In this research, we measured the number of impressions on Google Ads. The number of impressions is defined as how often an ad is shown [15]. Each time an ad appears on Google or the Google Display Network, it is counted as one impression [15]. For example, say a person spent some time on a jewelry website browsing engagement rings and comparing prices. After visiting the jewelry store’s website, he was added to the jewelry’s store remarketing list and exposed to ads of engagement rings as he perused the internet. Each time the ring ad appears on websites he visits, it is counted as an impression.

Before accessing the page that renders the number of impressions on Google Ads, we had to create a new campaign. Google Ads allows users to select different goals for a new campaign, such as Sales, Leads, Website traffic, and Brand Awareness and Reach. Therefore, we set up the goal of the campaign as Brand Awareness and Reach. In addition, Google ads allows for the creation of different kinds of campaigns, such as Display Network or Video. We selected the Display Network campaign to retrieve the number of impressions for this study; for example, the number of impressions in the United Kingdom for a targeted audience of those who speak English, are female, and are interested in education is 900 million (Figure 1). Using a network monitoring tool, built into modern browsers as part of a suite of developer tools, we fetched the number of impressions from the new Google Ads campaign from the corresponding network requests. These network requests can be attained by using an element inspection after right-clicking the page element, then selecting Inspect or Inspect Element (Figure 2). Inspecting elements on the web page helps to find the API and then send a POST request directly to the API. These POST requests have been made to automatically retrieve the number of impressions for each country (Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States) and for the following parameters: female, male, male and female, unknown gender, parent, not parent, unknown parental status. However, the IDs for each related (eg, hand sanitizer) and unrelated item (eg, accessories) were changed manually every time a POST request was made. The number of impressions was collected once every month, starting on March 28, 2020, resuming on April 28, and again on May 28, until September 28, 2020. Users are not required to purchase ads to collect the number of impressions, as information on Google Ads’ Display Network is mainly offered for free to advertisers who wish to better target their advertisements.

To capture items related to panic buying, we relied on Vox’s printable guide for preparing to shelter at home during the outbreak [16]. These items include soap, a first aid kit, canned food, and ibuprofen. In addition, we captured items that are not directly related to panic buying, such as Education, Employment, Health, and Sports & Fitness (Table 1). Under the rubric of “what audiences are actively researching or planning” on Google Ads, we added each item as a targeting criterion. Although the unrelated items already existed under in-market audiences, we had to add the related items under custom intent audiences on Google Ads. The number of impressions has been retrieved for an audience’s interest in items that are both related and unrelated to panic buying.

Following the selection of items related and unrelated to panic buying that audiences are actively researching or planning on the new Google Ads campaign page, the number of impressions was disaggregated by gender (female, male, and unknown gender) and parental status (parent, not a parent, unknown parental status). Further, the number of impressions was retrieved for audiences who speak any language and are located in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

We present a preliminary analysis of changes in the number of impressions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis shows the number of impressions related to the audience’s interest in panic buying–related items during the COVID-19 pandemic across country, gender, parental status, and time. Our discussion is based on analysis done on impressions released in March, April, and May 2020.

We tracked the number of impressions related to the audience’s interest in panic buying–related items during the COVID-19 pandemic over time and across different countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada). As indicated in Figure 3, we can observe that the audience’s interest in specific panic buying–related items generated a higher number of impressions that their interest in other items in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. For example, the audience’s interest in hand sanitizer produced a higher number of impressions than their interest in other items such as canned or frozen food. The number of impressions related to the audience’s interest in hand sanitizer spiked in April and declined again in May. Unsurprisingly, given its population size, the United States had a higher number of impressions than the United Kingdom and Canada.

We then examined gender differences in panic buying–related impressions over time. In terms of panic buying of hand sanitizer and soap, the female audience on Google Ads had a higher number of impressions than the male audience in March, April, and May (Figure 4). However, in terms of panic buying of disposable gloves, the male audience on Google Ads had a higher number of impressions than the female audience in March, April, and May.

We examined parental status differences in panic buying–related impressions over time. As shown in Figure 5, we can observe that the parent audience had a higher number of impressions related to panic buying of hand sanitizers and soap than the not parent audience in March. This changed in April and May, when the not parent audience tended to have a higher number of impressions related to panic buying of hand sanitizer and soap.

The number of impressions related to panic buying is counted each time your ad is shown on sites on the Google Display Network. This indicates that the number of impressions in our data set can be used to look at exposure to or presentation of advertisements during the COVID-19 pandemic. As indicated, a higher number of impressions corresponds to more time spent browsing by the audience. This could lead to further studies that look at the impact of the number of impressions and time spent web browsing on health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. This would build on previous studies that disclosed that time spent browsing the web is positively related to loneliness and negatively related to life satisfaction [18]. Given that the number of impressions in our data set is disaggregated by gender and parental status, this provides the opportunity to look at differences in time spent online and any resulting differences in health outcomes between the male and female audience as well as between the parent and not parent audience.

There are several limitations to our data set. First, the number of impressions have been retrieved for three countries only (the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada). Second, Google Ads does not provide documentation to explain how their algorithms estimate the number of impressions. For example, it is unclear whether the number of ads that are shown on specific web pages or the time people spent browsing specific pages influences what is counted as an impression. Similarly, it is unclear how long an attribute such as “actively researching or planning [something]” remains attributed to a user after they stop researching or planning. Third, our research considers only the English-speaking audience in Canada so more appropriate statistical evaluation is needed to compare the distributional similarity between French-speaking and English-speaking audiences in Canada. Fourth, our data collection started in late March 2020 and we therefore missed collecting impressions during major developments in January and February. Finally, this work does not observe daily fluctuations of impressions, given that the data collection was done on a monthly basis. Moreover, this research captures those who use Google, but it is very important to be aware that not everyone uses Google and these people would not be considered in this research.

Despite the limitations of this work, we will continue collecting the number of impressions for additional countries beyond the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Currently, we have set the language spoken to “all language.” It would be useful to compare the number of impressions for different languages spoken in each country in our data set. For instance, it would be useful to compare the number of impressions for the French language with the number of impressions for the English language in Canada.