Impression Share is a very useful metric for advertisers and business owners. This is a metric that indicates the percentage of the impressions your ads receive to the number of impressions that your ad was eligible to receive. It is a measure of how effectively your ads are being shown to your target audience. for example, if your ad received 7000 impressions, but it was eligible to receive about 10000 impressions, then its impression share is 70%.
This can help you understand the competitiveness of your ads in the auction and identify opportunities to improve your ad performance. A low share could indicate that your bids are too low, your budget is too limited, or your targeting is too narrow.
How does Impression Share work?
1. Ad auction eligibility –
Whenever a user visits a website or searches for something on a website, the ad platform determines which ads are eligible to be shown to the users. This can be done based on targeting settings, bid amount, ad quality, and relevance.
2. Ad ranking –
Ads that are eligible to be shown are then ranked based on a combination of factors, including bid amount, ad quality, and expected impact from ad extensions and other ad formats.
3. Delivery of ad –
The ad platform then selects the highest-ranking ads to be displayed to the user. The number of times your ad is shown (impressions received) depends on its ranking relative to other ads in the auction.
4. Impression share calculation –
To calculate the impression share divide the total number of impressions received by the number of impressions that could have been received. Multiple the result by 100 to get a percentage.
5. Interpretation –
A high impression share indicates that your ads are being shown frequently when they are eligible, which can indicate strong ad performance. A low impression share may indicate that your bids are too low, your budget is too limited, or your targeting is too narrow, leading to missed opportunities for your ads to be shown.
Wrapping it up –
Impression share is a key metric in online advertising that helps you understand the competitiveness and effectiveness of your ads. This compares the number of times your ads were actually shown to the total number of times they were eligible to be shown. Furthermore, you can assess how well your ads are performing in the auction. Monitoring it on a daily basis is necessary to make changes wherever required. This will also help in strategizing better.
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