With so many technical terms in the marketing industry alone, it can be difficult to keep track of all of them. You may be wondering: What are impressions? And why should you care?
In this blog post, we will go over what impressions are, about impression share, and whether you should even care about them.
First, let’s compare impressions and click metrics…
Google Ads Impressions vs. Clicks
An ad gets an impression when the ad appears on a user’s screen. Clicks are when an impression turns into someone actually clicking on the ad to visit your page.
Both clicks and impressions are important, and which your website values depends on the goals of your Google Ads Campaign.
When does Google Ads Count Impressions?
Google counts each time an ad is displayed on a user’s screen Google counts it as an impression. This included search results ads, but also any other ad on Google’s Network.
If a page is refreshed and the same ad is displayed again, Google still counts that as an extra impression. There are automatic safeguards that Google uses to exclude invalid clicks and impressions.
Despite these safeguards, impressions are counted through your Google Ads, even if a user scrolls past your ad or closes the page right after the ad is displayed.
So you get false impressions anyway, where users don’t actually process the advertisement, but it’s still logged for Google’s analytics.
Types Of Google Impressions:
Google Ads Impressions are collected from three main types of Google Ads:
- Search Impressions: When a Google Ad or website link appears in the Search Engine Results Page of Google or one of its partner sites, it is counted as an impression.
- Display Impressions: On the Google Display Network (GDN), display ads are counted as impressions when they appear on a user’s screen.
- Video Impressions: on the GDN, any video players and most commonly YouTube display various ads during or around their videos, each of which counts for an impression.
For more information on any of these types of Google Ads, check out our other blog post on Types of Google Ads here.
Now that we know what impressions are and the different types, let’s address impression share.
What Is Google Ads Impression Share (IS)?
IS is a measurement of the comparison between impressions received and total impressions possible. This is a good way to compare your ads to competitors and see how well they’re doing.
Impression Share is impacted by bids and quality score; if your competitors are outbidding you or have a better quality score than you do, then your Impression Share goes down while theirs goes up.
Having the highest impression share isn’t always the target, as it depends on targeting and the overall goals of a campaign.
Why are Google Ads Impressions Important?
Depending on your industry, impressions may be less important than actual clicks and conversions. How important impressions are to your business depends on your Google Ads Campaign goals.
If your business is just trying to gain brand awareness, then you will value impressions over conversions. But if your business cares more about conversions and leads, then this metric may not apply as much to your business.
Absolute Top Impression Share (ATIS)
This applies specifically to shopping ads: ATIS is a comparison of the number of times your shopping ad pops up at the top of users’ shopping results and the total number of impressions.
This measurement goes up each time your shopping ad is at the top of the shopping page suggestions.
How to Calculate Google Ads Impressions
Impression count is shown in the Google Ads account analytics.
To calculate your own Impression Share, it’s impressions divided by total eligible impressions, multiplied by 100 to get a percent.
Absolute top impression share is calculated similarly, by dividing the number of absolute top impressions by total eligible top impressions, multiplied by 100 to make it a percent.