Amazon Ads: Are You Missing Out on Search Term Impression Share? Here’s How to Find Out

Your Amazon ad campaigns are running, you’re getting sales, but are you really maximizing your potential? Most sellers focus on ACOS and conversion rates, but they miss a crucial metric: Search Term Impression Share.

The reality is, you could be leaving money on the table if you’re not tracking how often your ads are shown for relevant search terms. This report will tell you how often your ads show up when customers search for the keywords you’re targeting.

In this article, we’ll break down what Search Term Impression Share is, why it matters, and how to use it to uncover hidden growth opportunities in your Amazon ad campaigns. Let’s dive in.

What is Amazon Search Term Impression Share?

Simply put, Search Term Impression Share is the percentage of times your ad is shown when a customer searches for a specific keyword. Think of it as your visibility score for a given search term.

For example, if a search term has 1,000 searches in a week, and your ad shows up 300 times, your Search Term Impression Share is 30%.

Here’s why that matters: a low impression share means you’re missing out on potential customers. You might have a winning product and a great listing, but if people aren’t seeing your ad, they can’t buy from you.

Why You Should Care About Impression Share

Most Amazon sellers only focus on ACOS. That’s important, but it’s only half the story. You could have a profitable ACOS, but still be missing out on a huge chunk of potential sales.

Here’s why:

• Uncover Hidden Opportunities: Identify high-volume search terms where you have low visibility.
• Optimize Bids: Adjust your bids to increase your impression share for valuable keywords.
• Improve Campaign Structure: Identify poorly performing campaigns and restructure them for better targeting.
• Maximize Your Budget: Ensure you’re not wasting money on low-potential search terms.

Most sellers don’t realize how much potential revenue they’re missing by ignoring impression share. Let’s look at how to find and use this data.

How to Find Your Search Term Impression Share

Amazon provides detailed reports to track this data, but it’s not always easy to find. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. Go to Amazon Seller Central: Log in to your Amazon Seller Central account.
2. Navigate to Advertising Reports: Go to “Reports” then “Advertising Reports.”
3. Create a Sponsored Products Report: Select “Sponsored Products” as the campaign type.
4. Choose “Search Term” Report: In the “Report type” dropdown, select “Search Term.”
5. Customize Columns: Before running the report, customize the columns to include “Search Term Impression Share” and “Search Term Rank.” (These are often hidden by default.)
6. Run the Report: Set the date range and run the report. We recommend pulling at least 30 days of data for statistically significant insights.
7. Download the Report: Once the report is ready, download it as a CSV file.

It may seem like a lot of steps, but once you’ve set it up once, it’s easy to repeat. The key is customizing your columns to actually see the impression share data.

How to Analyze Search Term Impression Share

Once you have the report downloaded, it’s time to analyze the data. Here’s what to look for:

• Low Impression Share, High Conversions: These are your prime opportunities. Increase bids on these search terms to capture more impressions.
• High Impression Share, Low Conversions: These search terms might be irrelevant or poorly targeted. Consider negating them or adjusting your product targeting.
• High Impression Share, High ACOS: Your bids might be too high. Lower your bids and monitor the impact on your impression share and ACOS.
• Search Term Rank: This tells you where your product ranks organically for the search term. If you’re already ranking high organically, you may not need to bid as aggressively.

The goal is to find the sweet spot where you’re getting a good impression share and a healthy ACOS. It’s a balancing act, but the data will guide you.

Example: Finding Hidden Opportunities

Let’s say you’re selling coffee mugs. You run a Search Term report and find the following:

• Search Term: “funny coffee mugs”
• Impression Share: 15%
• Conversions: 8%
• ACOS: 25%
• Search Term: “large coffee mug”
• Impression Share: 70%
• Conversions: 2%
• ACOS: 40%

In this example, “funny coffee mugs” is a huge opportunity. It has a low impression share but a strong conversion rate. Increasing your bid on this search term could significantly increase your sales without sacrificing profitability.

On the other hand, “large coffee mug” has a high impression share but a poor conversion rate. You might be better off lowering your bid or negating this term altogether.

Actionable Steps to Improve Impression Share

Now that you know how to find and analyze Search Term Impression Share, here are some actionable steps to improve your results:

1. Increase Bids: For search terms with low impression share and high conversions, increase your bids. Monitor the impact on your ACOS.
2. Refine Targeting: Ensure your product targeting is relevant to the search terms you’re targeting. Use negative keywords to eliminate irrelevant traffic.
3. Optimize Product Listings: Improve your product title, description, and images to increase your conversion rate.
4. Improve Budget Allocation: Ensure your budget is allocated to campaigns with the highest potential.
5. Regular Monitoring: Track your Search Term Impression Share regularly (at least weekly) and make adjustments as needed.

Here’s the thing: Amazon PPC is a continuous process of testing and optimization. There’s no set it and forget it solution. But with the right data and the right tools, you can significantly improve your results.

Don’t Leave Money on the Table

Search Term Impression Share is a powerful metric that most Amazon sellers overlook. By tracking this data and taking action, you can uncover hidden growth opportunities, optimize your bids, and maximize your return on ad spend.

Start using Search Term Impression Share reports today and see the difference it can make in your Amazon ad performance.

Key Discussion Points from the Episode

Here are some of the most valuable insights Andrew and Stephen shared during the full episode discussion:

So Steven, you remember that last episode we filmed, we talked about the Sponsored Product Search Term Report? That one? It’s basically like that, except it has two more columns.

So that’s pretty much it. There may actually be other differences to it, but in general I would say that that’s pretty much what it is. It’s just your search terms and then it gives you two additional columns and those columns that you get are Impression Rank and Impression Share.

And so those are those two important metrics that this report provides that you won’t find in any of the other reports that I think is going to really help us out here. So those are the two main. Many data points.

Yep. Yeah. Basically the exact same as a search and report.

Just added some, some additional metrics. So honestly, you probably don’t ever need to use a search report again. Just always use Impression Share if there’s any difference between the two sheets.

It’s so insignificant that we’ve, we haven’t noticed. But let’s define those terms really quick. Impression Share.

We actually probably should have pulled up Amazon’s definition, but I don’t think we did. Andrew, what’s your definition of Impression share? It’s pretty.

Pretty straightforward. Pretty straightforward. The percentage of impressions that my brand got out of the amount of impressions that I could have possibly gotten.

So what share of the possible impressions did my brand get?

Hello everybody and welcome back to that Amazon Ads podcast. Your go to resource for everything Amazon ads from sponsored products and brands to sponsor, display and dsp. We cover it all with in depth strategies and tactical insights to help you grow your Amazon sales.

What’s up, Stephen? That intro, it feels so cheesy. I feel like I need to come up with something new every single time I do it because, because it sounds stupid the second time.

You know what, moving forward, Andrew, we’ll just, we’ll make it up every time we’re taking, we’re getting rid of the caption. That sounds fun. That’ll be good.

This article is based on Episode 19 of That Amazon Ads Podcast. Subscribe for weekly Amazon PPC strategies.