Impression Share
The percentage of impressions your ads received compared to total eligible impressions.
The percentage of impressions your ads received compared to total eligible impressions.
Why It Matters
Impression share reveals how much of your potential market you're actually reaching. If your brand terms have 60% impression share, you're missing 40% of people searching for you. Lost impression share—whether due to budget or rank—identifies exactly where you're leaving money on the table.
Practical Example
Scenario
A brand discovers their non-brand Search campaigns have 35% impression share, with 40% lost to budget and 25% lost to rank.
Result
They increase daily budget 30% and improve Quality Score on key terms. Impression share rises to 55%, and conversions increase proportionally without CPA degradation.
Pro Tips
- 1Prioritize impression share on branded terms—aim for 90%+ so competitors don't steal your traffic
- 2Check 'Lost IS (Budget)' vs 'Lost IS (Rank)' to understand whether you need more spend or better ads/landing pages
- 3For competitive keywords, 40-60% impression share is often realistic—100% is cost-prohibitive
- 4Use impression share trends over time to track competitive pressure in your market