A Love Letter to Average Position

Dear Average Position (or AP, as I liked to call you),

For so long, I overlooked you. I thought you were merely average, nothing more than an average of placements on SERPs.

Yeah, I saw you down at the end of the platform, tucked away with your new friend Search Impression Share. But I was too consumed with CTR, Clicks, Conversions, and Conversion Rate. I’d always wave and say ‘hey’, but I didn’t notice your true value.

You helped show where our ads typically ranked against other ads, yet that’s not the end of the story.

Once I began to see you and your friend Search Impression Share in a different light, I realized a much deeper potential. Because when I know how much available opportunity there is for a campaign (Search Impression Share), and I know how much room we have to gain on the SERPs (Average Position), I can make informed decisions on bid adjustments.

And it got even better when we added CTR and Average CPCs to the group. Now we can take the opportunity we’ve identified and see if we’re attracting more clicks than average (CTR), as well as how expensive it’s been. These help us determine the amount we can adjust the bids, always keeping in mind to be efficient but effective.

You seemed too simple, too boring. Why would I want to waste my time with an “average” statistic? But again, I was wrong.

See, you helped to paint a picture of SERPs and opportunities that helped make my job just a little easier, and for that I thank you.

I hoped that our relationship would grow for years to come. I’ve spent countless nights dreaming about all the PowerPoint slides I’d feature you on, and how’d I’d bring you up with colleagues whenever we discussed accounts.

If only we had more time, Average Position.

There are two things I know now: I’ll always miss you, and you were never “average”.

Love,
A Broken Hearted Paid Search Analyst – Fred Dees