What these are
Every advertiser leaves a public trail: the keywords they bid on, roughly what those clicks cost, and through the Google Ads Transparency Center, the actual ads they are running right now. Almost nobody reads it. These teardowns do.
Each one names its source and its date, states what is measured and what is estimated, and stops where the public data stops. You will not find a revenue or ROI number here, because nobody outside the company can see one.
Published
How a teardown is built
- Pick a public advertiser in an industry worth understanding.
- Pull the paid keyword set, the cost per click actually paid by advertisers, and the ad positions, alongside the organic footprint for contrast.
- Find the tension. A list of keywords is a spreadsheet. The question of why a company that ranks first still pays to appear there is an article.
- Publish the numbers with the date and the source attached, so anyone can check them or watch them change.
Two rules
Only what is observable. Spend estimates describe what is being bought. They say nothing about revenue, margin or whether the campaign works, and this section never pretends otherwise.
Analysis, not commentary. The aim is that the advertiser being analysed could read it without objecting to anything except the conclusion. Companies covered here are not clients and are not consulted.
For market level numbers rather than single advertisers, see the paid media cost index, which measures cost per click across six industries.