The ratio between your click share and impression share on a keyword tells you whether you're spending PPC budget where it actually creates value. Some keywords you're over-investing in because organic is already doing the work. Others you're under-investing in because customers simply can't see you. Reading both signals from the same table lets you move budget from the first group to the second.
The full spectrum: what every ratio means
What you see | What it means | What to do |
Impression share under 5% | Very high probability of cannibalization. Organic is doing the work. | Test lowering ad budget by 20% week over week. |
Impression share roughly equals click share | Advertising is supporting this keyword. Organic and paid are working together. | Do not cut. Reducing budget here can hurt organic rank too. |
Impression share higher than click share | Multiple products showing, or poor PPC relevancy. You're getting impressions but not winning the click. | Check which of your products is appearing. Review whether you're overspending on a low-relevancy keyword. |
Impression share below 2%, click share also very low | You're barely visible on this keyword despite it being relevant to your product. | This is your growth opportunity. See Part 2 below. |
When impression share equals click share, don't cut: These keywords are often being held up by your advertising. The algorithm factors in ad activity when determining organic rank. Cutting budget here can cause organic rank to drop too, making the loss bigger than the ad spend saving.
Part 2: identifying under-invested keywords (low visibility opportunities)
Keywords where your impression share is below 3% and the term is clearly relevant to your product are your growth targets. Customers are actively searching for what you sell and simply not seeing you. This isn't a listing or CVR problem. It's a visibility problem.
Sort by Search Volume (descending) and scan for keywords with impression share under 2%
For each flagged keyword, verify relevancy: search it on Amazon and confirm the top results are products like yours
Check that the keyword appears naturally in your listing title or bullets. If it doesn't, add it before running ads — relevancy matters for ranking
Create an exact match Sponsored Products campaign with top-of-search placement multipliers
Track impression share and keyword rank in Market Share & Funnel week over week.
Building visibility takes time: Growing impression share from 1% to 4% on a competitive keyword takes weeks to months. The early period will show high ACOS because you're paying for visibility before organic rank strengthens. Once rank improves, impression share grows even when PPC budget stays flat.
Close the loop: The budget you free from over-invested keywords should go directly to under-invested high-relevance keywords. Stop paying for clicks you already own organically, and start buying visibility where customers can't yet find you.
Part 3: Compare PPC Spend to Keyword Size
Sometimes, you can spend much more money on a keyword with a smaller search volume than on a bigger relevant term. A good practice is to also just compare Search Volume to PPC Spend (see example below - underspending on a relevant keyword with 2.5x more search volume).
Part 4: Optimize Spend on Branded Terms to Reduce Cannibalization
Branded terms usually don't require a big PPC Spend investment. The majority of the sales would happen regardless i you run ads or not.
The best practice is to test lowering the ad budget by 20% week over week.
Monitor click share to identify the minimum PPC budget needed.
Below is a great example of how PPC spend grew purchase share only by 10% while PPC spend increased by 1,000%
