Share of Search: what marketers need to know
In 30 seconds:
No matter your industry, Share of Search (SoS) is a key metric to understand and assess how your customers see you vs. your competitors.
There are different ways to calculate Share of Search - using Google trends data or third-party applications - we've provided handy guides on both.
If you're still scratching your head as to what Share of Search is, don't worry: we explain it all
Share of Search is, quite simply, a measure of the number of organic searches for your brand, compared to other brands in your category. It's a marketing metric that can help you predict market share and assess brand visibility in your sector amongst key search results.
With over 87% of all shoppers now beginning their purchase journey through digital search (a figure that's only increasing in recent years), understanding how much of that valuable search volume translates into familiarity with your brand is becoming increasingly important.
But how do you calculate Share of Search? and how can you understand it better? In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know.
How to measure share of search (SoS)
There are two main ways of calculating Share of Search. We’ll share each of these, step-by-step, in two separate guides. They are:
OPTION 1: Calculate Share of Search with Google Trends
As of August 2023, 91.85% of all search queries across all search engine providers took place on Google. So, it's common sense to be looking at Google - and using the search engine's own data is a reliable way to track share. Google trends search data isn't perfect for calculating SoS, however. Here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
Familiar, easy-to-use, free tool
Google trends data is, unsurprisingly, straight from Google
Long search history data (back to 2004)
Cons:
Only compares with up to 4 competitors
It can be tricky to make sure Google trends data is specific to a brand, especially if it's a small brand, and / or the brand has a generic name (like ‘Bottle’). This can be an issue when measuring brand searches.
Some data gaps, as this doesn’t include searches from other engines (like Bing).
Google doesn't give actual volumes of searches, just indexed levels , given as a percentage.
Our guide to calculating share of search with Google trends
If you decide on measuring share of search via Google trends, there are a few key steps to take. We've explained them all in our free guide. Hit the button below to level up your next search report.
OPTION 2: Calculate Share of Search with an SEO tool (such as Ahrefs)
As we've seen, Google alone can't always tell you all you need to know about this important metric. If you have a large competitor set, or want to be absolutely certain of brand search volume despite having a less 'ownable' name, for instance, it's worth considering suring up your search report with data from another tool, such as Ahrefs or SEMrush.
Pros:
You can be certain that these search queries are for the brand, since it traces back from traffic to the website URL (great for measuring branded terms!)
You can compare with an almost unlimited number of competitors, giving a more in-depth look at SoV in your product category.
You can include search volumes as a metric. These tools give estimates of search volumes, with the best on the market giving the most accurate data.
Cons:
Generally, it takes more expertise to use these tools
The best tools to use are paid-for
These tools don't tend to give as much search history - usually around 2 years.
Our guide to calculating share of search with Ahrefs
Using an SEO tool (like Ahrefs) will give you an indicator of the number of people who are searching and can bring extra dynamism to your search report as you can factor in more companies or competitors. Here's our how-to guide to measure SoS:
Understanding Share of Search: a handy explanation
Share of Search is being talked about more and more as a precise indicator of the market share of your brand compared to your competitors. It's the new metric that brands are substituting for Share of Voice - with the added benefit that you can measure it more cost effectively. But what is it, really? Here's what you need to know.
1. Share of Search is a Top of Funnel measure.
Share of search measures organic, branded search - which is traditionally associated with the middle of the funnel, as people search for brands they're already aware of. But Share of Search is different.
Share of Search measures the readiness of searchers to look for your brand – rather than just search generically. So it’s an indicator of the effectiveness of your brand-building efforts – like brand advertising and PR campaigns – in creating brand fame and salience.
2. Share of Search is a comparable measure.
Purely measuring the volumes of branded searches for your own brand, over a certain time period and in isolation, will show you the peaks of awareness created by a particular brand-building campaign - as it (hopefully) generates an increase in brand fame and an associated lift in branded search.
