Just when you thought Google was done shaking things up within their Google Ads platform, they did it again with their announcement that the “Average Position” metric would be sunset later this year.
Come September, we’ll have to start relying on the existing metrics “Top Impression Share” and “Absolute Top Impression Share” instead.
The change at first glance
It seems to simply and unnecessarily turn one metric into several, adding more complexity to the already vast data pool. However, the change is actually a chance to more accurately gauge the true page position of your text ads. The Average position has long been one of the most misunderstood metrics[1] in the Google Ads ecosystem and can be a common source of confusion between client, agency, and Google teams.
Average position is going down
Average position is often interpreted as a metric that directly denotes the actual position your ad occupied on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), but that was never actually the case. Instead, average position denoted where your ad fell relative to other ads.
To illustrate the difference, consider that an ad with an average position of two could just as often be spotted sitting at the bottom of the results page as it could be found at the second overall results spot. The latter being in immediate view of a searcher without scrolling at all, the former often forgotten or dismissed.
In these two separate instances, the ad from Joybird is just as much in average position two as the JustFab ad in the next picture.
What are these “new” metrics?
“Top Impression Share” and “Absolute Top Impression Share” are actually much closer to the