Why is my click-through rate decreasing even though impressions are increasing?

When impressions rise but your click-through rate falls, Google is usually showing your ads in places where people click less: on Display Network sites, on search partner sites or for new, looser search terms. A click-through rate decreasing in this pattern is mostly a mix effect: the clicks you had are often still there, and the extra impressions simply dilute the average.

So find out where the new impressions come from before you rewrite a single ad. The keyword status “expected CTR” answers a different question, covered below and in why your Google Ads Quality Score is low.

Why is my click-through rate decreasing while impressions rise?

CTR is clicks divided by impressions (Google Ads Help). Anything that adds impressions faster than clicks pulls it down:

• Display expansion in a Search campaign. With Include Google Display Network ticked, the campaign also serves on websites and apps. Google itself notes that people there are browsing, not searching, and recommends judging CTR per network.
• Search partners. They are included by default, and Google warns that their traffic is not always highly targeted. Their CTR does not affect your Quality Score on Google.
• Broader matching. Broad match or new keywords take your ads into auctions for loosely related searches.
• More auctions. When Search impr. share rises, your ads appear in more auctions, often in lower positions where fewer people click.
• Seasonal demand. Google also lists seasonal interest and current events.

How do you find out where the extra impressions come from?

1. Open Campaigns, click the segment icon above the table and choose Network (with search partners). Compare impressions and CTR of the rows Google Search, Search partners and Google Display Network before and after the drop.
2. In the campaign’s Settings, expand Networks and click View network settings. Check whether Include Google search partners and Include Google Display Network are ticked.
3. Go to Campaigns → Insights and reports → Search terms, sort by impressions and look for new terms with many impressions and few clicks.
4. Add Search impr. share via the columns icon under Competitive metrics. A jump there explains more impressions without more demand.
5. Hover over a value shown in blue with a dotted underline and click View explanation.

What did Display expansion do in two clients’ brand campaigns?

A B2B client ran its brand campaign as a Search campaign with Display expansion switched on. In 30 days, €222 of the campaign’s €278 (80 %) went to Display placements: 558 clicks on 49,942 impressions, a CTR of 1.1 %. People searching for a company name are on Google Search, not in random apps, and Display clicks on mailto links were a spam pattern we already knew from this account. We switched Display off on 27 September 2026. In a location campaign, search partners had taken €79 of €87 in 30 days without a conversion, so they went too. Google Ads keeps recommending Display expansion; we dismissed it again on 19 October.

A retail client showed the same pattern earlier in the year. In its brand campaign, Display took €803 in 30 days, 76 % of the brand budget, largely on unrelated foreign websites, spam-like mobile apps and punycode domains. Real leads: none. No contact form, no view-through conversion, only phone and WhatsApp click events that looked like accidental taps or bots. Since 1 June 2026 the campaign has run on Google Search only. We did not record a clean before-and-after CTR in either account; the aim was to stop paying for clicks without inquiries.

What does “expected CTR below average” mean?

Expected CTR is one of three Quality Score components. Google rates how likely your ad is to be clicked for a keyword, compared with other advertisers whose ads showed for the exact same search over the last 90 days. According to Google’s definition, the status is adjusted for ad position and assets, so a lower position alone does not make it worse. Display and search partner traffic can drag down your account CTR, but not this rating.

To see the status, open Keywords, click the columns icon, expand Quality score and add Exp. CTR. If it reads “Below average”, Google advises making the ad text more closely related to your top keywords. In practice: put the keyword theme into the first headlines and split ad groups that mix unrelated keywords.

How do you switch off or cap Display and search partners?

To switch them off, untick the two boxes under Settings → Networks and save. Since 15 October 2026 Google has been rolling out Channel Prioritization as a softer option: in the campaign’s Settings, open the Channel Prioritization card, choose Use campaign-level settings to override account defaults and set the Display Network or search partners to Low priority with a daily budget percentage. 0 % stops spend on that channel; any other value is a best-effort cap. With Target CPA or Target ROAS, the priority only matters when the campaign is limited by budget. From February 2027, Search campaigns with Display expansion move to this model automatically.

Keep brand and core Search campaigns on Google Search only and judge Display by conversions, never by CTR. If you want to test Display expansion, set the Display Network to Low priority with a small budget share and compare leads after four weeks. Fix a “Below average” expected CTR in the ads, not in the bids.

Sources

• Google Ads Help: Clickthrough rate (CTR) – definition
• Google Ads Help: Expected clickthrough rate – definition
• Google Ads Help: About channel prioritization and budget allocation

Want to know where your impressions and budget really go? We break your campaigns down by network and search term and switch off what brings no inquiries. Book a free initial call or see how we manage Google Ads campaigns for our clients.