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.
When creating a Paid Search Strategy, it’s important to understand several features within an advertising platform to feel confident your campaigns can be successful. One report that is often overlooked is the Impression Share report. This is one of the most valuable reports within the platforms and can help you understand and define, not just your Paid Search Strategy, but your overall SEM Strategy also.
Google recently announced a new report called Auction insights, which provides five different statistics at the keyword level for advertisers to get an edge over thei competition: Impression share, Average position, Overlap rate, Position above rate and Top of page rate.
Below is a sample of what the Auction insights report looks like:
Please note that the Auction insights report is only available for one keyword at a time and only for keywords that meet a minimum threshold of activity for the time period specified. Also note that the Auction insights report will only provide information for a competitor that was in the same keyword auctions as you and does not specify what the competitors’ keywords, match types or targeting options were. Similarly, your keywords, quality scores or campaign settings will not be available to other advertisers.