Online purchases and searches are made every day on the Internet. The truth is, it can be difficult to properly target your ads to the right audience while staying ahead of the competition. Understanding Search Impression Share and other competitive metrics will be your key to creating a great ad. What is a good search impression share?
Let’s find out.
If you want to figure out how your ad is performing against your other competitors, Google Ads’ competitive metrics can help.
What are Search Impression Share and other competitive metrics?
Competitive metrics will help you in understanding your competitive position. You’ll notice how frequently your ads appear compared to other businesses advertising for the same keywords.
The metrics can be viewed at various levels, such as campaign, ad group, or keywords.
Here are the 5 Google Ads Metrics to improve your Ads performance.
- Click Share – an estimated share of the number of clicks your ad was able to generate compared to all possible clicks based on your bid keywords.
- Search Lost (IS) Rank – This is the percentage of the time your ad did not appear due to a low ad rank. This patyicular value determines your ad position.
- Search Lost (IS) Budget – This particular metric allows you to determine whether you need to increase your daily or monthly budget in order to gain more search clicks.
- Display Impression Share – This metric displays the percentage of impressions received by your ads in relation to the total number of impressions that your ads could have generated, also known as eligible impressions.
Lastly, we have the Search Impression Share. What is a search impression share?
Impression share (IS) is the percentage of impressions that your Google ad can obtain. This is compared to the total number of impressions that your ads could get. Ads impression is recorded each time your ad appears on a search result page or another site in the Google Network.
Factors such as targeting settings, approval status, and quality, are used to estimate eligible google ads impressions. Campaigns, ad groups, and keywords all have ads impression share data. This even includes product groups in Shopping campaigns.
Google ad impression share is a good way to see if increasing your bid or budget will allow your ads to reach more people. The distinction between an impression and a click is straightforward — in fact, the definition is contained entirely within their names. The consumer only sees an ad when they receive an impression. When a user follows through and clicks on the ad, this is referred to as an engagement or a click.
How to Calculate Impression Share – Search impression share formula
You can find out your impression share by dividing the number of impressions received by the overall number of impressions eligible for the ad. So what is a good search impression share and how do you achieve it?
On the other hand, Search impression share represents your impression share that is solely generated by the Search Network.
Search Lost IS (rank)
If you have been using Google Ads, you’ve most likely come across a metric in Google Ads called search lost IS (rank). This is the percentage of search impressions lost due to Ad Rank. It is also the percentage of times your ad was not shown to Google searches that matched your keywords.
This is the percentage of time your Google Ad didn’t appear due to a poor ad rank. How does this happen? Ad rank is determined by your bid in connection to your competitors as well as your ad quality
Reports in the Google Ads user interface will show you your search lost IS (rank). This is based on campaign, ad group, keyword, and audience components.
Do you want to learn how to bring your ad rank up?
Search Impression Share Lost To Rank
Are your ads performing badly in the ad auction?
If your answer is, unfortunately, yes, you are most likely losing search impressions due to a very low ad rank. Your max CPC bid and quality score are the two factors that contribute to ad rank.
Because of this, one of the best strategies for reducing impression share due to rank means tweaking one of those two factors.
If you see 20% for Search Lost IS (rank), it means that your ad did not appear in 20% of customer searches that matched your keywords due to ad rank. Oops!
Due to rank, an ad campaign with 10,000 eligible impressions loses 1,000 impressions. This results in a 10% Search Lost IS (rank) for this campaign.
You need to up your game when this happens. First of all, consider the concept of quality score. This refers to the overall quality of your ad. Google can actually decide whether to show your ad or not depending on how your ad looks.
If you give your audience an Ad with terrible writing (or worse bad grammar and bad choice of keywords) Google might think: “This ad is useless. Let’s put this on page 5.”
How To Improve Search Impression Share Lost To Rank
One of the things you can do is include relevant keywords in your ad copy to increase ad relevance to your keywords. A lot of people forget that you should still aim to answer people’s inquiries by using the right keywords.
Also, use keywords on the landing page. Make sure they are relevant though. Some people do what you call keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is using the keywords over and over again even to the point that it doesn’t make sense anymore.
These can be lists of phone numbers that don’t have added value. It can also be blocks of text that list cities and states that you are trying to rank for.
Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds awkward. Here is an example:
| We provide custom carpet cleaning. Our custom carpet cleaning is affordable and professional. If you’re thinking of hiring us for custom carpet cleaning, please contact our custom carpet cleaning specialists at custom.carpet.cleaning@example.com. |
Don’t forget to increase your bids to keep your ads competitive in the bid auction and to ensure that your bids are higher than the Ad Rank thresholds. You can improve your ad quality by adding site links, callouts, call and location extensions in your ads.
