Importance of Google Ads Impression Share
Any business owner can generate a digital marketing campaign using Google Ads, but that doesn’t mean the search engine giant will display the ads frequently enough to make a difference. Many factors go into which ads Google chooses to display on its search engine results pages and other Google platforms. If you find yourself in a similar situation, you could pause low-performing keywords, but boosting ad impression shares works better.
If you don’t know how to increase impression share in Google Ads, this guide is for you. As a top ecommerce PPC agency, our experts at Bear North Digital have unparalleled knowledge of all things relating to Google Ads. Here, our helpful guide explains what an impression share is, why it’s important, and how you can increase your ads’ impressions.
What Is Impression Share and Why Is It Important?
Creating an effective digital marketing strategy involving Google Ads means you’ll have to learn about the different factors affecting your advertisement’s visibility. One of those essential factors includes the impression share rate, even though it’s not the only metric you should use to improve your ad ranking.
An impression reveals the number of clicks an ad receives. An impression share refers to the Google Ads metric that compares your ad performance against others in the same category. Google determines impression share percentage scores by taking the number of impressions an ad gets and dividing it by the total estimated number of impressions the ad could receive.
If your current ad campaign has an impression share of 30%. That means Google’s algorithm isn’t showing your ad to 70% of the people your ad could reach. Instead of seeing your ad, your target audiences instead view advertisements from competitors.
If you have a low impression share score, it won’t reach the audience you need to meet your business goals, whether you want to generate leads, build brand awareness, or boost sales. Fortunately, knowing how to increase impression share scores will help put your Google Ads campaigns front and center to the right groups.
Types of Ad Impressions on Google
Before learning how to boost your impression share percentage, you should know more about the various types of ad impressions. The deeper you analyze your ads’ impression shares, the more likely you’ll make the right adjustments to your campaign to improve the score and boost the ads’ visibility.
- Search Impression Share: This score reflects the impressions solely from the Search Network.
- Display Impression Share: This impression share score comes from Display Network impressions.
- Search Lost Impression Share for Rank: This refers to the impressions you lose on the Search Network because you have a low ad rank.
- Display Lost Impression Share for Rank: This score reflects the impression share percentage for impressions you lose on the Display Network from low rankings.
- Search Lost Impression Share for Budget: If you have a low budget, you can view the percentage of impressions you lose for that reason, but it’s only available on the campaign level.
- Display Lost Impression Share for Budget: Your display lost impression share calculates the percentage of impressions you lose through the Display Network due to a low ad budget. Again, this option is only available on the campaign level.
- Search Exact Match Impression Share: This type of impression compares your ad’s impressions to the amount it could get for exact keyword matches. This metric works great for improving your ads using relevant keywords.
- Target Impression Share: This option lets you set automated ad bids, increasing your chances of reaching SERPs.
Effective Impression Share Improvement Strategies
As you learn how to increase impression share for your Google Ads campaigns, you’ll see that you have more than one option; you have several ways to boost your impression share scores. The methods you use will depend on the reason for your ad’s poor performance.
Improve Your Ad Copy
Every successful Google Ads campaign has a great ad copy. The search engine’s algorithm uses ad quality to estimate the copy’s user experience. It considers factors like the effectiveness of the ad’s landing page, relevant keywords, and the likeliness of web visitors clicking the ad.
Google strives to present relevant ads to people querying the search engine. Ads with a better ad quality score will always supersede a similar ad with a poorer ad copy. If the ad quality is too low, Google might not display the ad anywhere.
Improving ad quality requires proper usage of target keywords and optimization of the ad title to promote clicks. Reassessing your ad targeting and landing page to ensure it matches with consumer intent also helps.
Research Your Top Competitors
If your ads don’t get enough attention due to Google not displaying them often enough, your competitors likely have an advantage over you. Businesses within all industries use Google Ads, so campaigns are not unusual to be competitive. Still, you can evaluate your competitors’ ads to see what sets them apart from others and use your findings as inspiration for your campaign.
One of the most essential factors for scoring an ad’s impression share stems from ad quality. By performing a PPC competitor analysis, you can research the ads with the best quality and boost your ad’s quality using their methods. With a better Quality Score, your ad will receive more impressions and improve your impression share percentage.
