What is Impression Share? Your Go-To Guide to Understanding Impression Share

What is impression share?

Impression share is the percentage of times your ad appears on a search engine results page compared to the total number of times it could potentially appear.

When tracking your ads’ performance, you must measure informative metrics that provide insight into how your ads perform. Impression share is a critical metric for helping you understand how many people see your ads, compared to how many people could see them.

On this page, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about impression share, including:

• Impression share definition
• Impression share formula
• What a good impression share is
• Types of impression share
• How to improve impression share

Keep reading to learn more!

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Impression share definition: What is impression share?

Impression share is the percentage of impressions you get for your ads compared to the number of impressions your ad could get.

Basically, impression share looks at how many times your ad shows compared to how many times your ad could have shown. So, if your ad impression share was 60%, that means that out of all the auctions your ad could have been in, you were only in 60% of them.

You receive an impression each time your ad displays on a page. You can see your impression share at the keyword, campaign, and ad group levels in Google Ads.

Your impression share helps you understand your ad reach, so you can figure out how to increase it and outperform your competition.

Impression share formula: How to calculate your impression share

Want to know how to calculate your impression share? Use this impression share formula:

Impressions/total eligible impressions=impression share

The eligible impressions compose of factors like ad targeting settings, bids, Ad Rank, and more.

3 types of impression share

There are multiple types of impression shares you can track.

1. Search impressions share
2. Display impression share
3. Exact match impression share

Here are three common types of ad impression share:

1. Search impression share

The search impression share measures your impression share on search networks. With Google, for example, the search network includes Google search results, Maps, Shopping, and partner websites. If your ads appear on any of those options, it counts towards your impressions.

2. Display impression share

Another type of impression share is Display impressions. Display impressions come from ads that show on websites within a Display Network. These ads appear on third-party websites, typically in the margins, middle, and end of pages.

When your ads appear on these third-party websites, it counts as an impression.

3. Exact match impression share

You can also track impression share for exact matches. This impression share measures how many impressions you receive for exact matches of your keywords. Tracking this number helps you focus on relevant keywords for your search ads.

What is a good impression share?

So, what is a good impression share? Your ad impression share goal will depend upon the competitiveness of your keywords or your audience targeting.

For low-competition keywords, aim to have at least 90-95% of the impression share. Since these keywords have less competition, your ads should appear for most of these types of searches. For more competitive keywords, 60% is a good benchmark to aim for with your ads.

Additionally, if you target branded keywords, you should have an impression share of 100%. Overall, for any type of ad, your minimum impression share should be no less than 60%.

How to improve ad impression share: 3 quick tips

Now that you know what a good impression share is, it’s time to improve it. Here are three quick tips to help you improve your impression share:

1. Adjust your budget

If you find that your impression share falls below the recommended 60%, try adjusting your advertising budget.

A common cause of low impression share is budget constraints. If you set a daily budget for your ads, but it isn’t substantial, your budget runs out quickly. As a result, your impression share drops — Google can’t show your ad any more that day, which leads to missed opportunities and a lower share impression.

By adjusting your budget, your ads can run longer, and you increase your ad impression share.

That doesn’t mean you must spend more on ads. While increasing your overall budget would help, you can also readjust your target strategy (which we’ll talk about next) to put your ad budget towards ads that already drive your desired results.

2. Improve your targeting

Improving your ad impression share may require you to adjust your targeting.

There are two main types of targeting with ads:

1. Keyword targeting

One type of targeting is keyword targeting, which involves setting keywords for your ads so that they appear in relevant search results. When you target keywords, you pay based on competition for your keyword. If you target highly competitive keywords, you pay more for them.

A good option is to adjust the keywords you target. If you analyze your keywords and find some aren’t producing the results you desire, you can refrain from targeting those keywords and put your budget towards keywords that produce better results.

2. Audience targeting

Another type of targeting is audience targeting. If you run display ads, for example, you set your target audience to put your ads before the right people.

You can increase your impression share by expanding your audience targeting. As you run your ads, you may find that you’re missing a demographic of people interested in what you offer. You can adjust your ads accordingly to reach the right people.

3. Improve your Quality Score

Want to improve ad impression share? Try improving your Quality Score.

Quality Score measures the quality and relevancy of your ad. Google evaluates your landing page experience, keywords, and click-through rate (CTR) to give you a score between 1-10.

While Quality Score is not an official Google Ads ranking factor, it’s a good indication of how your ads will perform. By improving your Quality Score, you will likely improve your ad performance, including your impression share.

Focus on improving aspects like your:

• Keyword targeting
• Bid amount
• Ad copy
• Landing page
• And more

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Looking to improve your ad impression share?

If you need to improve your ad performance, WebFX can help. We have a team of over 500 advertising pros ready to help you improve your ad campaigns.

With pay-per-click (PPC) advertising services from WebFX, our team of experts will audit your current advertising campaigns and find areas to improve. From keyword targeting to ad copy creation, our team can help you do it all.

You can feel confident that our advertising experts will help you drive the results you desire. In the past five years, we’ve driven over $10 billion in revenue and over 24 million leads for our clients.

Ready to improve your impression share? Contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with an expert!