Until now, the only information about where a Google Ad appears on a Google search engine returns page (SERP) has been the Average Position metric.

If your ad has, e.g., an Average Position of 3.0, that means that on average two other ads appear ahead of yours. But what it doesn't tell you is where on the SERP your ad appears in relation to organic search results.

Google's new metrics for search campaigns are intended to provide a clearer indication of where your ad appears in relation to both other ads and organic returns.

(Note that these new metrics work slightly differently for Hotel Campaigns.)

New metrics are:

Metrics about the location of your ads:

• Impressions (Absolute Top) % - % of impressions of your ad shown as first ad above organic results
• Impressions (Top) % - % of impressions of your ad shown anywhere above organic results

Google recommends using those 2 metrics to track how ad position affects clickthrough rate.

Metrics that can help you bid so as to improve location of ads:

• Search (Absolute Top) Impression Share - impressions of your ad shown at absolute top divided by the estimated number of impressions your ad was eligible to receive in top position
• Search (Top) Impression Share - impressions of your ad shown anywhere above organic results divided by the number of impressions your ad was eligible to receive above organic results
• Search lost absolute top impression share (budget) - how often your ad wasn't absolute top because of insufficient budget
• Search lost top impression share (budget) - how often your ad wasn't anywhere above organic results because of insufficient budget
• Search lost absolute top impression share (rank) - how often your ad wasn't the first ad above organic results because of poor ad rank
• Search lost top impression share (rank) - how often your ad didn't show anywhere above organic results because of poor ad rank

Google recommends using those 6 metrics to help set your bids to increase the share of your ads that show at the top or absolute top of SERPs.

Go here for an explanation of ad rank.

And note that as of 30 September, Google will disable any of these items using Average Position:

• Rules
• Custom columns
• Saved reports
• Saved filters
• Some scripts

Google gets complicateder and complicateder. But these changes can't be ignored. Happy Googling!