Evaluate Your Paid Ads for Right Impression
Impression share might not be the ultimate metric to measure the success of paid ads, but it’s an important aspect that cannot be overlooked. Here is how we share our bit of experience and research in showing how tracking impression shares, can play catalyst in improvements that potentially can boost the bottom line.
Impression shares, interestingly is a vital paid search instrument. In fact, many have argued and continue to state that, impression shares are not that important for the success of paid ads. Well! On the broader view, we still stand by accepting ROI over impressions, clicks or conversions to be the ultimate measure for the success of paid ads.
After handling paid ads for a considerable amount of time, I now have conflicting views about ROI alone being the deciding factor for success of Paid ads. To be more rational with the approach, it’s wise to consider impression as an important metric. Will explain, how and why?
After having audited a considerable amount of paid search accounts, I’ve discovered that impression share majority of times is the differentiating factor between ineffective and effective ad campaigns.
Below are a few crucial points that help understand the importance of right impressions –
Know If You Are Paying for Wrong Impressions?
Well! In the ecosystem of paid ads, most advertisers consider paid search impressions to be free. It sure does make sense, as paid ads are based on the model of pay per click & not pay per impression. It’s a CPC model and not CPM.
If your ad gets 1,000 impressions but only one click, you only pay for that single hit. This technically is true and undeniable. But there is a hidden economy associated with paid search advertising. When you can’t afford more clicks, Google ideally stops displaying your ads. So logically, if one can’t pay for clicks, one can’t pay for impressions.
Here lies the underlying question – Are you paying for the wrong impression? Now that we have derived to a point where we know that impressions to come at a cost, why spend the budget on wrong ones.
Such a waste of money!
To answer this question, we need to dig into the keyword bank. Open the paid search account, adjust the date range and cover the period for three to six months and then select the tab that’s labeled keywords.
Don’t make the wrong impression –
It’s obvious & frustrating to spend money on impressions that don’t lead to conversions. As a part of reality, most advertisers are bound by a tight budget. And money wasted on ads have consequences on other campaigns too.
Many graphs show a trend where budget is wasted on in appropriate keywords & ultimately there is not enough left for ranking the best ones. This takes us to low bids –
The easiest way to correct this issue is by simply turning up the bids. Always remember raising bids & ranking come at a cost. This sums down to an equation when CPC raises, Cost per sale also increases.
Search Lost IS (Budget)
Low ranking alone is not responsible for losing out on impression share. It’s important to keep a close check on the Search Lost IS (Budget). To do this, once the campaign is set, make sure to add a column for Search Lost IS(Budget). This will help you monitor the percentage of potential impressions that are being lost in the campaign due to budget limitations.
Let’s fix up things –
Once you catch hold of keywords that were a nuisance and driving wrong impressions and the ones that are great at impressions, it’s now super easy to fix the deal.
Withdraw the budget allocated for lame and unworthy keywords and redirect the same to be spent on meaning full and great keywords. As a result, your top keywords should at least be nearing a 90 percent on the graph for available impression share.
