Impression Share & Impression Rank

This article will offer an in-depth introduction into Impression Share. We'll also discuss how this metric is supported by MarinOne. 

What Is Impression Share?

Impression Share (IS) is the number of impressions an ad has received divided by the estimated number of impressions it was eligible to receive. Eligibility is based on the current ads' targeting settings, approval statuses, bids, and quality scores. Data is available in MarinOne at the campaign and ad group levels. Ads that are eligible to receive an impression may not receive one due to low budget or low rank.

Below are the related metrics:

  • Lost IS (Budget): The percentage of time that your ads weren't shown due to insufficient budget. This data is available at the campaign level only.
  • Lost IS (Rank): The percentage of time that your ads weren't shown due to poor Ad Rank. This data is available at the group level only when the campaign did not run out of budget
  • Exact match IS: The number of impressions that you've received for searches that exactly matched your keyword divided by the estimated number of exact match impressions you were eligible to receive. This data is only available for campaigns and ad groups in the Search Network.

Please note: these related metrics are not yet fully supported in MarinOne, but we hope to offer support for this data in the near future. For now, we recommend logging into the publisher nterface to find out impression share loss due to budget.

The Benefits Of Impression Share And Impression Rank

There are several key benefits to using Impression Share and Impression Rank.

  • Visibility: Impression share can give you an idea of how often your ads are being shown to potential customers.
  • Competitive Insights: Impression rank can help gauge how well you are competing with other advertisers in the same industry. For example, An impression rank of 5 means that your ad is typically shown below the fold, which means that it is displayed below the initially viewable area of a webpage.
  • Optimization: Impression share data can be used to optimize ad campaigns by identifying which campaigns, ad groups, and keywords are generating the most impressions and clicks. By analyzing this data, you can optimize campaigns to focus on the most effective elements and improve your overall ad performance.
  • Budget Control: Impression share data can help control ad spend by identifying which campaigns are generating the highest impression share and ROI. By focusing ad spend on high-performing campaigns, you can maximize the return on investment and avoid wasting ad spend on campaigns that are not performing well.
  • Forecasting: Impression share data can be used to forecast future ad performance and estimate the potential impact of changes to ad campaigns. By forecasting future performance based on historical impression share data, you can make data-driven decisions and adjust the campaigns accordingly.

Displaying Historical Impression Share In MarinOne

You can view Impression Share as columns within the Column Selector and use the metrics in your reporting like any other column. The data is pulled from Google Ads, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo! Japan, and Baidu to display in the grid.

Additional Information About Impression Share 

Here are a few things to remember when dealing with Impression Share within MarinOne:

  • The publishers provide impression share data with a one-day delay compared to other cost metrics (two days for APAC). This means that when we pull cost data during the night, yesterday's impression share is not available. You may notice, therefore, that Impression Share metrics for yesterday are zero due to that limitation. This also means that any date range that includes yesterday will be inaccurate. In some cases, the value could even report as more than 100%. We are actively working on providing the most accurate calculation under the given limitation.
  • For campaigns that are running on both the Search and Display networks, the Impression Share metric combines both to present a blended metric that will not quite match either the Search Impression Share or the Display Impression Share and is instead an impression-weighted blending of the two. 
  • Marin receives Impression Share data weighted by impressions. Marin does not receive numerical Impression Share data when it is <10% or >90%. To be able to process this data, Marin uses 5% when Google reports "<10%" and 95% when Google reports ">90%."  this might cause some differences in Impression Share reporting between Marin and Google Ads.
  • If data is not available before a certain date (i.e. before the migration date), including those dates in a date range will also result in an inaccurate aggregate result.
  • These columns are not available in the Dimensions tab for the following reasons:
    1. Objects from any publisher can be tagged with the same dimension value.
    2. Dimensions roll data up by keyword or creative. This means that viewing a dimension is like viewing data at either the keyword or creative level, whereas Impression Share is only available at the group or campaign level.

Support

The below matrix lists the supported impression share/rate metrics by publisher, along with the levels of hierarchy at which we offer support (Keyword, Campaign, Product Group, and Ad Group+) . "Ad Group+" indicates support for the Ad Group and levels of hierarchy above the Ad Group.

Metrics Google  Microsoft Yahoo! Japan Baidu
Impr. Share % Keyword, Product Group, Ad Group+ Keyword, Product Group, Ad Group+ Keyword, Ad Group+ Not supported by publisher
Impr. Share (Top) % Keyword, Ad Group+ Keyword, Ad Group+ Keyword, Ad Group+ Keyword, Ad Group + 
Impr. Rate (Top) % Keyword, Ad Group+ Keyword, Ad Group+ Keyword, Ad Group+ Keyword, Ad Group+
Impr. Share (Abs. Top) % Keyword, Ad Group+ Keyword, Ad Group+
(Product Group coming soon)
Keyword, Ad Group+ Not supported by publisher
Impr. Rate (Abs. Top) % Keyword, Ad Group+ Keyword, Ad Group+
(Product Group coming soon)
Keyword, Ad Group+ Not supported by publisher
Search Lost IS (Budget) % Campaign (Campaign coming soon   Not supported by publisher
Search Lost Top IS (Budget) % Campaign (Campaign coming soon   Not supported by publisher
Search Lost Abs. Top IS (Budget) % Campaign (Campaign coming soon)   Not supported by publisher
Search Lost IS (Rank) % Keyword, Campaign (Keyword and Campaign coming soon)   Not supported by publisher
Search Lost Top IS (Rank) % Keyword, Campaign (Keyword and Campaign coming soon)   Not supported by publisher
Search Lost Abs. Top IS (Rank) % Keyword, Campaign (Keyword and Campaign coming soon)   Not supported by publisher

 

Written by Marketing @ Marin Software

Last published at: August 11th, 2023