We recently completed some work for a major corporation whose Google Ads campaigns were primarily concerned with impression share.
They didn’t care about conversions; instead, they intended to obtain a particular proportion of impression share for each of their keywords.
Most of the initiatives I oversee focus on increasing conversions; thus, this is an odd target. This firm intended to concentrate on impression share and used its search advertisements solely for branding.
What is the definition of the impression share metric?
The “percentage of impressions that your advertising acquires relative to the total amount of impressions your ads may receive” is known as impression share.
What is the formula for calculating the impression share?
The impression share is calculated as follows: impressions / total eligible impressions.
Your keyword may be activated for various search queries depending on the match type of each term.
Google considers the number of queries that your keywords may be associated with. Then Google divides that figure by the number of searches your ad was seen. To do so, Google examines your account’s bad keywords.
As a result, how you organize your account and the keywords you employ significantly impact your impression share. You’ll be eligible for more searches if you utilize many wide-match keywords (which I don’t encourage). Your impression share is likely to be lower.
However, if you use Google Ads to create a decent keyword list that focuses on exact match keywords and/or a large negative keyword list, you can keep complete control over when your ad is displayed. Your search impression share will increase as a result of this.
Other things to consider to boost your impression share include:
- Adapt your location-based targeting. You’ll be eligible for fewer searches if you focus on a narrower area.
- Change the device you’re targeting. Turning off mobile devices will also restrict the number of qualified searches.
- Boost your Quality Rating. This will lower your cost-per-click, allowing you to participate in more auctions (considering your impression share is limited by budget)
- Reduce your bids. You can cut your requests instead of focusing on top ranks for each term, allowing you to compete in more ad auctions.
- Make use of an ad scheduler. Turning your advertisements off at specific times (for example, outside of office hours) will simplify your ads to be displayed at those times.
Should you be concerned with this metric?
Impression Share should not be the primary aim of your search advertising efforts, in my opinion. Google Ads works best as a performance marketing tool, and by focusing on Impression Share, you’ll be able to leverage it as a branding strategy as well. There are more effective tools for this (think about Youtube Ads or Google Display advertising, for example).
However, it is an intriguing measure to consider when optimizing your marketing. Metrics such as Search Lost IS (budget) and Search Lost IS (rank).
You may see how many impressions you lost due to budget constraints by looking at the Search Lost IS (budget). If your campaigns are now lucrative, you may want to boost your budget.
The Search Lost IS (rank) will also show how many impressions you lost due to a poor ranking. This might mean you’re not bidding high enough and losing a lot of ad bids.
To summarize, Search Impression Share is one of several KPIs to consider when fine-tuning your ads. It should not, however, be the primary objective of your efforts.
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