What is Impression Share? Your Guide to Impressions

What is Impression Share? Your Guide to Impressions

In the complex landscape of digital marketing and paid advertising, one metric often overlooked by beginners — yet critically important for performance — is Impression Share. Whether you're running Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, or other PPC campaigns, impression share directly relates to your visibility and competitiveness in search results.

This guide offers an in-depth look at impression share, its components, how it's calculated, why it matters, and most importantly, how to improve it to boost your advertising ROI.

What Is Impression Share?

Impression Share is the percentage of impressions your ads receive compared to the total number of impressions they were eligible for. It’s a visibility metric used in platforms like Google Ads to measure how well your ads are performing in relation to your competition.

Formula

Impression Share = (Impressions ÷ Total Eligible Impressions) × 100

Example: If your ad received 5,000 impressions, but it was eligible to be shown 10,000 times:

(5,000 ÷ 10,000) × 100 = 50%

This means your ads were shown half the time they could have been.

Why Does Impression Share Matter?

Impression share reveals whether your budget, ad quality, or bid strategy is allowing you to be competitive enough in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Key Reasons It Matters

• Improves Visibility – Higher impression share means your ads are shown more often.
• Reveals Lost Opportunities – Understand what portion of the market you're missing.
• Guides Optimization – Signals when to adjust budgets, bids, or ad quality.
• Outlines Competition – Helps you gauge your visibility relative to competitors.

Types of Impression Share

1. Search Impression Share – The percentage of impressions your ad received on the search network compared to eligibility.
2. Display Impression Share – Same as above, but for the display network (image ads, banners, videos).
3. Lost Impression Share (Budget) – The percentage of impressions lost due to insufficient budget.
4. Lost Impression Share (Rank) – The percentage of impressions lost due to poor Ad Rank (influenced by bid & Quality Score).
5. Exact Match Impression Share – How often your ads appear for exact keyword matches.

Impression Share vs. CTR

• Impression Share = Visibility
• CTR = Engagement

A high impression share but low CTR means people see your ad but aren’t clicking — a sign you may need to improve ad copy or targeting.

How to View Impression Share in Google Ads

1. Go to your Google Ads Dashboard.
2. Click on the Campaign, Ad Group, or Keyword tab.
3. Click Customize Columns.
4. Add metrics:
   • Impression Share
   • Search Lost IS (Rank)
   • Search Lost IS (Budget)

Factors That Influence Impression Share

1. Budget – Low daily budgets limit ad visibility.
2. Ad Rank – Determined by bid, ad quality, and expected impact of extensions.
3. Bid Strategy – Manual vs. automated bidding impacts visibility.
4. Keyword Match Types – Broad match increases reach, exact match increases precision.
5. Competition – More advertisers means more bidding wars.

How to Improve Impression Share

1. Increase Budget – Remove daily cap limitations.
2. Raise Bids – Win more auctions, consider Target Impression Share bidding.
3. Enhance Ad Quality – Improve copy, CTAs, and landing pages to raise Quality Score.
4. Refine Targeting – Focus on high-value markets or audience segments.
5. Use Dayparting – Adjust bids for peak hours.
6. Add Negative Keywords – Avoid irrelevant clicks and wasted budget.
7. Focus on High-Value Keywords – Maximize ROI by targeting profitable terms.

Using Impression Share to Optimize Campaigns

Campaign-Level

• Shift budget to campaigns losing share.

Ad Group-Level

• Improve ad copy, add extensions, or adjust bids.

Keyword-Level

• Increase share for high-value keywords.
• Reassess low-performing ones.

Industry Benchmarks for Impression Share

• 70%+ – Strong performance
• 50-70% – Moderate; room for improvement
• Below 50% – Likely budget or rank issues

(Benchmarks vary by industry — always compare against your past performance.)

Impression Share in Google Shopping

Shopping Ads rely heavily on impression share since they don’t use traditional keywords.

Optimization Tips:

• Use Smart Shopping campaigns.
• Maintain high-quality product data (titles, descriptions, images).
• Adjust bids by category or product.

Impression Share & SEO: Any Connection?

While specific to paid ads, the concept exists in SEO as visibility score or share of voice — how often your content appears in top search positions.

Impression Share in Reporting

When reporting performance, pair Impression Share with:

• CTR
• Conversion Rate
• CPC
• Quality Score
• ROAS

This gives a more complete performance picture and justifies budget changes.

Final Thoughts

Impression share is more than just a metric — it’s a visibility scorecard for your paid ads. By monitoring and improving it, you can:

• Increase visibility
• Boost CTR
• Drive more conversions

If managing this sounds overwhelming, AAMAX — a full-service digital marketing company — can help. They specialize in PPC, SEO, and web development to maximize ROI through smarter advertising strategies.