Target impression share is an automated bidding strategy that sets bids with the goal of showing your ad among top ads, the very first ad among top ads, or elsewhere among the results. Target impression share is available either as a standard strategy in a single campaign or as a portfolio strategy across multiple campaigns. This article explains how Target impression share bidding works and what its settings are.
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:
- Top - The ads adjacent to the top organic search results. Top ads are generally above the top organic results, although top ads may show below the top organic results in some instances. Placement of top ads is dynamic and may change based on the user's query.
- Absolute top - The first ad among top ads.
- Anywhere - Anywhere among search results.
Google Ads 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 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's 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 device bid adjustments of -100% to prevent your ad from showing on devices. You don’t need to remove any existing bid adjustments—they just won’t be used.