Impression Share, explained properly.
What is impression share?
Impression share (IS) is the percentage of total eligible impressions where your ad actually appeared. The formula is actual impressions divided by total eligible impressions, times 100. An impression share of 60% means your ads appeared for 60% of eligible auctions and missed the other 40%.
Why you are missing impressions
Google gives you two key reasons for lost impression share: - **Lost IS (budget):** your budget was exhausted during the day. - **Lost IS (rank):** your Ad Rank was too low to compete. Fixes include increasing budget, tightening targeting, improving Quality Score, raising bids and restructuring ad groups.
The three impression share metrics
- **Search Impression Share:** the percentage of eligible auctions where your ad showed. - **Search Lost IS (rank):** the percentage where your ad did not show because of low Ad Rank. - **Search Lost IS (budget):** the percentage where your ad did not show because your daily budget ran out. Together these should total 100%.
Absolute Top Impression Share
This metric shows how often your ad appeared in the top position above all other ads. Brand campaigns benefit from a high Absolute Top IS, while non-brand campaigns usually only need the top few positions.
Using impression share strategically
- High IS with poor CPA: focus on landing pages and Quality Score. - Low IS from budget: increase budget or narrow targeting. - Low IS from rank: improve ad quality, bid competitively or tighten ad groups. We review impression share metrics monthly as part of PPC management.
What good looks like
- **Brand campaigns:** 90% or higher. - **High-intent commercial campaigns:** 60% to 80% is typical. - **Awareness campaigns:** 20% to 40% is acceptable with intentional budget limits. Tracking impression share trends over time is more useful than chasing an absolute number.
Impression Share: common questions.
Should I aim for 100% impression share?
Only on brand campaigns. For non-brand campaigns, capturing the final 20% to 30% of impression share usually costs disproportionately more than it returns, because those marginal auctions are the most expensive. Most accounts hit their efficiency sweet spot at 60% to 80% for non-brand work.
How do I improve impression share lost to rank?
Improve Quality Score through relevant ad copy, better landing pages and tighter ad groups, or raise your bids. Quality Score is the cheaper option; higher bids give faster results. Most accounts have room for both.
How do I improve impression share lost to budget?
Either raise your daily budget so the campaign does not hit its ceiling, or reduce wasted spend through negative keywords, location targeting and dayparting. Often both work together: tighten the waste, then expand budget on what works.
Where do I find impression share data?
In Google Ads the columns are not shown by default. Open a campaign or ad group view, click Columns, and add Search Impression Share, Search Lost IS (rank) and Search Lost IS (budget). The Auction Insights report adds competitor benchmarking.
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