Not Getting Enough Impressions in Google Ads: How to Drill Down the Issue

The Google Ads impressions on your campaign is a good indicator of how visible your ads — and your brand — are in search engine results pages (SERPs). As such, impressions are an important first step in reaching prospective customers.

So, what do you do when your impressions are falling dramatically? Worse still, what if you aren’t getting any impressions at all?

In this article, we’ll explore the possible reasons for low Google Ads impressions, and give you the solutions to make your ads more visible online.

10 Aspects to Check When You Have a Low Google Ads Impressions

If you’re new to PPC advertising, struggling with impressions is par for the course. However, even seasoned PPC managers can face this problem.

Here are ten areas of your campaign that can impact Google Ads impressions:

1. Keywords
2. Search Volume (and Timing)
3. Match Types
4. Negative Keywords
5. Budget
6. Competition
7. Scheduling
8. Targeting
9. Quality Score
10. Clickthrough Rate (CTR)

Okay, let’s consider each of these areas in detail to help you get to the root of the problem.

1. Keywords

Keywords are the building blocks of your campaign. If you get them wrong, your ad may never show up. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• Low keyword bids (in comparison to your competitor’s bids) may result in you missing out on a search term, which increases the likelihood that your ad won’t run. Sometimes, increasing your bids can trigger a host of benefits, including higher quality, relevance, and Ad rank.
• Niche keywords will often have a low search volume. If you target specific long-tail keywords, your ads may not register many impressions because nobody is using the search terms. Try broader terms (or match types) to attract more attention.

2. Search Volume (and Timing)

The search volume that specific keywords generate is directly linked to your potential impressions. Naturally, keywords with a higher search volume tend to drive higher impressions. Think about the following:

• Seasonality Events — If you target keywords like winter clothing or Christmas jumpers, you can expect a drop-off in search volume in the off-season.
• Trending Keywords – As search volume increases, a keyword will generate more impressions. When you launch a new product, it can take a little time for traffic to kick start. Black Friday is a good example of this in action.

3. Match Types

A lot of people in PPC advertising don’t fully understand keyword match types, much to the demise of their Google Ads impressions.

Let’s make things clear:

Exact match types can restrict your impressions

Of course, you don’t want a lot of irrelevant traffic, but neither do you want to limit the potential of your campaign.

This is especially true if you have listed close variants and synonyms as negative keywords, as your ads will only be triggered when user search queries match your keywords 100% exactly.

Tip: You need to find a balance between reach and relevance. The answer is to use a modified broad match type.

Phrase match with negatives can reduce impressions

Let’s say you have a lot of phrase match types listed as negative keywords. Your impressions are likely plummeting. Ideally, you should analyze historical search data to identify which phrase keywords will drive impressions. Doing this will help you refine your negative keyword list, so you don’t filter out quality traffic.

Learn More: Effective Use of Keyword Match Types in PPC Campaigns

4. Negative Keywords

In PPC campaigns with a poor impressions, the problem often lies with the negative keyword list. You can create these lists of filter keywords at:

• Campaign level
• Ad group level
• Shared Library (to then apply to multiple campaigns of your choosing)

For instance, you may sell winter clothes, but your negative keyword list includes the keyword winter. This would be a big blow to your Google Ads impressions, so you must learn to use negative keywords wisely.

5. Budget

How is your budget?

If everything else on your list so far is in order, then your budget may be the cause of your underwhelming impressions.

A low daily budget won’t deliver a lot of impressions, especially if your keywords have a high average cost per click (CPC).

Imagine you have a daily budget of $5, but your keywords have an average CPC of $8-10. Even a single click is out of your budget, so your ads won’t show at all.

Inappropriate Ad Delivery Method

In this scenario, you should look at your Standard Delivery Method. With Standard Delivery, your budget will be optimized to last the day, sacrificing some morning impressions so that your ad shows up in the afternoon and evening.

This may not benefit every business. For example, a breakfast cafe owner would prefer her ads to target users in the morning.

You can adjust scheduling (more on that later) to ensure your budget is optimized for better results.

6. Competition

Sometimes, you can do everything right, but you lose out on impressions because of a competitor with deeper pockets muscles in on your niche. If a big player outbids your keywords, they can quickly outrank you in the SERPs.

Try the Auction Insights report from Google Ads to identify issues like this. For instance, if you saw a drop in traffic on September 20th, you could:

1. Run the report for August, then save it.
2. Run the report for September thus far.
3. Compare the impression share data, position above rate, and overlap rate.

