Glossary
What is outranking share in auction insights?
Melvin Salas1 min readVerified 9 October 2026
Short answer
Outranking share is a column in the Google Ads auction insights report. Google says it tells you how often your ad ranked higher in the auction than another advertiser's ad, or if your ad showed when theirs didn't. Our reading: on a competitor's row it is your score against that advertiser, not theirs against you.
The definition has two halves, and the second is the one that surprises people. Google's outranking share includes how often your ad showed when the other advertiser's didn't. Our reading: in those auctions no ranking between the two ads took place, so the column can rise because the rival showed less often, with no change in how your ads compare when both appear.
Position above rate is the column that holds only the auctions where both ads showed. Google describes it as how often the other advertiser's ad was shown in a higher position than yours was, when both of your ads were shown at the same time, and lists it for Search campaigns only. Our reading: outranking share and position above rate count different auctions, so they need not add up to 100%.
Outranking share is in the auction insights report for both Search and Shopping campaigns. Our reading: Shopping has no position above rate, so there the two halves of outranking share cannot be told apart from those columns alone.
The report doesn't show insights when impression share is less than 10%, Google says.
Reading these columns is daily work for us
Riibon watches every campaign daily and holds a baseline for each metric, so a move in impression share or Quality Score is judged against what is normal for that account, not against a rule of thumb, before anyone acts on it.
Ask the Riibon app whether your campaigns are losing to budget or to rank. It is free, with no time limit and no card. Or book a call and we run it for you.