Share of Search, however, measures your brand against other competitors in your category. You can show this either as a comparison of search increases in the absolute volumes of branded search, or as a relative measure – i.e. your percentage versus the others in the basket of rival brands you’ve chosen.
3. Share of Search is a predictive measure.
Share of Voice has long been shown, empirically, to have a relationship to Share of Market (SoM), dating back to Peckham’s Formula. James Peckham worked for AC Nielsen and his research concluded that you should set this year’s advertising budget to achieve a SoV that's 1.5x your desired market share at the end of year 2. Subsequent research refined this relationship – including Binet and Field’s work to show that Excess Share of Voice leads to brand growth.
Share of Search has been shown to have this relationship, too, to SoM. It has been shown in one study to represent 83% of a brand’s market share.
Making smarter use of Share of Search data can even help you predict and influence outcomes further along the funnel, too. For example, in later stages along the customer journey, your customers' search terms may include reviews of your brand vs. your competitor. By grouping these searches together, you can identify potential blind spots or customer issues at the consideration or decision-making stage. Addressing these can help drive sales, thereby making organic search work much harder for you.
4. Share of Search is an easily accessible measure.
As our first guide shows, it can be incredibly simple – and free – to measure your brand’s Share of Search just using Google Trends – a brand tracker at your own fingertips.
With a little more expertise, and a small budget, you can improve on its accuracy. Especially if you, or one of your competitors, has a generic brand name that Google Trends won’t be able to identify searches for the brand amongst all the other generic searches. Our second how-to shows you how-to do this, too.
5. Share of Search is long-term metric
That same accessibility comes with a cautionary note. Share of Search is measuring a long-term thing: your brand-building. So, we advise against getting hooked on weekly (or daily) checks on SoS, like you might check sales figures. After all, SEO is a long game, and behavioural changes along your customer journey will take longer still. Instead, use Share of Search as a key metric to understand the state of play at defined intervals.
How often should you measure Share of Search? At most, we recommend using it quarterly, and usually annually – particularly as an input to the annual brand planning process.
6. Share of Search is a proxy measure, and a better one than Share of Voice.
Historically, brand marketers have used Share of Voice (SoV) as the Top of Funnel metric. It tries to measure your brand marketing spend, usually in advertising dollars, versus your competitors.
The flaws with measuring SoV are fairly obvious.
Share of Voice is an output measure – how much you’re spending – which doesn’t say anything about the effectiveness (outcome) of that advertising spend.
It’s difficult (read: expensive) to measure: you need the third-party data on your competitors to make the calculation.
This problem is amplified as the number of channels has increased. Traditional advertising media spend was easier to add up when you had outdoor + radio + cinema + TV. Now there are many more, often digital, channels. Even calculating your own ‘voice’ - never mind your competitors’ total media expenditure – is pretty complex.
Described by Marketing Week as a "leading indicator for market share", however, Share of Search offers a tantalising solution to the ever-more complex issue of calculating Share of Voice. Mark Ritson has called Share of Search a ’simple and elegant alternative’, because:
It’s measuring an outcome of brand-building, not an output.
It’s easy (read: also cheap) to calculate
It's simpler as it measures performance on (usually) one channel
It’s not perfect – not all brand awareness will be visible in branded search - but even for low-consideration categories (think: FMCG ‘impulse’ categories such as confectionery and snacks) - where volumes of search, and branded search – are not high, it doesn’t really matter, because you're comparing with other brands in the same category. The metrics you get will be relevant to your industry.
The most important metric for market share now
There's no two ways about it: your customers are googling. But are they googling you? Or are your competitors at the tips of their fingers instead? Knowing the answer to this -- and how far you have to go before you're the first brand they consider -- is arguably the most important metric to define share now.
If you want to grow your brand's Share of Search, our mix of PR expertise and the latest SEO prowess means we're uniquely placed to secure outstanding coverage for all the brands who work with us - driving that all-important 'top of the funnel' awareness - while building a strong SEO strategy that ensures customers always find you. Get in touch to find out how we can help.