, not a failure: it means the market is uncontested on paid, which materially lowers your cost of entry.

Shopping Ads (PLA) — the retail picture.

• Total products and active campaigns size the feed.
• Est. monthly PLA spend and avg CPC price the channel.
• Top categories and price points show where they compete. If their price band sits above yours in a category, that category is where you win on Shopping.
• Top products are the specific listings winning impressions.
• Feed health flags listing quality problems — the most fixable thing in Shopping and usually the difference between showing and not showing.
• Competitor overlap shows who you would actually be bidding against.

For a non-retail domain this block will be empty. That is expected.

Strategic Insights and Recommended Action Plan. Above the blocks, a short insight set badged REAL · NO FABRICATION and a numbered plan built from the three payloads.

Reading it as a decision. Heavy spend, high CPC and many paid competitors means a mature auction — enter narrowly on long-tail terms or not at all. Moderate spend with a thin keyword list means an under-optimized incumbent and a real opening. No paid activity at all in a market with commercial intent is the most interesting result in this report: the terms are available and nobody is bidding.

Examples#

Screenshots#

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Tips#

• If the domain does not sell products, do not run this workflow. Run PPC Research at 1 credit and Advertising Intelligence Report at 3 instead. That is 4 credits for the useful two-thirds of this report.
• Set the country first. Paid data is more market-sensitive than any other data in the product, and a re-run is another 12 credits.
• Copy the top paid keywords straight into Ads Launch Assistant — it turns them into a campaign plan with copy and budget allocation for 1 credit.
• Read the landing pages list. It shows you their funnel without any guesswork.
• Run it on two rivals before deciding a budget; one domain is an anecdote.

Best Practices#

• Treat every currency figure as a modelled estimate. It is derived from measured keyword volume and CPC, not from anyone's ad account.
• Compare estimated spend against estimated paid traffic rather than reading either alone.
• Use ad copy as competitive intelligence about offers and positioning, not as copy to imitate.
• Re-run quarterly. Paid programmes change faster than organic ones, but not weekly, and the shared cache may return the same numbers for the full 12 credits.
• Pair this with Competitor Intelligence when you need the organic picture alongside the paid one.

Common Mistakes#

• Running it on a non-retailer. Eight of the twelve credits go to the Shopping step, which will be empty.
• Reading estimated spend as their actual budget. It is a model.
• Leaving the country on the default United States and then wondering why the CPCs look odd for a campaign aimed somewhere else.
• Treating $0 and "no paid advertising detected" as an error. It is a measured result and a useful one.
• Bidding on their whole keyword list. Their list reflects their margins, not yours.

Limitations#

• Google Ads data only. Other networks are not covered.
• Spend, traffic and CPC are estimates modelled from measured keyword data.
• The Shopping step is only meaningful for retail and e-commerce domains.
• Row caps apply: top keywords, ads and products are strong samples, not full exports.
• Three fixed steps; you cannot drop the expensive one.
• Each step is capped at 120 seconds; a slower step is dropped so the rest renders.
• The report header always reads US · Desktop while the steps use your selected country.
• Saved results are kept for 90 days.

Troubleshooting#

FAQs#

Why is this 12 credits for only three tools? Because Shopping Ads (PLA) costs 8 on its own — it is one of the two heaviest tools in the product. PPC Research is 1 and Advertising Research is 3.

Can I skip the Shopping step? Not from this screen. Run PPC Research and Advertising Intelligence Report individually for 4 credits total if the domain does not sell products.

Are the spend figures their real budget? No. They are estimates derived from measured keyword volumes and CPCs. Use them for scale and comparison, not for accounting.

Why does the sidebar have two things called Advertising Intelligence? This one, in Get Started, is the three-tool workflow. The one in Promote is the single 3-credit Advertising Research report. See Advertising Intelligence Report.

Does this show Facebook, LinkedIn or TikTok ads? No. This is the Google Ads landscape. Display and video signals appear through AdClarity, which is a separate tool.

What do I do with the result? Take the top paid keywords and the ad copy into Ads Launch Assistant, which builds a keyword strategy, ad copy, audience segments and a budget allocation for 1 credit.