You have to make sure your ad looks interesting to the naked eye. For your ads, the words should be catchy, while the landing page should be informative, original, and well-written.
If you feel that you have created a bad-ass ad and your rank is still low, it could mean that you need to use a different approach. In this case, you might need to increase your bid for your ads. This will help with increasing your visibility. This is something that can help your business in the long-term.
But wait — before you go to your account and max your bid, let’s discuss this just a little bit more. Remember that by increasing your bid you are also increasing the cost of your traffic. Yes, this might be a pretty scary idea for you especially if you don’t have that much budget.
However, if your business can handle this budget increase, it might be worth a shot. This could be in exchange for a higher volume of leads for your business. If this is the result of increasing your bid, it could mean a positive impact on your ROI and therefore worth testing and experimenting on.
The best thing that could happen? You can get more visibility. This is something that can help your business in the long term. Nevertheless, only do this when you are comfortable with your cost per acquisition or how much you are willing to spend.
Search Lost IS (budget)
Are you already losing impressions due to bad budget planning?
You can improve your Ad Rank score by lowering your search lost IS (rank). You can boost your Ad Rank and help your ads appear higher in search results by including relevant keywords in your ad copy. This increases ad relevance to your keywords. It is also important to use keywords that are relevant on your landing page.
The idea here is, if your budget is too low, Google Ads might end up pausing your ads too early. This would lead to lots of missed opportunities because interested people who might have otherwise seen your ad and engaged in your business won’t be able to see your ad.
You have to make sure that your budget is enough for an interested to see your ad throughout the day. So the idea is that by extending your budget you are also extending the lifespan of your campaign. Having your campaign show up longer and more often means that your business is getting the exposure that you need to land on the screens of your willing customers.
You can also increase your bids to keep your ads competitive in the bid auction. This helps ensure that your bids are higher than the Ad Rank thresholds. If you want to improve your ad quality, you can include the following in your ads:
- site links
- Callouts
- call extensions
- location extensions
The percentage of Search Impression Share lost out of total eligible impressions due to campaign budget is referred to as Search Lost Impression Share (Budget).
It is also called Impression Share Lost Due to Budget, Search Impression Share Lost (Budget), Search Lost IS (Budget). On digital advertising platforms, it is typically measured at the campaign level.
If you have budget constraints, an ad campaign with 10,000 eligible impressions loses 1,000 impressions. As a result, the Search Lost Impression Share (Budget) for this campaign is 10%.
Search Impression Share Lost Due To Budget
There is no benchmark for Search Lost IS (budget) since it varies depending on your campaign settings. These campaign settings include:
- Targeting
- keyword coverage
- ad quality
- bids, etc.
So what is our aim for Search Lost IS (budget)? Ideally, you are going to want your Search Lost Impression Share as close to 0% as possible.
Every ad campaign has a total number of impressions that it can qualify for based on the factors and settings mentioned above.
“Oh my, why can I never get a 100%?”
Don’t worry, your campaign won’t always win a perfect score. You can’t always grab hold of all those eligible impressions. When a campaign loses a part of total eligible impressions, it results in lost search impression share.
There can be a whole lot of reasons for impression share loss. One main reason is the budget you choose to set for the campaign.
The budget can limit the number of times your ads show up on the search network.
Search Lost Impression Share means a lost potential. It means that your campaign could have won impressions but didn’t.
But wouldn’t that be such a bummer? Especially if you lost this impression potential because of factors that you could have otherwise controlled and fixed.
That’s why it is going to be a big help if you track this metric regularly. When you make regular checks, you can improve a lot on ad performance and get a better return on your money from ads.
How To Improve Search Impression Share Lost Due To Budget
To get things right, you need to figure out how you set your Google Ads budget at the start.
If you want to run a successful Google Ads campaign, there are 3 critical pieces of information about your company that you must know. These are key on how to improve search impression share lost due to budget.
Do you need some help to figure out your budget?
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What is the average order value for you? (AOV)
The average order value (AOV) is the average amount spent by your customers. This is every time they place an order or purchase a service on your website. Simply divide total revenue by the number of orders to determine your company’s average order value.
| total revenue / number of orders = average order value |
What is the percentage of your gross margin?
Gross margin is the amount of money a business keeps after deducting the direct costs of producing the product it sells and the services it offers.
| gross margin = revenue minus cost of goods sold/revenue |
What is your acquisition cost?
Acquisition cost is the total cost recognized on a company’s books for property or equipment. This is after considering: discounts, incentives, and other necessary expenditures before sales taxes.
