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If you have just started with PPC advert there are chances that you are missing your potential audience to your competitors.
But how would you know the percentage of customers you are missing?
Most importantly, how would you ensure your advert gets greater visibility when the next time you monitor ad rank.
The answer is focus on Impression share! Yes, If you want your targeted audience click on your ad copy rather than the competitor’s one, work on Impression share.
Folks, Impression share is vital in the PPC world!
By knowing how to improve impression share in ppc you can make your campaign a success!
It has worked for a lot of my clients in the past. It will surely work for you given you read this post till the end.
In this post you will read what is Impression share, How can you search impression share and finally how to improve impression share.
So let’s begin:
What is Impression share?
In simple words, an impression means how often your ad is shown.
Each time your ad appears on Search or Display Network it will count as an impression.
Now once you know the number of impression, calculate impression share.
Impression share is equal to the number of impressions divided by the number of impressions you could get.
Impression share = Impressions/ Total eligible Impressions
Now, by calculating impression share you can know how much visibility your advert getting for a targeted keyword.
For instance, if you have 20% impression share, it means your advertisement is appearing 20% in Google’s search engine pages for the targeted terms.
Thus, by increasing your impression share you can have greater visibility.
Confusing? understand this in layman’s language.
So, I once had a client who felt that his advert isn’t appearing enough as much as he would want it to be.
So he asked me “how can I have a greater visibility for my targeted audience in my local area.”
Basically it was his way of saying how to improve impression share of my PPC campaign?
I hear that quite often. Lot of my clients question me “how to increase search impression share”?.
Now If that question is in your mind too. Here’s what you need to know:
To bring a good number of impression share your ad needs to be relevant and must have high performing keywords.
That’s it? Well, I wish it was that simple.
But there’s more to impression share.
Impression share is a dependent variable, which is dependent on your current ads’ targeting settings, approval status, bids, and Quality Score.
Impression share differs at different levels. In each level, it is controlled by different metrics. It can be viewed at ad group level, campaign level, and keyword level.
Geo-Targeting and Quality Score are more likely to affect the Impression Share. Keyword match type also leaves a mark on it.
The broad match keywords increase your reach to a wider audience but it also maximizes your exposure to a lot of irrelevant search queries.
Companies with low budget should refrain from using broad match. Exact match keywords and medium to long tail keywords are what they should start with.
Impression share differs with the change of network. Impression share metrics actually provide greater insight into the nuances of impression share.
Think impression is your market and consider impression share as your market share. It truly defines the length and breadth of your market.
Why is Impression Share So Important?
Impression share is a metric that helps in keeping the tab on the health of the campaign and overall success.
Analyzing Impression Share can reflect 2 major elements of your campaign-
A.Keyword status
You can monitor the performance of the keywords. It provides required guidance in keywords expansion and gives you courage and confidence regarding their implementation.
You can include negative keywords using search query report to come closer to a user search query against which you want to show your ads. This is an important aspect of improving your campaign’s performance.
B. Analysis of Impression share
Your impression share is your market share. Close analysis of impression share allows you to discover why you are losing this valuable business proposition- is it due to budget or rank?
Let’s discuss the comparative metrics that help in closely monitoring impression share-
Search Impression Share-
It is the impression you receive in the search network divided by the estimate of eligible impressions.
Your target impression share should be 80% in your powerful regions.
Finding the right keywords for ROI takes time and budget is a crucial factor. You should know actually which group of keywords is working for you. If search impression share is high then you do not have worry about other metrics.
Search lost impression share (budget) –
It is the percentage of impression you lost due to insufficient budget. This data is available at the campaign level.
When you lose your campaign you miss out important share in the marketplace. In such situations, strengthen your targeting and my search term reports to add a negative keyword.
Also, before recommending the additional budget, evaluate keywords. To reach the most relevant target audience, use controls like bid adjustment by location and ad scheduling.
Search lost impression share (rank)-
It happens due to poor Ad Rank your ad did not show in search network. Remember this situation will not be indicated in your Ad Groups tab.
Before improving Ad rank first, improve your landing page by conducting tests. By grouping and matching of keywords, try to enhance the quality score.
Search exact match impression share-
When the number of impressions received by your ad through exact match keywords or close variants is divided by estimated eligible impression, you get this metric of impression share.
Include more keywords which are actually multiple variants of the currently used keyword. Variations including the keyword must exactly match the query that the users put.
With high CTR and good volume of traffic, medium and long tail keywords may help you gain efficient clicks.
Display impression share-
Display impression share is the number of impressions received divided by a total number of eligible impressions. It is similar to search impression share; it shows how the display network is pulling traffic for the ads.
Display lost impression share (budget)-
The percentage of display impression share due to lack of display impression share for having an insufficient budget. This data is available only at the campaign level. You cannot get it in ad group level.
