For B2B companies investing in online advertising, you know how important it is to be visible when your potential customers search for your services. One key aspect in highly competitive niche markets is building a healthy search impression share.
But what exactly is impression share (IS)? And if you want to know how to improve search impression share, what steps can you take to drive better results for your digital marketing campaigns?
Let’s dive into this critical aspect of online advertising to help you better engage with prospects and maximize ROI from your ad spend.
What Is Search Impression Share?
If your business has allocated marketing dollars to online advertising, you’re likely familiar with terms like quality score and ad spend optimization. You may not be as familiar with impression share.
Impression share refers to the percentage of times your ads appear out of the total opportunities they could have appeared (basically, the number of times your ads are eligible to appear). Think of it as a batting average in baseball. How many times did you get a hit out of every at-bat?
A higher impression share ensures your brand gets in front of more eyeballs on a regular basis (more hits!). There are different types of impression share you should track, including the following.
- Search: This is focused on Google’s search network. You will want to build a B2B Google Ads strategy that fits your budget to maximize ROI.
- Display Impression Share: This metric is relevant for display network campaigns.
- Impression Share Due to Budget: How often does your ad miss potential impressions because of budget limitations?
- Lost Impression Share Due to Rank: Missed impressions caused by a low-ranking ad in the online bid auction are often linked to factors like quality score or ad relevancy.
Impression share also captures how your ads are performing in comparison to competitors who are bidding for the same digital real estate. Understanding these metrics is crucial to optimizing your ad spend and capturing a larger share of your target audience.
Why Search Impression Share Matters for B2B Companies
B2B decision-making involves multiple stakeholders and longer sales cycles. Missing out on impressions could mean losing touch points with these stakeholders, leading to fewer brand visibility opportunities (or fewer at-bats).
A high impression share ensures better brand recall, improved lead generation, and higher potential click-through rates (CTR). Each of these factors can lead to higher engagement with the decision-makers you’re targeting.
If you’re looking for a benchmark to aim for, industry research indicates you want to be above 80% for non-branded keywords and above 90% for branded keywords that incorporate your company’s name.
7 Strategies to Improve Search Impression Share
Next, let’s walk through key strategies to improve impression share for your B2B campaigns.
1. Optimize Your Ad Relevancy
When considering Google Ads, ad relevancy is crucial. Make sure your ad copy matches search intent and incorporates your most important keywords. Consider running A/B tests to identify what resonates most with your target audience.
Improvements in relevancy can increase your quality score, which helps improve your lost impression share due to rank and gives you access to lower-cost ad placements.
2. Target with Precision
Take a closer look at your targeting settings to refine your reach.
- Use in-market and custom intent audiences to focus on buyers who are actively looking for solutions like yours.
- Use geo-targeting if your business operates in specific regions or markets.
- Review and adjust ad schedules to ensure your ads run during peak B2B sales hours. (In other words, you don’t want to run ads at 3:00 in the morning when your buyers are asleep.)
Pro Tip: Explore high-intent, long-tail keywords to reach your niche audience. Better targeting toward high-value prospects will help reduce wasted impressions.
3. Increase Ad Spend Strategically
If impression share due to budget is the reason you’re missing out, consider increasing your ad spend for top-performing campaigns. Investing more in high-priority keywords and audiences will allow you to show up consistently in front of your target audience in search engine results.
Be strategic with your spend. There could be opportunities to decrease costs in underperforming campaigns while reallocating those funds to ads that are actually performing well and helping the business.
4. Refine Your Landing Pages
Your landing page experience directly affects your quality score, as it influences factors like page relevance and loading speed. A poor landing page can cost you potential impressions, so ensure every campaign leads to a page that is fast-loading, easy to read, and rich in high-value content.
For B2B companies, including whitepapers, case studies, or testimonials can further enhance conversions and improve overall campaign efficiency.
5. Focus on Display Network Campaigns
While search campaigns focus on active intent, display network campaigns can help you reach a broader audience. Use remarketing strategies to show ads to users who have previously engaged with your website but didn’t convert.
Strong visuals and precise targeting on Google’s display network can help you capture additional impressions.
6. Fix Lost Impression Share Due to Rank
Your quality score is directly linked to where your ad appears. To tackle lost impression share due to rank, focus on improving these three areas:
- Ad Relevance: Use clear, targeted messaging that ties into the exact search terms used by potential leads.
- Expected CTR: Write compelling headlines and descriptions that encourage users to click.
- Landing Page Experience: Align your ads closely with the content, design, and messaging of your website.
7. Monitor and Adjust Over Time
Tracking and improving impression share metrics isn’t a one-time effort. Use analytics tools to continuously measure performance, identify areas for improvement, and build a more efficient campaign strategy. Metrics like click-through rate, ad spend, and lost impression share can indicate where to tweak your approach.
How to Improve Search Impression Share With a Digital Marketing Agency
Understanding how to improve search impression share is incredibly important for staying competitive in today’s digital landscape. Better ad performance means more visibility for your B2B company, leading to more leads and growth opportunities.
However, refining search impression share can be a resource-intensive, time-consuming process. If managing complex campaigns isn’t an internal strength, consider working with a digital marketing agency like Marketing Refresh.
As experts in paid media, our team can optimize your campaigns based on years of B2B digital marketing experience. We aim to help you achieve a higher impression share while reducing unnecessary costs, which will provide your sales team with an edge over the competition to reach more prospects.
Talk to us today about how we can support your online advertising efforts. Let’s increase your impression share so you can connect with more prospects than ever before.
FAQs
1. What is impression share, and why is it important for B2B campaigns?
Impression share is the percentage of impressions your ad receives compared to the total number of impressions it could get. A higher impression share increases brand visibility, enhances lead generation opportunities, and boosts engagement with target decision-makers.
2. How can ad relevancy impact my impression share?
Ad relevancy directly affects your quality score, which influences your ad’s position and cost-per-click. Enhancing ad relevancy increases your chances of improving your impression share by providing potential customers with content closely aligned with their search intent, leading to better positioning and more budget-efficient placements.
3. Why should we consider increasing ad spend?
Increasing ad spend can help address lost impression share due to budget limitations. By focusing on high-performing campaigns and reallocating funds from underperforming areas, you ensure your ads appear consistently before high-priority audiences.
4. How do display network campaigns contribute to impression share?
Display network campaigns broaden your reach by targeting audiences across multiple websites beyond search engines. Implementing remarketing strategies within this network allows you to recapture users who have shown previous interest but didn’t convert, capturing additional impressions and reinforcing brand recall.
5. What role does a digital marketing agency play in improving impression share?
Partnering with a digital marketing agency can be invaluable if you need help managing complex campaigns. Leveraging expertise in paid media allows for better optimization of campaigns, leading to higher impression shares while minimizing costs. The result is more effective campaigns that align with business goals.
