Search engine advertising hinges on competitive bidding, but many marketers lack the transparency to understand their competition. About 41% of marketing executives have never tracked how their competitors perform in paid search, yet they rank their own performance above average compared to their competition.

Adthena, which provides competitive intelligence data to companies, this week released data that analyzes the finance search market to reveal how companies perform. The index gives CMOs an industry benchmark that enables them to see and show how their strategy compares with their competitors. 

Each of the top 150 companies analyzed in the U.S. finance search market index was evaluated on a scale of 0-100, based on their performance in finance search, with the market average set at 50. The data reveals the leading and trailing players in the space, as well as suggest strategies CMOs need to improve their search performance.

Bank of America leads the finance search market with a search intelligence score of 97 out of 100. It earned a score of 100 for market leadership, 92 for search excellence, and 99 for brand ownership. Chase followed with a score of 93, 98, 84, and 97, respectively.

American Express followed, ranking No. 3 overall. The top nine rounded out with Credit Karma, Capital One, Wells Fargo, Fidelity, USAA, PNC and Experian.

Adthena’s report suggests that to hold a perfect market leadership score, companies must continuously monitor the search strategy of its top competitors. Companies also can expand their search term coverage to reach a wider audience and grow its market share.

Some of the biggest names, Citi, Allstate and GEICO, were missing from the SEM leaderboard, but they outperformed the industry average in at least one aspect of their search strategy — either market leadership, search excellence, or brand ownership. Their overall performance was brought down by low scores in another areas.

The bottom 10 companies in the finance search market had Search Intelligence Scores between 17 and 26, well below the industry average. These companies include Official-coverage.com, official-insurance,com, Wise Bread, Credible, Hiscox, DollarInstallments. Top10.com and Health for California.