Google Ads Unveils Four New Search Ad Position Metrics

Serina Fignole - November 19, 2018

As a digital marketer, it is important to understand where your ad(s) appear within a Google Search results page. Contrary to popular belief, Google’s average position metric is not a true indicator of where an ad appears on the page. Technically, an ad position of “1” represents that your ad will be positioned before all other ads, but it doesn’t mean the ad will be at the absolute top location.

With this being said, Google introduced four new search ad position metrics to help digital marketers to clearly understand where their ads appear on a Google Search results page – two metrics for the absolute top position on the page and two related to ad impressions that display above the organic results:

• (Absolute Top) %: Shows the percentage of your ad impressions that are shown as the very first ad position above the organic search results.
• (Top) %: Indicates the percent of your ad impressions that are shown anywhere above the organic search results.
• Search (Absolute Top) IS: The amount of impressions received in the absolute top location above the organic results divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive in the top location.
• Search (Top) IS: The impressions received in the top locations above the organic search results compared to the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive in the top location.

To summarize, it is recommended to use Impression (Absolute Top) % and Impression (Top) % to identify the location of your ads on the results page instead of average position. Rather than using average position to bid on a page location, it’s best to use Search (Abs Top) IS and Search (Top) IS.

If you have any questions about how Google Ads’ new search ad position metrics will affect your ads, contact the Google Marketing Platform certified experts at MoreVisibility.