The Best Replacements for Average Position in Google Ads
Earlier this year, Google announced that Average Position, one of the oldest and most-loved data points for Google advertisers would be removed. As someone who uses Average Position every day to optimize campaigns, I was concerned regarding how I would manage campaigns for my clients, especially those that value always being on top.
And, because I’m a member of the small community of paid search experts that ALSO specialize in SEO, this change hit me especially hard. You see, in SEO, Average Position (or “Ranking” in SEO-speak) is everything. We live and die by it, and it’s one of the very few metrics, like CTR, that translates across both disciplines.
Clients get it. Even if they know nothing about search, they understand position/ranking.
But, the more I read about the alternatives to Average Position, the more excited I got to get to know other optimization and reporting techniques. In fact, the newer metrics meant to replace Avg. Position give us as paid search specialists even more information about where our ads are displaying in the SERP. That’s exciting, right?
These new metrics not only give us an idea of relative position but also if we are above or below organic results, which is a HUGE data point that Avg. Pos. could never provide. You see, not all ads qualify for promotion above organic results. So, two competitors who both see an Avg. Pos. of 1, could be displayed in entirely different places in the SERP, dependent on their Ad Rank and Quality Score.
Now that my dependence on Average Position has been broken, I can provide my clients with a more informative view of their position.
With these alternative stats, I am now also learning to better prioritize keyphrases for Quality Score improvements across all of my clients.
Here are the metrics you need to know:
Impressions % (Absolute Top) - The percentage of your impressions that are in position #1 on the SERP, above all other paid ads and above all organic results.
Impressions % (Top) - The percentage of your impressions that are above organic results. These impressions may not be the ad highest on the page.
Absolute Top Impression Share - Your share of the #1 position impressions among all that are available.
Top Impression Share - The percentage of available impressions anywhere above the organic search results that you were able to grab.
Lost Top Impression Share (Rank or Budget) - Two metrics here. One metric represents the percentage of available impressions above organic results that you lost due to your Ad Rank. The other represents what you lost due to budget restraints.
Lost Absolute Top Impression Share (Rank or Budget) - Again, two separate metrics. They each represent the percentage of available impressions in the #1 position on the page that you lost due to Ad Rank or Budget, respectively.