Display lost impression share (rank) –
The percentage of display impression share lost due to lack of sufficient Ad rank in display network. Again this data is available in campaign level only not in ad group level.
How you can see the impression share in Adwords
It is important to monitor your data at the campaign level. Checking at this point AdWords allows you to gather greater insight into where your entire effort is falling flat.
After opening your AdWords account follow these steps-
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Click on the campaign tab
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Click on columns button
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Select customize columns and then select competitive metrics.
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Now, add the impression share columns
To view impression shares data, add impression share column in specific ad groups using Ad groups and keywords tab. Also ad impression share column in each tab.
Analyzing impression share data
Impression share data is the report of your potential opportunities and it helps you design strategies to get more impressions and clicks.
It provides you to get a deep analysis of the volume of traffic you have at present or the numbers you have missed. Also, know the reason behind low impression share whether it is for Ad rank or budget.
If 70% is your campaign level impression share, do not be complacent about it, work hard towards achieving rest 30%.
How To Increase Impression Share
So you have understood impression share and why should care about impression share.
Aren’t you eager to know how can you improve impression share?
If yes, then here are tried and tested ways you should know now!
A) Figure Out the Gap Between Current Budget & Recommended Budget:
Your budget limit may hamper your campaign success. If your campaign needs further budget allocation and existing budget is not enough to fulfill the current needs then notification alerts would appear.
From impression search lost to budget, figure out the gap between the current and required budget. This metric will guide your future budget allocation.
b) Your Quality Score may start falling due to low ad rank. To keep track of your quality score on the daily, weekly and monthly basis, you should run a script.
Your keywords may be not providing optimum service to raise the quality score. Improve your ad copy or landing page to make it work.
C) Analyse Auction Insights
Reading auction insights can provide valuable insights to the impression share. It helps in comparing and improving keywords.
A drop in the impression share could indicate the need for introducing newer and stronger keywords. It also tells you what is out-numbering your campaign performance.
d) Bid Adjustment
Induce more competition by involving greater bid price. Work closely on bid adjustment. Invest more on powerful keywords and measure their performance regularly.
Put your focus on the exact match keywords. If the performance is still not improving as per your desire then go ahead in bidding more.
Things that help to maximize overall impression share
Apart from working on improving keywords and increasing the budget for the entire campaign, there are things that play a vital role in maximizing impression share.
1- Ad Quality-
Ad quality rests much on the quality score, selecting the right keyword, creating granular ad groups and the creation and testing of ad copy. So, you need to look after these factors.
2- Accelerate Ad delivery-
This option resides in the campaign settings. It determines how long the ad will be displayed throughout the day.
If a standard delivery rate is there in the Ad delivery methods, AdWords does not give any guarantee that you will get all the impressions.
Accelerated ad delivery, actually increases the probability that you will spend your daily budget every day. Acceleration is not recommended for all advertisers.
If your campaign type is ‘all features’, in that case only the ads in that campaign will get this thing enabled. Accelerate improves ad appearance.
It would make your ads appear quickly until it reaches the budget limit. It may happen that your ad is not showing for the rest of the day.
3- Increasing Bid-
Put your ad in a competitive position by increasing the bid amount. Higher bid amounts put a considerable amount of impact in determining ad position.
Higher ranking ads receive more impression share as they appear in the top position and shows greater relevancy with the search query.
4- Keyword match type adjustment-
Keyword adjustment is important. Broad match keywords bring more impression share.
If a brand building is your target then more your ads appear more the brand awareness spreads.
In this scenario, conversion is not your ultimate goal.
Retailers whose target is market dominance use the Broad Match.
Phrase match and exact matches should be your choice when conversions or sales are your primary goal.
The more your keywords are close to the search queries of visitors, possibilities are greater for gaining conversion.
5- Adjust geographic location targeting-
Impression share is increased when your ad is appearing in a geographically favoring location. You should know which regions are interested in your product.
It may limit your ads reach but displaying ads to the uninterested crowd is not desirable for getting quality clicks.
Conclusion
Impression share leaves its mark silently in your entire campaign, through positive or negative impact. When your ad appears to a willing visitor it turns out into a conversion.
A close investigation in its metrics will provide you where and why your ad is losing its eligible market share.
This phenomenon can be triggered by two elements in both display and search network.
Budget and Ad Rank are two important aspects that work behind increase and decrease of impression share.
Limited budget and low ad rank hinder ads impression share.
An advertiser can check the data campaign level. The practice of using exact match in search network works in promoting more impression share.
Impression share plays a great role in brand building exercise. But before delving deep into the impression share arena, also take care of the relative CTR.
Relative CTR calculation allows you to know the position of your competitors. The data regarding their position allows you to revise and enhance your keywords or increase bid price to your ad more competitive.
The more competitive your ads are, the more they will be able to snatch the top position and impression share from the visitors.