TL;DR
- Google Ads is rolling out a Spend benchmarks report in the Account Overview showing whether you spend more, less, or about the same as businesses Google considers similar, reported by Search Engine Roundtable on 16 September 2026.
- In the example spotted by Thomas Eccel, the report showed 284 euros of spend against a peer's 268, and 912 clicks against 765.
- Google says the peer set is built from industry and where you advertise; it did not publish how many accounts are in a set or how 'similar' is defined.
- The peer number is not a target: it cannot see your margins, conversion rate, average order value, or strategy, so profitability should decide your budget.
- It is useful as market context, telling you whether a cost change is account-specific or market-wide, but never as a reason to raise budgets.
Google Ads is rolling out an update to its Spend benchmarks report that shows whether you are spending more, less, or about the same as businesses Google considers similar to yours. Search Engine Roundtable reported the change on 16 September 2026. The comparison appears in the Account Overview and is built from your industry and where you advertise, which makes it a competitive-context signal rather than a recommendation to act on.
The update was spotted by Thomas Eccel, who posted a screenshot on LinkedIn showing the report under Account Overview. In his example the report said his spend that week was 284 euros while a comparable business spent 268 euros, and that his account drew 912 clicks against the peer's 765. So the report puts your number and a peer number side by side on both spend and clicks.
What the report actually shows
The Spend benchmarks report answers one narrow question: are you spending more or less than accounts Google treats as your peers, and what did each side get for it. It is a comparison of inputs and one output, not a verdict on performance.
| Element | What the report says |
|---|---|
| Your spend vs peer spend | Your weekly spend set next to a comparable business's spend (284 vs 268 euros in the reported example). |
| Your clicks vs peer clicks | Clicks each side received over the same window (912 vs 765 in the example). |
| How the peer set is built | Google says the comparison is based on things like industry and where you advertise. |
| Where it appears | In the Account Overview. |
Why peer spend is not a target
The trap in this report is reading the peer number as a goal. Eccel made the point directly: two businesses in the same industry can have completely different margins, conversion rates, average order values, and strategies, so your profitability should decide your spend, not Google's comparison. A competitor spending 268 euros tells you nothing about whether 268 is the right number for your account.
Consider what the peer set does not know about you. It does not know your margin, so it cannot tell whether a click is worth more or less to you than to the business next to you. It does not know your conversion rate or your average order value, so the same spend can be profitable for you and loss-making for a peer, or the reverse. It does not know whether you are defending a brand term or chasing new demand. Two accounts with identical spend and clicks can be in completely different economic positions, and the report shows only the spend and the clicks.
The nudge to watch for
A benchmark that shows you spending less than peers is, in effect, a prompt to spend more, and that is the direction to be careful about. Google's incentive and your incentive align when more spend is profitable for you and diverge when it is not. The report does not distinguish the two cases, because it cannot see your profitability. Treat a "you spend less than similar businesses" line as information about the auction, not as a reason to raise budgets.
The same caution applies in reverse. Spending more than peers is not automatically waste. If your margins or conversion rates are higher, a higher spend that peers cannot sustain may be exactly right for you. The number is only a starting question, and the answer lives in your own conversion and revenue data, not in the comparison.
How to actually use it
The report is genuinely useful for one thing: context. If your cost per click jumped this month, seeing that peer spend and peer clicks moved the same way tells you the shift is in the auction rather than in your account, which is a real diagnostic. Used that way it answers "is this me or the market", and that is worth having.
- Read it as market context, not as a target. The question it answers well is whether a change you are seeing is account-specific or market-wide.
- Never move a budget on the peer comparison alone. Move budgets on your own cost per conversion and return, which the report does not contain.
- Pair it with your conversion data before drawing any conclusion. Spend and clicks without conversions and revenue is half a picture.
- Be sceptical of the peer set. "Similar" is Google's judgment from industry and location, and it cannot account for your margins, funnel, or goals.
- Watch for the spend-up nudge. A "you spend less than peers" reading is not evidence that spending more is profitable for you.
How this differs from Auction Insights
Google Ads has shown competitive data for years through the Auction Insights report, and it is worth being clear on how the new Spend benchmarks report differs, because they answer different questions. Auction Insights compares you with advertisers you actually overlap with in the same auctions, on metrics like impression share, overlap rate, and outranking share. It tells you who you are competing against for the same queries and how often you win.
The Spend benchmarks report is not auction-level. It compares your account against a peer set Google assembles from industry and location, on total spend and clicks, whether or not those businesses ever appear in the same auction as you. So Auction Insights answers "who is beating me on these keywords and how often", while Spend benchmarks answers "am I spending more or less than businesses like mine overall". The first is actionable at the campaign and keyword level; the second is a coarse account-level comparison that is easy to misread as a target. Keep them in their lanes: use Auction Insights to work competitive pressure on specific terms, and treat Spend benchmarks as background context only.
What Google did not say
The reporting leaves the methodology thin. Google did not publish how many accounts sit in a peer set, how narrowly "similar" is defined beyond industry and location, or how often the benchmark refreshes. It did not say whether the comparison is opt-out, whether your own anonymized data feeds other advertisers' benchmarks, or how small a peer set can get before the comparison stops being meaningful. For a niche business or a thin local market, a peer set assembled from too few comparable accounts could be noisy, and nothing in the announcement addresses that.
What this means for Thai advertisers
Two local factors change how much weight to give this report. Thai commercial search markets are often thin on a given term, so the pool of genuinely comparable advertisers can be small, and a benchmark built from a handful of accounts is a shakier signal than one built from hundreds. Read the Thai peer comparison as directional at best.
The spend-up nudge also lands harder here. Many Thai accounts run against a fixed monthly budget set in baht, and a report suggesting peers spend more is exactly the kind of prompt that pushes a budget past what the account can profitably absorb. The discipline is the same as always: the budget follows the cost per conversion and the return, measured in your own account, not the peer line. Confirm those numbers are tracked cleanly in GA4 before you let any benchmark influence a budget, and keep budget decisions inside your Google Ads plan rather than handing them to a comparison.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Google Ads Spend benchmarks report?
It is a report in the Account Overview that shows whether you are spending more, less, or about the same as businesses Google considers similar to yours, alongside how many clicks each side received. Search Engine Roundtable reported the update on 16 September 2026.
How does Google decide which businesses are my peers?
Google says the comparison is based on things like your industry and where you advertise. It did not publish how many accounts are in a peer set or how narrowly "similar" is defined beyond those two factors.
Should I match my competitors' spend?
No. The peer set does not know your margins, conversion rate, average order value, or strategy, so its spend figure is not a target. Your profitability should decide your budget, and that lives in your own conversion and revenue data, not in the comparison.
Is the report useful for anything?
Yes, as context. If your costs move and the report shows peer spend and clicks moving the same way, the shift is in the auction rather than in your account, which is a genuine diagnostic. It answers whether a change is account-specific or market-wide.
Can I turn it off, and does it use my data?
The reporting did not say whether the comparison is opt-out or whether your anonymized data feeds other advertisers' benchmarks. Those details were not part of the announcement.
The bottom line
The Spend benchmarks report is a useful lens for one question, whether a change you are seeing is you or the market, and a dangerous one for another, whether you should spend what your competitors spend. Google can see your industry and your location; it cannot see your margins, your funnel, or your goals, and those are what decide the right budget. Read the peer number as context, keep budget decisions anchored to your own cost per conversion, and be most careful exactly when the report says you are spending less than everyone else.
