Why is Impression Share and Top of Page Rate Important? [Part 1]

Well, this could be the difference in how often your Google Ad is appearing and if it is being seen at all. Let me explain. Google says, “Impression share is the number of impressions you received divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive.” The factors that make you eligible for impressions are your ad targeting settings, approval statuses, and quality scores. So basically, if your keywords were searched 1,000 times by a potential customer and your ad only appears to half of those users, then your impression share would be 50%. If your competitor’s impression share is 70%…you get the idea.

Top of page rate is a little easier to understand. Google says, “Top of page rate tells you how often your ad was shown at the top of the page, above the unpaid search results.” The higher the score, the more often your ad appears at the top of the page and in the mix with your competitors. If you have a low score, the frequency of your ad appearing is very low. These are only a couple of metrics that help you measure the effectiveness of your paid search campaigns. I will cover how to increase “Impression Share” and “Top of Page Rate” in Part 2.