Industry · Status at source date: Newsletter archive
Multi-placement auctions may be distorting CTR metrics
A reminder surfaced this week about how Google's multi-placement auctions can create misleading performance metrics. When an ad appears at both the top and bottom of the same search results page, it generates multiple impressions but typically only one click, causing CTR to drop even when nothing has changed about campaign quality.
What changed
Benjamin W. encountered this when a client noticed a sharp decline in CTR alongside an impression spike. Standard checks revealed no issues with ads, quality scores, or bid management. The cause was multi-placement: Google had expanded where ads could appear on a single page, inflating impressions without corresponding clicks. The segmentation report can reveal when this is occurring, but you need to remember to check it - a feature that launched last year but is easy to forget amid the constant stream of platform updates.
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Original newsletter text and archive evidence
Multi-placement auctions may be distorting CTR metrics
A reminder surfaced this week about how Google's multi-placement auctions can create misleading performance metrics. When an ad appears at both the top and bottom of the same search results page, it generates multiple impressions but typically only one click, causing CTR to drop even when nothing has changed about campaign quality.
Benjamin W. encountered this when a client noticed a sharp decline in CTR alongside an impression spike. Standard checks revealed no issues with ads, quality scores, or bid management. The cause was multi-placement: Google had expanded where ads could appear on a single page, inflating impressions without corresponding clicks. The segmentation report can reveal when this is occurring, but you need to remember to check it - a feature that launched last year but is easy to forget amid the constant stream of platform updates.
Source captured . No explicit first-contributor label was provided for this update.
