Impressions data: Google Webmaster Tools VS Google AdWords

[BlueMango]

Dear community,

I was doing some research within Google Webmaster Tools (WMT)  keyword data when I noticed that the impressions within this tool are quite different compared to the keyword impression data provided by Google AdWords (ADW).

Some specs about the situation:

• Date: December 2014 (31 days).

• Keyword: brand + main keyword* (e.g. amazon shoes, if Amazon would have been the client)

• Visitors come from: the Netherlands (>97%).

• Search volume: 3,8 K for this branded keyword last year (December 2013), of which >99% came from the Netherlands (source: Google Keyword Planner).

• Search query data: "impressions" for Google WMT (organic keyword impressions) and “impressions” for Google ADW (paid keyword impressions).

• Of course the ADW keyword is [exact].

So, what's wrong? The data doesn’t match, while I expected approximately the same amount of impressions assuming the keywords are:

• both [exact] keywords; (check! ✓)
• within the same period of time; (check! ✓)
• the Ad is being displayed "all the time" (check! ✓)
• the domain/page is being indexed "all the time" (check! ✓)

How much of a difference is there?

• Organic impressions: 7,4 K (source: Google WMT)
• Paid impressions: 2,1 K (source: Google ADW)

Note that the search volume according to Google Keyword Planner of last year is somewhere in between: 3,8K. The search volume from this tool of last December is not available just yet (but I don’t expect much difference here since Google Trends shows a steady search volume).

If the difference would have been 10-20%, I wouldn't be surprised at all, but this is huge.

**What could explain the differences? **

• If a lot of people were using AdBlockers (they do, but not nearly as massively (around 10%)).
• If we would have made mistakes in AdWords: budget, bidding, targeting etc. - This is not the case, got this confirmed by the manager who double-checked the data and settings. Also: since it’s a branded keyword it’s really cheap for us and easy to get high quality scores.
• If we would have made mistakes regarding indexing/crawling that would have caused an extreme loss in domain visibility in the SERP's: possibly caused by robots.txt, a noindex-tag, server problems etc. This was not the case and Google WebmasterTools says the average position was 1,0 during the complete month.
• "Something else" went wrong during that specific period of time with this specific domain. I don’t think so because I checked multiple months and multiple other domains of other clients. These gave me the same relative results (okay, some were a bit closer: 30 K paid impressions vs 62 K organic impressions for instance, still a big difference).

What other possibilities are left?

• The impressions from Google WMT and Google ADW are not the same, even though they are called the same and therefore suggest they should be (about) the same.
• AdWords just randomly fails to display and/or measure some branded ads (even though there is plenty of budget, bidding is fine and QS is 10/10).

Definitions of "impressions" for both tools according Google:

• AdWords definition of "impressions"
• WebmasterTools definition of "impressions"

Hope someone has some more suggestions or useful links! Thanks in advance!

Ektor Tsolodimos

[BlueMango]

Thanks Richard. Just to make sure I checked this one, but nothing changed: we were already showing 100.00% and got the same amount of impressions.

[TheeDigital]

Under columns in Adwords, add in Impression Share to make sure you're actually showing 100% of the time.

[BlueMango]

Thanks for your respond. Basically, you are saying what I said:

• "The impressions from Google WMT and Google ADW are not the same, even though they are called the same and therefore suggest they should be (about) the same."

Even though I can't really tell there should/is any difference between the "same" metrics (by judging their description), I would have to assume they are in fact something (very) different (which is too bad!).

You are totally right in your solution: don't mind comparing those two sources and you'll be fine. Still, I wanted to know if I had overlooked something and if others may have noticed this before. Or maybe some could have drawn the wrong conclusions out of these different, yet very similar Google sources, for a long time. Those should be aware of this.

[Hutch42]

The answer for this is pretty simple, both tools are not the same nor do they look at the same data. While both tools are part of Google, they each interact with search differently and measure impressions in different ways (such as how image search is measured, map searches etc.) I do not try and draw direct comparison between the two tools, use them independently for their niche and you will be fine.