What Is Target Impression Share Bidding in Google Ads?

Target Impression Share is an automated Google Ads bid strategy that sets bids with the goal of showing your ad in a chosen location on the results page a set percentage of the time — at the absolute top of the page, anywhere at the top of the page, or anywhere on the page at all. It's available as either a single-campaign strategy or a portfolio strategy applied across multiple campaigns.

How the Bidding Works

You set a target impression share percentage and a placement goal, and Google Ads automatically adjusts CPC bids to try to hit that target. Set a 65% target for the absolute top of the page, and the system raises or lowers bids to try to show your ad in that exact position on 65% of the total auctions it's eligible for.

The Three Placement Options

• Absolute top of page — the very first ad position above organic results, the most visible and most expensive placement to target
• Top of page — anywhere in the ad block above organic results, not necessarily the first slot
• Anywhere on page — includes ad positions below the organic results as well

Where It's Actually Useful

Target Impression Share is built for visibility goals rather than direct-response efficiency goals like cost per acquisition. The clearest use case is brand-term campaigns: setting a 100% target on your own brand name is a way to make sure your ad shows essentially every time someone searches for you by name, rather than optimizing that campaign toward a cost or conversion target it was never meant to chase.

The Cost Tradeoff

Because the strategy is optimizing for visibility rather than efficiency, pushing the impression share target higher — especially toward absolute top of page — tends to raise CPCs, since the system has to bid more aggressively in competitive auctions to keep hitting the placement goal.

Bottom Line

Use Target Impression Share on branded search and defensive campaigns where being seen matters more than squeezing cost per click, and keep it off performance campaigns where Target CPA or Target ROAS already optimizes toward the outcome you actually care about.

Source: Google Ads Help, "About Target impression share bidding" (support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9121108).