Share of Voice: What It Is, What It Ain’t, and How It’s Calculated
Fair warning: This article will rely heavily (and deliciously) on an extended pie-related metaphor.
Measuring share of voice offers marketers invaluable insight into current market conditions and the competitive landscape therein. Organic share of voice and share of voice in paid search are snapshots – slices, if you will – of real-world conditions that impact both marketing results and your brand’s bottom line.
What Is Share of Voice?
Share of voice measures the percentage of a media space your brand occupies in relation to other market competitors. Historically, share of voice metrics were primarily used in paid search, but tools like Semrush and Moz have popularized organic share of voice for SEOs over the past several years.
Think of share of voice as a piece of pie. The size of the pie may vary seasonally or grow (and shrink) over time in reaction to broader macroeconomic forces (recessions, trends, global pandemics). Even as the size of the pie changes, brands still fight to grow or maintain their slice – that’s their share of voice.
Share of Voice vs. Share of Market
Market share represents the percentage of total sales within an industry generated by a company. Using share of voice as a proxy for market share is tempting, but the terms aren’t interchangeable. Share of voice focuses solely on a brand’s representation within a marketing channel, not sales, revenue or customer acquisition.
Take paid search; share of voice in paid is directly linked to digital advertising spend. A young brand flush with VC money could outspend a market incumbent for a few days, weeks, or even years, but the cost of buying paid search share of voice doesn’t immediately translate to more revenue.
How to Calculate Share of Voice…
Calculating share of voice varies slightly between paid and organic search, but we can use the paid search share of voice formula to get started:
Share of Voice (SOV) = (Your brand’s advertising spend / Total market advertising spend) x 100
The organic share of voice calculation is almost identical, but instead of advertising spend, it uses your brand’s organic search traffic as a percentage of the total market’s organic search traffic.
…and How to Measure Share of Voice
Measuring share of voice metrics accurately requires access to tools like Semrush, Moz, and Google Ads. These platforms aggregate total market data (the size of the pie) and your brand’s paid or organic representation (your slice of the pie) over your preferred time period.
Let’s run through an organic share of voice example.
A national quick-service restaurant chain (they’re huge these days) has identified 25 organic search terms it has deemed crucial to its business based on keyword volume, user intent, and the brand’s click-through rate. In short, the more of these terms it ranks for and the higher it ranks for them, the better.
Their organic share of voice calculation might look like this over the past 7-day period:
- Brand organic search traffic: 118,000
- Total market search volume: 1,100,000
- Organic SOV: 10.7%
That’s a huge share of organic traffic but over a short period. Share of voice changes constantly and for many reasons. For a QSR coffee shop, dozens of potential variables could impact their share of voice, from heat waves to competitor promotions to store closures. That’s why it’s important to reference share of voice metrics over short (weeks to months), long (quarters to years), and very long (years to decades) periods to get a real sense of your brand’s visibility and presence.
Smarter Marketing: Share of Voice and Goal Setting
Marketing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Brands often view marketing results without accounting for broader changes in their specific market or the broader economy. Franchise development marketing managers (as an example) scratching their heads at a 25% decline in new franchise sales need to look at the biggest picture and ask questions:
- Did the search volume for “plumbing franchise opportunities” (or related terms) also decline? When did the decline begin?
- Has our organic share of voice declined in proportion to the sales slowdown?
- Are there seasonal or long-term trends that mirror this most recent decline in new-store openings? What happened last time?
- What does a 1% decline in SOV translate to in sales? Is that relationship consistent?
Asking and answering these questions will immediately distinguish you as a marketer from industry peers who view green charts as good and red charts as unexplainable. Ultimately, share of voice is just one of many metrics that provide context to combined marketing, business, and industry trends, but a metric marketers ignore at their peril – don’t miss out on your slice of the pie!
