Quick answer: Impression share in Google Ads is the percentage of times your ad showed compared to the total number of times it was eligible to show. If your impression share is 60%, your ad showed for 60 out of 100 eligible auctions. The other 40% were lost to either rank (your Ad Rank wasn’t high enough) or budget (you ran out of money to bid).
What Is Impression Share?
Impression Share (IS) is the percentage of total eligible impressions, the times your ad could have appeared, that it actually appeared.
Impression Share = Actual impressions / Total eligible impressions × 100
An impression share of 60% means your ads appeared for 60% of the auctions you were eligible for, and missed 40%.
Why You Are Missing Impressions
Google shows two key reasons for lost impression share:
- Lost IS (Budget): Your budget ran out during the day. Fix: increase budget or tighten targeting to prioritise the most valuable times and locations.
- Lost IS (Rank): Your Ad Rank was too low to compete. Fix: improve Quality Score, increase bids, or tighten ad group structure for better relevance.
Absolute Top Impression Share
This shows how often your ad appeared in the very top position, above all other ads. For brand campaigns, a high Absolute Top IS is important. For non-brand, being in the top few positions is usually sufficient.
Using Impression Share Strategically
- High IS but poor CPA? Your ads are showing but not converting, focus on landing page and Quality Score.
- Low IS due to budget? You are undersupplied, either increase budget or narrow targeting.
- Low IS due to rank? Improve ad quality, bid more competitively, or tighten ad groups for better relevance.
Impression share metrics are reviewed monthly in our PPC management service.
The Three Impression Share Metrics
- Search Impression Share: percentage of eligible auctions where your ad showed.
- Search Lost IS (rank): percentage where you didn’t show because Ad Rank was too low.
- Search Lost IS (budget): percentage where you didn’t show because daily budget was exhausted.
Together they should add up to 100%. The breakdown reveals exactly why you’re missing impressions: not enough money, or not enough relevance.
What Good Looks Like
- Brand campaigns: aim for 90% or higher. Anyone searching your brand should see your ad.
- High-intent commercial campaigns: 60-80% is typical. Pushing higher costs more than it returns.
- Awareness campaigns: 20-40% can be acceptable when budget is intentionally limited.
The right target depends on the campaign goal and budget. Tracking impression share trends over time is more useful than chasing an absolute number.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I aim for 100% impression share?
Only on brand campaigns. For non-brand campaigns, the cost of capturing the last 20-30% of impression share is usually disproportionately high; the marginal auctions are typically the most expensive. Most accounts hit their efficiency sweet spot at 60-80% impression share for non-brand work.
How do I improve impression share lost to rank?
Improve Quality Score (relevant ad copy, better landing pages, tighter ad groups) or raise bids. Quality Score is the cheaper lever. Higher bids are the faster lever. Most accounts have room to do both.
How do I improve impression share lost to budget?
Either raise the daily budget so the campaign doesn’t hit its ceiling, or reduce wasted spend (negative keywords, location targeting, dayparting) so the existing budget stretches further. Often both: tighten what’s wasteful, then expand budget on what works.
Where do I find impression share data?
In Google Ads, the columns aren’t shown by default. Open the 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 on top.
Take this further
Impression share is one of the most diagnostic metrics in Google Ads. The breakdown by rank vs budget tells you exactly which lever to pull.
Ready to apply this to your own site? Book a free discovery call, or explore our PPC packages.