Search Impression Share: Myths & Realities

Pierre M. Fiorini, Ph.D.

Search Impression Share

• A lot of talk…”Share of the Voice”

“Share of Voice”

• Definition:– Refers to the percentage of available impressions

that an advertiser will achieve through an ad placement

– E.g., If an advertiser bought all available impressions on a site (i.e., had an exclusive sponsorship), they would achieve 100% share of voice.

“Share of Voice”

• More specific…for an ad campaign…

SOV =

• Has been traditionally used in Display Ad campaigns (and TV + Radio)

“Share of Voice”

• So, for example…

SOV = = 60%

• Here you would have 60% share of the voice

“Share of Voice” - Google

• Google AdWords (and BING + Yahoo) provide similar measures…

• For PPC, 4 Basic Metrics– Search Impression Share– Search Lost (IS) Budget– Search Lost (IS) Rank– Search Exact Match (IS)

Will focus on these

“Share of Voice” - Google

• For Display (GDN), there are similar metrics…

– Display Impression Share– Display Lost (IS) Budget– Display Lost (IS) Rank

• Will NOT focus on these – Interested in PPC

Impression Share – Deep Dive

Impression ShareThree metrics that work together and impact each other.

• Search impression share: Impressions received on the Search Network divided by the estimated number of impressions that are eligible to serve ads.

• Search Lost IS (budget):The percentage of time that ads weren't shown on the Search Network due to insufficient budget.

• Search Lost IS (rank):The percentage of time that ads weren't shown on the Search Network due to lower Ad Rank in the auction.

IS + Lost IS (budget) + Lost IS (rank) = 100%

Search Impression Share – Deep Dive

• Impressions received on the Search Network divided by the estimated number of impressions that are eligible to serve ads.

• 70% or above as a good impression share. But remember that, for a campaign which has 70% overall impression share, you are still missing 30% of the available impressions.

• Impression share loss can happen because of the following:

– Due to Budget– Due to Rank– Due to Geos

Lost Impression Share (Budget) –Deep Dive

• This data shows how much impression share you are missing; due to an insufficient budget (Limited by Budget in the status column of the campaign table next to your campaign is an indication of insufficient budget).

– Increase your daily budget to improve your impression share lost due to budget.

– Make sure the improved impression share is producing positive results. The increased impression share should bring in more quality clicks and conversions.

Lost Impression Share (Rank)

• This shows how much impression share you are losing due to your low ad rank.

– Your ad rank depends on your Bid and Quality Score (Ad rank = Bid Quality Score)

– So if you want to improve your impression share

due to poor ad rank, you should try to increase your keyword bid and quality score.

Factors Impacting Search Impression Share

Search Impression Share• Major Factors Impacting IS…

– Geos• Tighter geos improve Impr. Share

– Budgets• Small budgets tend to have lower Impr. Share• Large budgets tend to higher Impr. Share

– Position• Higher positions lead to higher Impr. Share• Lower position lead to lower Impr. Share

Impression Share – Examples

Example…Improving IS

Available Impressions

Impression Share

Here, the Impr. Share is about 40% Given this GEO

Radius Targeted GEO

Example…Improving IS

Available Impressions

Impression Share

Just Shrinking GEO can improve IS…

NOTE: Reach has decreased! – Limit available impressions

Examples…

Adds up to 100%

Impression Share – Perceptions vs. Reality

Impression SharePerception/Reality

• Perception– Gives the advertiser an indication of how often they win auctions given bids + desired geos.

– Can help to identify lower quality keywords and campaigns.

– Can be interpreted as “Share of Voice”

– Advertisers may increase budgets to improve Impr. Share

• Reality

– Has be interpreted as “Share of Voice” – But, really indicates performance in auctions given bids + geos

– Lower Impr. Share does not mean “unqualified traffic” – could mean bidding in lower positions – thus, LOST IS (Rank) would be high in this case and Impr. Share would be lower

– Can Influence the advertiser to increase bids to improve impr. Share, but results in higher CPA, less VDP’s, less website traffic

– Push the advertiser to increase budgets just to get higher Impr. Share

– Advertisers have no control of other factors that are not published.

What we have found…

Impression ShareApproach

SUGGESTED GOAL: Try to get Impr. Share to 50%+

CTR: Eliminating lower CTR keywords improves impression share.

Geo-Targeting: Higher targeted geos improve impression share, but may increase CPC.

Keyword selection: Using broad modifiers , exact match, fewer keywords improve share

Thank You!!!

Questions???