To assess your competitors’ ad funnel, consider these components:
- Target keywords
- Target audiences
- Budget
- Ad creatives
Optimize Ad Copy for Relevant Keywords
You cannot achieve success on Google Ads without optimizing your copy with relevant keywords. Keywords fall into three categories, according to Google:
- Exact Match: When search queries contain exact keywords as an ad, Google will display it.
- Broad Match: For queries that relate to several keywords in an ad directly or indirectly, Google considers those terms as a broad match.
- Phrase Match: Google will show an ad if its keywords and query terms differ but mean the same things.
Using exact match keywords may make your ad highly relevant to specific audiences due to accuracy, but impressions will probably be low. Broad and phrase match terms yield the widest reach. Boost your impression share by combining your usage of all three keyword types.
Filter Negative Keywords
Negative keywords refer to the terms that you don’t want Google to use when determining whether to display your ad for a search query. Working with negative keywords and relevant keywords ensures that your ads won’t suffer from low-quality impressions and clicks that don’t produce favorable outcomes like lead generation. Google will use the terms to hone in on specific target audiences most likely to take desirable action toward your ads.
While researching keywords for your industry, keep track of the terms and phrases you don’t want Google’s algorithm to use when displaying your ads. You can input negative keywords into the negative keyword filter when you set up your ad. You can adjust them as necessary.
Raise Your Google Ads Budget and Bids
Your ad budget plays a big role in your impression share percentage in a couple of ways. First, your ad bids can’t be too low. With low bidding, you risk your ads not getting on the first SERP, which decreases the chance of people seeing and clicking on your advertisement.
Ad bids need to be large enough to get Google’s attention and put your ads in competitive positions to increase the likelihood of generating website traffic, leads, and conversions.
If your ad campaign’s daily budget is too low, that will also affect your impression share score. Google won’t share your ad once you meet your daily budget, which reduces your chances of getting impressions. Consider making higher ad bids and increasing your daily ad budget to stay competitive and gain more impressions.
Revise Your Audience Targeting
Audience targeting on Google Ads is as simple as turning on filters for location, demographics, gender, interests, and several others. These filters make it easier to create a specific target audience that is most likely to see and engage with your ad.
It might seem like a good idea to create a broad target audience to reach as many people as possible. However, this tactic doesn’t yield great results because it will include customers who don’t live in your service area or don’t use your goods or services. It’s better to create a specific target audience that includes potential customers.
Having a broad target audience won’t only affect your impressions. It can also decrease your ad copy. Google will be less likely to showcase your ads with low ad quality and irrelevant targeting. It’s best to use the geo-targeting filter to focus on potential customers within your service area and add the audience’s interests to enhance ad relevance.
FAQs About Boosting Impression Shares in Google Ads
Do You Need a 100% Impression Share for Your Google Ads Campaigns?
You can certainly achieve a 100% impression share score for your Google Ads marketing campaigns, but it isn’t necessary. Such a high score rarity occurs.
What Factors Impact Impression Share Rates?
Contributing factors of impression share scores include target settings, bids, approval statuses, and Quality Scores. Quality Scores for ad copy include assessments of past keyword performances, landing page experience, and the ad’s expected click-through rate.
What Is a Good Impression Share Rate?
It’s best to have a score between 65% and 70%, especially if part of a competitive market. If your ad contains unique keywords, an impression share of over 90% is acceptable.
What Does Google Consider an Impression?
Google counts one impression every time your ad displays at the top of a SERP or another site within the Google Network. If the percentage falls too low, knowing how to increase impression share will help raise it.
Get Expert Google Ads Impression Share Optimization With Bear North Digital
One of the best ways to ensure your ad campaigns are visible to your target audience on SERPs and other Google networks comes from knowing how to increase impression share on Google Ads. With these tactics and the help of our experienced digital marketing professionals from Bear North Digital, your Google Ads campaigns can make a positive difference in your company by effectively promoting brand awareness and generating leads.
At Bear North Digital, our award-winning marketing agency can help with everything from improving ad ranks to boosting Google ad relevance using industry-leading tactics. As experts in all ecommerce and social media platforms, we tailor our marketing campaigns to each client’s specific needs. Call (218) 216-8692 to request a consultation with Bear North Digital.
