Will SearchShare work for my business?
Is Share of Search (SoS) effective across the marketing landscape? Does it have the same strong correlation to Share of Market (SoM) in different types of industries, countries and languages? Will SearchShare work for my particular type of business?
Understanding specific categories is important, but the answer is yes. Share of Search = Share of Market across categories, countries, and languages. The correlation does vary slightly but it is dynamic. So, when Share of Search changes, so does Share of Market. It represents a good proxy for the aggregate mental availability for brands.
A wide-ranging research study took 30 case studies, 12 categories and 7 countries. It found an average 83% correlation between Share of Search and Share if Market across all cases*. The study was conducted over a 12-month period, to help smooth out short-term noise and give an accurate analysis.
Both demand and supply factors play into this correlation. On the supply side there are components such as distribution, physical availability and product quality to incorporate. For example, you may be searching for a product but if you can’t physically buy it, the correlation will be skewed.
Lastly, much of this analysis looked at value share (share of revenue). However, in some sectors where there was another critical conversion e.g. education (share of graduates), to take into account.
My business is really complex
Another question that comes up a lot is business type. Not all businesses are simple, right?
What if you are a business that has multiple product lines driving revenue, for example? Can SoS still be an accurate leading indicator here?
There’s a simple formula to help break this down across the marketing landscape.
Share of Search can still be used by applying a factor related to the % of total company revenue delivered by that product. This means that if a brand is driving 30% of revenue from Product A, then factor SoS indices by 30%. This works as all that is happening is apportioning the metric by revenue split (SoS = SoR).
Brands can then get an accurate view of Share of Search across their business product lines and as a composite view.
Tracking for business success
Whatever business type a brand may be, or whatever category or location it finds itself in, it’s likely that Share of Search can be used as a predictive measure to track brand advertising.
SearchShare supports brands with its long-term forecasting accuracy to be an early warning system and is a powerful data tool on what people are going to do, think, feel and buy.
It can help your business based not on what people are saying but what they are doing online, providing you with a huge database of audience intentions.
Tracking your brand with this metric allows you to measure the relative level of interest in your brand, compared to other brands in your category.
What to get ahead of the curve, too? Sign up for SearchShare today!