Share of Search as a key metric to monitor your brand performance

The internet has made it challenging to accurately measure brands’ Share of Voice. Luckily, Share of Search is a simple but powerful metric using search interest to indicate how your brand is performing and its market share.

Traditional share of voice (SOV) metrics don’t work in the digital era

Traditionally, Share of Voice was a key metric for marketers. However, the rise of online media means it can no longer be calculated accurately. Share of Voice only works if you know how much advertising exists in a particular category. With the many channels available today, that task is close to impossible.

Monitoring social media mentions doesn’t work either. The brands people talk about most on social media are often the ones they’re least likely to buy.

What is Share of Search?

Share of Search is a Share of Voice that works in the digital era. Whilst Share of Search uses organic search data, it is more than just an SEO metric. Share of searches is the share of organic Google search queries (not share of paid search advertising) and equates to total searches for a specific brand, divided by the total searches for all brands in that category.

Share of Search is easy to calculate:

Share of Search = Searches for your brand / Searches for all brands in category

Calculating your brand’s Share of Search comes with several advantages. As more consumers change their behaviour towards online channels for investigating and purchasing products, the volume in organic search and advertising increases making Share of Search an important metric and leading indicator on brand performance and market share.

1. Quick and easy to calculate Share of Search
   As shared above, you can calculate your Share of Search by knowing your brand search volume.
2. Predict market share
   Focusing on activities further down the conversion funnel will give you a more accurate market share predictor.
3. It is useful to more marketers
   Share of Search is not based on advertising spend, thus it is universal. This means it can benefit any business, regardless of size or budget.

Do you want us to calculate your Share of Search, or are you interested in how you can act on it?

Why use Share of Search to measure brand performance and market share?

Compared to other measurements, Share of Search is a simple and cost-effective way to measure the performance of your brand and your competitors’ brands.

In terms of its effectiveness, studies by Les Binet and Hankins show a clear correlation between Share of Search and market share.

Share of Search correlates with market share

Across numerous studies spanning many categories and countries, there has been an average of 83% correlation between Share of Search and market share.

How do you improve Share of Search?

Advertising is a key driver for your brand’s Share of Search. The more people know about your business, the more your brand search increases. There are plenty of initiatives to boost interest and awareness, improving your Share of Search and, ultimately, your market share.

The first step is to regularly monitor your brand performance by using Share of Search as your key metric to calculate your brand’s performance, competitors’ performance, and market share.

s360 Brand Performance Dashboard uses Share of Search as a key metric for brand health

At s360, we have created a Brand Performance Dashboard providing you with a visual dashboard containing profound data about your brand performance. You are getting:

• Four years of backfilled data
• Updated monthly with fresh data
• Date, country and brand filters
• Unlimited competitor brands

Use your search data to understand how your brand is performing

If you want us to deliver your monthly brand performance dashboard providing insights on how you and your brand are performing and how you can act on it, get in touch with:

Get your own Brand Performance Dashboard including selected competitor brands in only a few days. Reach out here and we will get back to you asap.