{"id":8001,"date":"2019-03-15T16:34:01","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T11:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/?p=8001"},"modified":"2019-04-25T16:59:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T11:29:38","slug":"removal-of-googles-average-position-what-the-ppc-experts-have-to-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/removal-of-googles-average-position-what-the-ppc-experts-have-to-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Removal of Google’s Average Position – What The PPC experts Have To Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google Ads had announced on 26th February, 2019 that it will sunset average position<\/a> in September 2019. This announcement triggered\u00a0a lot of mixed responses in the PPC industry.\u00a0 Even though Google gave the first sign of the average position removal when the last year November they introduced four new ad position metrics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Why the change was required?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Change is the only thing which is constant in the society but still no one likes it. When Google rolled out their new ad position metrics in November last year, they wanted to move our attention from average position to impression share.<\/p>\n

According to the article<\/a> by Frederick Vallaeys, this change was required\u00a0as it was a poor metric to understand the positions and here is why:<\/p>\n

The word \u2018position\u2019 refers to a relative position compared to other advertisers and has nothing to do with a physical position on the page where the ad is shown. Advertisers often care more about where their ad is shown rather than who they were beating in the auction so the average position metric became less meaningful and it\u2019s no surprise it is being sunset by Google<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pallavi Naresh , Product Manager in Google Ads gave the following reason for this decision,<\/p>\n

These new metrics give you a much clearer view of your prominence on the page than average position does.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Robert Brady discussed<\/a> the two reasons for this change:<\/p>\n

First, Google wants advertisers to stop thinking of the average position as describing where their ads show on the SERP. In reality, it has been more accurate to think of average position as the rank for that particular auction.\u00a0The second reason is that Google wants advertisers to move away from manual bidding\u00a0to automated bidding as it can help advertisers to gain greater efficiency for low budget campaign<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

And here is how this change might impact bidding<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead of focusing only on average position when making bid adjustments, try pulling in some of the new impression share metrics to influence your adjustments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

And why the new metrics might still not be that reliable<\/p>\n

In the case of both average position and impression share, neither should be heavily relied on in most cases since neither reflect actual costs or sales driven by ads, and rather reflect only the appearance of the ad on the page.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since 15 years, average position is serving advertisers faithfully but it’s utility has been decreased in recent years. While the departure of average position looks scary, Kamlyn Spivey gives us well the reasons not to be anxious in her article written in PPC Hero<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

What do PPC experts think:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There were mixed responses from PPC experts after this announcement. Let’s have a look at what they had to say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Andy Taylor, Associate Director of Research, from Merkle concluded<\/p>\n

While advertisers that are shooting for specific locations on the page should find alternative metrics like absolute top impression share adequate for assessing the competitive landscape and making optimizations, these metrics don\u2019t shed light on some deeper trends that average position has helped identify over the years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Martin R\u00f6ttgerding,\u00a0Head of SEA at the online marketing agency Bloofusion<\/a> says,<\/p>\n

”\u00a0Although I think it’s a shame to lose a metric, I can understand this step and also get something good from him.\u00a0The index of the average position has always been a double-edged sword, which has led to many misunderstandings.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Frederick Vallaeys expressed his views in an article published in\u00a0Search Engine Land<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u201cNowadays, automated bidding is so ubiquitous and cheap that [manual] bid-to-position strategies simply don\u2019t make a lot of sense for the majority of advertisers.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Courtney Charroux, a member of Wordstream’s<\/a> Customer Success team, was slightly<\/em> critical:<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m an avid user of average position. I have a client in a very popular industry, and I like having those hard averages to identify my success with the account and to know where I should adjust.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ginny Marvin at Search Engine Land<\/a> wrote:<\/p>\n

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“Change is constant in search advertising, but average position has one of the few constants for more than 15 years. Yet, with the removal of right rail ads, in particular, its utility has sharply declined in recent years.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

PPC experts also took to Twitter to express their opinion regarding this announcement<\/p>\n

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What do PPC experts think?<\/p>\n

Google is certain that these four new metrics are more insightful than average position, and the PPC community doesn\u2019t seem all that sad to see the metric go\u2014for the most part. #googleads<\/a> #ppc<\/a> #search<\/a> #leads<\/a> #digitalmarketing<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/ZocMSbXBPp<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Benny Mazzier (@BMazzier) February 28, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Is this real life? No More position data!<\/p>\n

More obscure insight into where you are = higher bidshttps:\/\/t.co\/6v1RJAmTIm<\/a>#ppcchat<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 dan lewis (@danlewis8) February 26, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Truthfully, I\u2019m not that torn up about losing Avg Pos, though still a big change. We\u2019ve moved more towards utilizing Impression Share metrics in our bidding rules anyway so this won\u2019t impact our day to day too much. #ppcchat<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Kirk Williams (@PPCKirk) February 26, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

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"Avg. position is only relative to other ads. The new metrics take organic results into account too. Take a look at avg. position & the new metrics and segment by device in a couple accounts. This helped me realize how much more info we\u2019re getting from the new metrics." #ppcchat<\/a><\/p>\n

— Hanapin Marketing (@Hanapin) February 28, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n