Of course, you also have to determine whether your budget estimates are realistic. If you bid on keywords with low search volume, you will never reach your campaign’s profit target. The thing is, there will not be enough people searching for your keyword each month. If this is the case your budget will not be spent because your budget can only be spent after someone clicks on an ad.
As you’ve read in an earlier section of this post, increasing your bid for your ad could increase your acquisition cost. You need to be aware of how much you are willing to spend and how much you CAN spend. Put hubris aside and approach things in a logical manner. As the necessary questions:
Do I want to spend this much?
Can I afford to spend this much on PPC?
Is there anything else I can do before increasing my ad bid?
Think your keywords through. There are lots of tools you can use to find The keyword planner in Google Ads can be a big help.
What if you don’t see these metrics in the Google Ads interface? All you need to do is edit the columns in your report to include them in the table.
Setting up your dashboard to show Search Impression Share And Other Competitive Metrics
It is important to set up your dashboard columns so that you can see the most important data first. Here’s how you can set up the columns to show Search Impression Share and other data you need.
Next, you will be directed to a page showing a list of items/drop-downs.
These are the recommended settings to select under “competitive metrics.”
Now, your table will look like this:
What does high search impression share mean? Read on to find out.
What is a good search impression share?
In the case of branded keywords, you can already consider an impression share of 95 percent as good. In the case of non-branded keywords, you want to get an impression share of 80 percent.
There are times when our keyword is competitive. If this is the case and you also have a limited budget, you can lower down your expectations and aim for a search impression share of around 60%.
Search Impression Share is a standard metric within Google Ads. Unfortunately, a lot of people barely use this when it is extremely important to consider. Eligibility is determined by the following:
- targeting
- approval status
- bids
- budget
- your current ads quality score
How To Increase Search Impression Share
What is a good search impression share? More importantly, how do we improve it? There are myriad other metrics to consider within an existing budget that will have an impact on your Search Impression Share. Before you increase your budget, it is best that you scrutinize a few metrics.
| Conversion Rate – Avoid increasing your budget if your conversion rate is less than 1%. Understanding the conversion rate allows you to assess the performance of your pages. If it’s bad, you should try to figure out what’s wrong and fix it. It’s a good idea to pause your ads until you finish this, as it will save you money. |
| Bid – You need to make sure that your bid is moderately competitive. If you spend more money on keywords it increases the likelihood of your ad winning at auctions. This may not be a good long-term strategy unless you have a really big budget. Nevertheless, it can produce some short-term results. Raising your bid increases the likelihood that your ad will appear in an ad auction. |
| Targeting – Only market to the areas you want to sell to. If you aren’t careful, your campaigns could target areas that are out-of-range for you. If you reduce your regional targets, it can be a way to increase impression share. Keep in mind, however, that lowering your regional targets reduces the potential number of impressions available to you. |
| Quality Score – Ensure that your keywords, ad copy, and landing page are all relevant to one another. Ads with higher quality receive more engagement. If you intensively study your quality score, you can enhance individual aspects of your ads such as keywords, copy, and segmentation. If everything is set properly, your ads will generate more impressions and a higher clickthrough rate at some stage. |
| Click-through-rate (CTR) – Keep an eye on this metric at all times. The CTR for a Search Campaign should be 2% or higher, while the CTR for a Display Network campaign should be 0.90% or higher. |
So, should you be aim for 100% Search Impression share?
The answer is a big fat “No.” You should know that the idea of Google ads is to maximize keywords that work. Do you want to spend money on Ads that do not work? of course not!
Why would you want to increase a bid for an ad that doesn’t work for you? Why would you spend more money on keywords that are not working so well either? It is not a smart move to waste your precious budget on an ad or keyword that is not performing as well as you’d hope or not performing at all.
It is not worth spending more just to get a 100% search impression share. After all, it is not the only metric you need to work on.
We can help you bring your business to your audience…
Is Search Impression Share And Other Competitive Metrics Important?
The answer is, Yes.
If you’re not familiar with the industry, it might be hard to know where to start with this metric. But luckily, there are plenty of professionals like YoyoFu Media that can help you.
As you can see, Search Impression Share incorporates quite a few different metrics. Based on what we found in this article, it’s clear that Search Impression Share is an important part of understanding your competitive marketing landscape. From there, you can make adjustments and plan strategies that will help your business grow
Hiring a proficient professional service to audit your Google Ads campaign can be the help you need. Specialists like YoyoFu Media help optimize Google Ads for you such as Search Impression Share. “What is a good search impression share?” Hopefully, this article answered the question for you.
