Google quietly announced on Google+ yesterday that the Keyword Planner tool within Google AdWords is being upgraded to add benchmark data so you can compare your performance to your competitors.
Google said it is rolling out over the next few weeks. The feature is "enhancing the Keyword Planner to help you compare your search term coverage to other advertisers," said Google.
(1) You can now review your relative ad impression share compared to the top five market leaders across all your generated keyword ideas:
(2) You can now review your relative ad impression share compared to similar advertisers in various keyword categories:
Google explains in more detail:
These insights can help you prioritize where keyword expansions might be most impactful. For example, when keyword planning for new products, you can see where market leaders have strong impression share to understand important keyword areas in the space.To identify missed opportunity with existing products, you can focus on keyword categories where your ad impression share is low compared to other advertisers. Find the keyword ideas most relevant to your business, and add those with high average monthly search volume and low ad impression share first. You can even concentrate on keywords with lower competition and suggested bids where you can more easily rank in top ad positions.
Forum discussion at Google+.
