An ad campaign has 10,000 eligible impressions in a month. Due to poor Ad Rank, the campaign loses 1,000 impressions—those searches where your ad didn't appear because it ranked too low. Search Lost Impression Share (Rank) = 1,000 / 10,000 = 0.10 or 10%. This means your ads failed to show for 10% of all searches where they were eligible to appear, due to ranking issues.
Search Lost Impression Share (Rank)
Last updated: Jun 04, 2026
What is Search Lost Impression Share (Rank)?
Search Lost Impression Share (Rank) is the percentage of search impression share lost due to Ad Rank, which depends on factors such as relevant keywords, ad quality, and bid amount.
Alternate names: Impression Share Lost Due to Rank, Lost Keyword Ranking, Search Lost IS RankSearch Lost Impression Share (Rank) Formula
ƒ Sum(Impressions Lost Due to Rank) / Sum(Total Eligible Impressions)
How to calculate Search Lost Impression Share (Rank)
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What is a good Search Lost Impression Share (Rank) benchmark?
There is no universal benchmark for this metric since it depends on campaign settings such as targeting, keyword coverage, ad quality, and competitive landscape. However, it is desirable for Search Lost Impression Share (Rank) to remain as close to 0% as possible. Generally, 0–5% is excellent, 5–15% is good, and 15%+ indicates significant opportunity for improvement.
How to visualize Search Lost Impression Share (Rank)?
Since you'll want to drill down on where exactly you're losing search impressions, it can be very helpful to segment your data by keyword. This way, you know which keywords your ads are performing poorly on, and you can take steps to fix the issue. The sample chart gives you an idea how to visualize your lost search impression share data:
Search Lost Impression Share (Rank) visualization example
Search Lost Impression Share (Rank)
Bar Chart
Here's an example of how to visualize your Search Lost Impression Share (Rank) data in a bar chart to observe segmented data.
Search Lost Impression Share (Rank)
Chart
Measuring Search Lost Impression Share (Rank)More about Search Lost Impression Share (Rank)
Ranking plays a huge role in the success of an ad campaign. More than 70% of all traffic on search engines such as Google interacts only with the first ten results, meaning that it is crucial to optimize search result ranking.
Search Lost IS (Rank) measures the percentage of Search Impression Share lost due to poor Ad Rank.Tweaking and optimizing keyword usage to be more specific to your page can help lower impression share loss. Another way of achieving this is by improving the quality score of your keywords. If all else fails, it may be best to alter the Spend to Maximize Impression Share.
Google Ads defines Search Lost IS Rank as the "percentage of times your ad wasn't shown due to poor ranking. This means that if your Search Lost IS Rank column shows you have 30% lost keyword ranking, then your ad doesn't show up for 30% of all searches containing your keyword.
Search Lost Impression Share represents lost potential. It means that your campaign could have won impressions but did not, due to factors that can be controlled and fixed. By tracking this metric regularly, you can significantly improve ad performance and get a better return on ad spend.
Search Lost Impression Share (Rank) Frequently Asked Questions
How do I improve my ad rank?
To improve your ad rank, apart from setting a higher bid if the keyword is crucial to your business, focus on the quality of your advertisement and landing page. You may want to bid on a less competitive keyword, as well, for better ad performance. Keep in mind that you tend to pay a higher cost per click for more competitive keywords, so it may be worth bidding on a keyword that is relevant to your niche and which will in turn make it easier for you to rank.
Recommended resources related to Search Lost Impression Share (Rank)
How to improve your impression share.Contributor
