Target Impression Share Bidding

Target impression share is an automated bidding strategy that sets bids with the goal of showing your ad on the absolute top of the page, on the top of the page, or anywhere on the page of Google search results. Target impression share is available either as a standard strategy in a single campaign or as a portfolio strategy across multiple campaigns. 

Essentially, Google will adjust your keyword bids based on the Target Impression Share percentage you specify in conjunction with the page position and Max CPC bid you determine.

Exact match impression share is a percentage calculated by dividing the number of impressions that your campaign received for searches that exactly matched your keyword by the total estimated number of exact match impressions you were eligible to receive.

Before you begin

If you don’t yet know what type of automated bid strategy is right for you, read About automated bidding first.

How it works

Target Impression Share can be useful for campaigns with brand terms. For example, let’s say you want your ad to show 100% of the time when a user searches for your brand. You can set the Target Impression Share to 100% and the system will then try to show your ad on 100% of auctions in that campaign. This bid strategy can also be useful in raising awareness of your brand. Let’s say you run ads for a local shoe store but you’re competing with larger shoe stores. You could focus on Target Impression Share to ensure your brand is showing up when customers are conducting important searches nearby.

Target Impression Share won’t be applicable for every situation, so continue to align your bidding strategies to your campaigns’ goals.

Settings

Placement

There are 3 options for the Target impression share strategy, depending on where you want your ads to show: on the absolute top of the page, on the top of the page, or anywhere on the page of Google search results. Google Ads automatically sets your bids to show your ad, based on your placement settings.

For example, if you choose an Impression Share target of 65% on the absolute top of the page, Google Ads will automatically set your CPC bids to help show your ads on the absolute top of the page 65% of the total possible amount of times they could show.

Bid limits

The Max CPC bid limit is a cap on bids set by this bid strategy. It is important not to set this limit too low. Otherwise it can restrict the bids set by the strategy and prevent you from reaching your Impression Share goal.

Bid adjustments and Target impression share

Bid adjustments allow you to show your ads more or less frequently based on where, when, and how people search. As Target impression share helps optimize your bids based on real-time data, your existing bid adjustments won’t be used. You can still set mobile bid adjustments of -100%, to prevent your ad from showing on mobile devices. You don’t need to remove any existing bid adjustments—they just won’t be used.