How is Impressions ETV calculated?

Impressions ETV is calculated on the same principle as search volume-based ETV (a keyword’s search volume * CTR coefficient = ETV). However, instead of search volume, we use the keyword impressions metric.

Impressions ETV = keyword impressions * CTR coefficient

The metric appears in the following endpoints and APIs:

• Categories For Domain
• Domain Analytics API – Whois Overview
• Ranked Keywords
• SERP Competitors
• Competitors Domain
• Domain Intersection
• Subdomains
• Relevant Pages
• Domain Rank Overview
• Historical Rank Overview
• Page Intersection

 
Using impressions data over search volume has one significant advantage — numbers are more accurate. There are only 80 possible values search volume can take. If that weren’t enough, Google distorted even these approximate numbers by lumping together semantically related keywords.

Starting from June 2016, Google Keyword Planner groups similar keywords and displays the identical search volume data for each keyword from the same group. For example, if you look at the SEO market and SEO emarketing keywords in Keyword Planner, you’ll notice that they have the same search volume of 6600.

[
  {
    "keyword": "seo market",
    "location_code": 2840,
    "language_code": "en",
    "keyword_info": {
      "last_updated_time": "2021-09-30 09:08:44 +00:00",
      "competition": 0.5027226351286803,
      "cpc": 22.504489,
      "search_volume": 6600
    }
  },
  {
    "keyword": "seo emarketing",
    "location_code": 2840,
    "language_code": "en",
    "keyword_info": {
      "last_updated_time": "2021-09-19 16:37:53 +00:00",
      "competition": 0.5027226351286803,
      "cpc": 22.504489,
      "search_volume": 6600
    }
  }
]

Given the inaccuracy of search volume, the ETV metric can become an acceptable replacement if applied wisely. That is the reason why DataForSEO incorporated impressions data alongside search volume.

As shown above, impressions ETV is calculated by multiplying a keyword’s number of impressions by the CTR coefficient of a search result. The CTR coefficient depends on the rank_group (ranking position) of a website.

For positions 23 – 100, the coefficient is 0.0021.

If SERP contains paid results, the outcome should be additionally multiplied by one of the following coefficients.

Please note that we consider paid elements only. Shopping, popular_products, knowledge_graph_shopping_item, and other advanced paid elements are not taken into account.

For positions 11 – 100, the coefficient is 0.94.

So if your website ranks, say, third in organic search for a keyword with 5700 impressions, your impressions ETV for this keyword will be:

• If there are no ads — 5700 * 0.0973 = 554.61
• If there are ads — 5700 * 0.0973 * 0.81 = 449.23

 
However, when it comes to calculating impressions ETV for paid search only, we use completely different coefficients.

So if you run a PPC campaign for a keyword with 5700 impressions, and your ad is displayed first in SERP, your estimated paid monthly traffic for this keyword will be: 5700 * 0.0711 = 405.27.