Microsoft announced it will be deprecating the average position metric from Microsoft Advertising reporting starting in April. Google did the same thing last year and now Microsoft is following suit.
Microsoft wrote "Due to all your feedback and our insights into the ever-changing industry standards in digital advertising, we’ve determined that prominence metrics give a much clearer view of your prominence on the page than average position does. In an effort to limit confusion and allow you to focus on just the key metrics that matter to you most, average position will be deprecated from performance reports beginning in April."
So this column is going away:
Instead, Microsoft says you should use these:
- Top impression share
- Top impression share lost to rank
- Top impression share lost to budget
- Absolute top impression share
- Absolute top impression share lost to rank
- Absolute top impression share lost to budget
Yes, Microsoft mentions Google Ads as a reason; "Adding these new metrics and removing some others, like impression share lost to bid, relevance, and expected CTR, brings this reporting closer to parity with Google Ads."
Ginny Marvin says this is the final nail in the coffin for average position:
Final nail in the coffin for Average Position reporting. https://t.co/0TmvIwwV0j
— Ginny Marvin (@GinnyMarvin) January 15, 2020
Forum discussion at Twitter.
