# Read impression share and where it is lost

> Tier: recipe. Operating recipe: real tool sequence, core rules, known traps.

Impression share with its lost-to-budget and lost-to-rank components, per campaign.

**Intent.** How much of the available auction the account wins, and whether budget or rank loses the rest.

## When to use

- Growth conversations: is there headroom.
- Competitor pressure suspicions.

## When not to use

- On PMax, where impression share semantics differ: read placements instead.

## Sources

Required: Google Ads

## Preconditions

- The account is ticked in the dashboard, confirmed via list_accounts.

## Inputs

- `window`: Analysis window. Default: last 30 days.

## Procedure

1. Query impression share metrics per campaign. — tools: `google_ads_run_gaql`
2. Split losses into budget vs rank and rank campaigns by recoverable share.

## Decision rules

- **When** Share is lost mainly to budget on efficient campaigns → **conclude** Cheapest growth in the account: size it and route to budget-reallocation.
- **When** Share is lost to rank despite high bids → **conclude** Quality problem, not a money problem: the fix is ads and pages.

## Evidence requirements

- Every figure carries its account, metric and window.
- Anything below a readable sample size is reported as unjudged, not as zero.

## Human approval boundary

- The readout changes nothing. Any change it motivates goes through Safe Writes: preview, human confirmation, then apply.

## Failure modes

- Search 'top' vs 'absolute top' share answer different questions: name which one the claim uses.

## Output

- **Readout**: The figures, with windows and accounts named.
- **Flags**: What deserves a deeper skill or a human decision.

## Related

- Skill: [budget-reallocation](https://www.getmcpads.com/skills/budget-reallocation.md)