How to Improve Your Google Ads Impression Share

Summary

In this video, the speaker delves into the concept of search impression share in Google Ads, explaining its significance and how to improve it. The discussion covers various metrics like search impression share, search top impression share, and search exact match impression share, detailing how they are calculated and what they indicate about ad performance. The speaker offers practical strategies for enhancing impression share, including adjusting budgets, improving ad rank, and optimizing keyword match types. Emphasizing that impression share should not be viewed as a key performance indicator, the video encourages viewers to focus on overall campaign effectiveness instead.

Takeaways

• 😀 Impression share is a key metric that indicates how often your ad is shown compared to how often it could have been shown based on eligibility.
• 📊 Impression share can be viewed at various levels in Google Ads, including campaign, ad group, and keyword levels.
• 🔍 To see impression share data, you need to customize your Google Ads columns to include competitive metrics.
• 💡 Search impression share is calculated as the number of impressions received divided by the estimated number of impressions eligible to show.
• 🧐 The metrics of search top impression share and absolute top impression share help assess ad visibility on search result pages.
• 📈 To improve impression share, it is essential to identify areas where you are losing potential impressions, such as low ad rank or budget constraints.
• 💰 Increasing your budget or reallocating it can help capture more impressions if your current budget is capped.
• 🔑 Improving ad rank requires focusing on quality scores, keyword relevance, and effective ad copy, alongside increasing bids if necessary.
• 🛠️ Utilizing negative keywords and more restrictive match types can refine targeting and improve impression share quality.
• 🚀 Automated bidding strategies in Google Ads can help optimize for impression share by leveraging machine learning.
• ❗ Impression share is not a key performance indicator (KPI); rather, it should be used as a tool to improve overall campaign performance.

Q & A

What is impression share in Google Ads?

Impression share is the percentage of impressions your ad receives divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible for, based on factors like targeting settings, bid, and quality.

How can you access impression share data in Google Ads?

Impression share data can be accessed at the campaign, ad group, or keyword level by customizing the columns in your Google Ads account and selecting the relevant metrics under 'competitive metrics'.

What are the different types of impression share metrics mentioned?

The different types of impression share metrics include search impression share, search top impression share, search absolute top impression share, and search exact match impression share.

What does 'search lost impression share due to rank' indicate?

This metric estimates how often your ad didn't show due to poor ad rank, which is determined by your bid, quality of the ad, and other contextual factors.

How can budget affect impression share?

If your campaigns have capped daily budgets, you may miss out on impressions when your ads stop showing. Increasing your budget can help capture those missed impressions.

What strategies can be employed to improve impression share?

Strategies to improve impression share include increasing your budget, enhancing ad rank by improving quality scores, reallocating budget between campaigns, adding negative keywords, and using longer tail keywords.

Why is it not advisable to aim for 100% impression share?

Achieving 100% impression share is unrealistic for most campaigns, especially for non-brand terms, as it may lead to excessive bidding that can decrease profitability. Aiming for around 90% is generally considered sufficient.

What role do negative keywords play in impression share?

Adding negative keywords helps limit the number of searches your ads are eligible for, which can improve the relevance of the impressions you do receive and ultimately enhance your impression share.

When might it make sense to maximize impression share?

Maximizing impression share may make sense in cases of conquesting, where you're trying to take over impressions for your own brand terms or those of competitors.

What is the overall goal regarding impression share improvements?

The overall goal should be to ensure strong campaign performance rather than simply maximizing impression share as a standalone metric, as impression share is not a key performance indicator (KPI) for profitability.