If there are significant differences, a new competitor may be the reason.

7. Scheduling

You determine your Ad Schedule at the Campaign level, effectively telling Google when you want your ads to show. You can define this by days of the week and hours of the day.

If your scheduling is too restrictive, you don’t give your target audience much opportunity to search and find your ads. It may be best to loosen the leash a little bit to increase your impressions.

Conversely, if your ads are scheduled for times when your target audience isn’t active, you may not get impressions as they aren’t searching for it at that time of day.

8. Targeting

In Google Ads, targeting the right audience is vital. You can refine your targeting in a number of ways, most notably by device and by geographic location.

Device Targeting

Nowadays, consumers use more than one channel before making a purchase, so advertisers must engage prospects across multiple devices.

You can optimize your spend to focus on the devices your audience use, but it’s tricky territory that can lead to a slump in impressions.

Check the following:

• Negative Bid Adjustments – Take caution when using negative bids adjustment. If it is set to -100%, your ads will never run. Even if it is set to something a little lower than —100%, it may still be too low to give your keywords the Ad Rank they need to reach your audience. Your mobile campaign may be underperforming because you have set some keywords to a bid adjustment of -100% on mobile. Experiment with higher bid adjustments to boost your Ad Rank.
• Low budget – When everything else like your ad, keywords, and landing page look good, take a look at your budget. By bumping up your spend on mobile, you may garner more impressions.

Different devices will generate different results. It’s important to manage your ads differently depending on which device they target.

Maximize your mobile targeting

With the rise in mobile search traffic, it’s a good idea to tailor your ads and targeting to reach users there.

When you create separate PPC campaigns for mobile users, make sure to go back to the original campaign and adjust the settings, so your ads only show on desktop and tablets. Otherwise, your two campaigns will compete against one another.

Another idea is to responsive search ads (RSAs), as these automatically adjust your ad’s display size according to the user’s device.

Geo-Targeting

You can set Location Targeting at the campaign level to choose the specific geographic regions that will see your PPC ads.

You can target entire countries or smaller ZIP code areas. With narrow targeting, you reduce your scope for impressions, clicks, and conversions. Expanding your scope will increase the chances of higher Google Ads impressions.

If you serve ads to the wrong location straight away, it’s unlikely your ads will generate a decent return on advertising spend (ROAS). Start with broad location targeting, then hone your focus once you have enough data about the precise locations of genuine, interested audience members.

However, be aware of going too broad as well.

For example, if you run a Google Shopping campaign for your e-commerce store, it’s easy to get drawn into the trends of the larger markets in the U.S. Your entire brand, its products, and services, may appeal to the masses in America.

However, if you set your targeting to reach global customers in countries all over the world, a lot of your advertising spending may go nowhere, as people aren’t interested in the same trends. You may not get the Google Ads impressions you expect, and your budget will go to waste.

Tip: Set your preferred locations to “Added” instead of “Excluded.”

Another possibility is that you find the right audience that is interested in your products and services, but they have temporarily moved location. This can trigger a decrease in impressions.

9. Quality Scores

Having a high-Quality Score is good news, but it doesn’t guarantee a high Google Ads impressions.

Here are a few reasons why:

• Your competitor’s bids are higher than yours, so your ad placement falls.
• Your ad scheduling isn’t aligned with your audience’s online activity.
• Your device targeting isn’t aligned with your user’s device activity.
• You are targeting people in the wrong geographic location.

If you focus on improving your quality score, you can improve a lot of things in your PPC campaign.

Learn More: Google Ads Quality Score: Essential Knowledge for PPC Advertising

10. CTR

When Google determines your Quality Score, it considers several important factors, one of which is Expected CTR.

A lower clickthrough rate inevitably leads to a lower Quality Score, which has a negative impact on your Ad Rank. Soon enough, your Google Ads impressions will plummet — unless you start bidding more.

So, why would your CTR be low?

One reason is because of aggressive bidding from competitors. If they push their promotions more, you can lose out on clicks.

Keep an eye on your CTR and click volume. If both start to slide, use the Ad Preview Tool to analyze your keywords, so you can determine whether or not your ads are still the most attractive in Google SERPs.

Wrap Up

Impressions are the first step of the PPC life-cycle for users. For many people, it’s the first time they discover your brand, so if your Google Ads impressions are falling, it’s bad news for brand awareness.

With the advice in this article, you have everything you need to turn things around so that you optimize your PPC budget to reach a large, relevant audience.

Want to know more? Read our blog on Ultimate Campaign Optimization.