·2 min
Impression Share
campaignsGoogle Adsmetrics
What is impression share?
Impression share is the percentage of impressions your ad received compared to the total number of impressions it was eligible to receive. If your impression share is 60%, it means your ad appeared in 60% of possible cases — in the remaining 40%, it lost the auction or ran out of budget.
Formula
Impression share = Impressions / Eligible impressions x 100%
Why does it matter?
- Campaign scale — low impression share = you are losing potential customers
- Problem diagnosis — indicates whether the issue is budget or ad quality
- Benchmarking — comparison with competitors on the same keywords
- Budget planning — you know how much you need to spend to cover 90%+ of impressions
Types of impression share in Google Ads
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Search IS | Share of impressions on the search network |
| Search Lost IS (budget) | % lost due to insufficient budget |
| Search Lost IS (rank) | % lost due to low Ad Rank (quality + bid) |
| Display IS | Share on the display network |
| Top IS | Share of impressions above organic results |
| Abs. Top IS | Share at position #1 (absolute top) |
How to interpret?
- Lost IS (budget) > 20% — increase daily budget or narrow the campaign
- Lost IS (rank) > 20% — improve Quality Score, raise CPC bids, test ad variations
- IS < 50% — the campaign is barely visible, urgent optimization needed
- IS > 90% — you dominate, consider lowering bids (cost savings)
How to increase impression share?
- Increase budget — if lost IS (budget) is high
- Improve Quality Score — better ads and landing pages = higher Ad Rank at the same CPC
- Narrow targeting — fewer keywords, but higher IS on the critical ones
- Ad scheduling — show ads during hours with the highest conversion rates
- A/B test your ads — higher CTR improves Quality Score
Related Terms
- Google Ads — Google's advertising platform
- CPC — cost per click
- CTR — click-through rate
- PPC — Pay Per Click model
- ROAS — return on ad spend