The power of share of search in online retailers

Search is the gateway to discovering and buying products online.

One of the data points we often share with CPG clients is that 35% of products added to the basket come through search. What’s more, position on the page is everything. A huge 60% of all adds-to-basket from search are from the first four positions, and 70% of all products added to basket from search come from the first page of results.

These stats drive home just why our digital shelf experts are always going on about the importance of optimizing for search. (And why we continue to write extensively about search strategy on this blog, most recently about how CPGs should approach retail SEO and the relationship between paid retail search and organic SEO.) It really is that simple: If you don’t get the fundamentals right on search, your products won’t be visible to consumers and your brand won’t stand a chance on the digital shelf.

Optimizing for search naturally involves a fair bit of navel-gazing. Digital marketing teams end up spending hours poring over content, making sure that product titles, product descriptions, and taxonomy are up to scratch and meet the requirements of individual retailers.

But it’s important to remember that searching is not a solo sport. It is always a competitive (and at times combative) endeavor where you are jostling for position with other brands and products. This means your search performance is not entirely within your control—rival brands may deploy tactics to actively push you down the page and out of the category.

This is a common blind spot for brand owners. People get so focused on their own search strategy that they forget to pay attention to what everyone else is doing.

Enter share of search—a key metric that helps brand owners understand how they’re doing in search relative to others and take defensive action to safeguard their brands’ visibility on the digital shelf. Share of search is calculated by comparing the search queries for a specific brand to the total search queries for all the brands within a given category.

What is a brand’s share of search and why does it matter?

In simple terms, share of search (SOS) is the percentage of search results your brand appears in for a particular search term. You can measure SOS for general online search queries (typically by examining Google search trends) and for individual retailer websites.

Share of search has risen the agenda in marketing circles in recent years, as a growing number of marketers have embraced it as an alternative to share of voice (SOV) for measuring and predicting market share and growth. This shift highlights the importance of brand metrics in evaluating a brand’s market presence and consumer interest. Writing in Marketing Week in September 2020, UK marketing professor Mark Ritson argued that “understanding your share of search queries is a simple and elegant alternative” to traditional SOV metrics.

In the context of digital shelf analytics, the share of search is used mainly to show brand owners how their brands are performing online versus the competition and to sense-check and refine search strategies. This search metric goes beyond traditional measures of visibility by revealing actual consumer behavior and interest.

Here’s how it works. The majority of customers search in one of two ways: Their searches are either very brand-specific or very product-specific. A shopper looking for toothpaste will typically search for a specific toothpaste brand or generic search terms such as ‘toothpaste’ or ‘tartar control’ or ‘whitening’.

When we monitor and analyze the share of search for our CPG clients using our ‘Easy to Buy’ fundamental, we look at the entire category’s first page results for all relevant generic search terms as well as brand names. So, if your search term is ‘toothpaste’ and you want to understand your share of search for that term for a particular retailer, we’ll look at the number of your products that show up on that retailer’s first page for ‘toothpaste’ versus your key competitors.

This gives you two important insights. Because we gather data at the entire category level, you get a more holistic and realistic view of your search performance than you get by looking at individual SKUs in isolation. Search volume data can be easily obtained and compared with competitors’ branded organic searches to derive valuable insights. Your share of search is literally your representation in the category against key competitors for that retailer. Tracking a brand’s share over time helps gauge consumer interest and refine marketing strategies.

You also get to see search from the customer’s point of view. This is how you show up when shoppers search for you, your products, and your category in the real world.

Calculating share of search

Calculating share of search is a straightforward process that can provide valuable insights into your brand’s online presence. Essentially, it involves determining the proportion of organic search queries that your brand captures within a specific category. The formula is simple:

Share of Search = (Number of Branded Organic Search Queries / Total Number of Branded Searches) x 100

For instance, if your brand receives 10,000 branded organic search queries and the total number of branded searches in your category is 50,000, your share of search would be:

Share of Search = (10,000 / 50,000) x 100 = 20%

This means your brand commands 20% of the search results for its branded keywords. Understanding this metric helps you gauge your brand’s visibility and effectiveness in capturing organic search queries, providing a clear picture of your competitive standing.

Search volume and intent

When analyzing share of search, two critical factors to consider are search volume and intent. Search volume refers to the number of searches performed for a particular keyword or phrase, while intent delves into the reason behind those searches.

Understanding these elements can significantly enhance your content and marketing strategies. For example, if your brand’s share of search is low for a specific keyword, it might indicate that the keyword isn’t resonating with your target audience or that your content isn’t optimized for search engines.

Google Trends is an invaluable free tool for analyzing search volume and intent. By leveraging Google Trends data, brands can uncover trends and patterns in search data, including search volume, search interest, and keyword search volume trends. This insight allows brands to tailor their strategies to better capture their audience’s attention and improve their overall search performance.

Taking defensive action on the digital shelf with search engines

Monitoring share of search also gives CPGs an early warning system against potentially damaging search tactics from competitors. Even well-optimized brands can fall victim to aggressive moves from rivals because position on page is crucial when it comes to search.

Especially with sponsored search, your competition can buy your brand and your search terms, and they can drive you down the page and, by extension, out of the category. We often challenge our CPG clients on this: By the time you’re on page 2, 3, or 4 of search results, are you even in the category anymore?

That’s why it’s critical to keep a close eye on the competition. Monitoring share of search can help assess the ongoing impact of marketing campaigns on brand visibility and awareness. Use share of search to really understand what your rivals are doing in search, so you can take defensive action early to protect your visibility.

Finally, share of search helps CPGs gauge salience and anticipate changes in shopper behavior and sales by connecting the dots between search performance and the impact on sales and market share.

The CPG clients we work with will typically combine our share of search data with data on their own sales and total category sales to estimate market share, and to see how share of first page results relates to their online and brick-and-mortar sales. You’ll often get some great aha moments for brand teams that way. It’s really powerful when teams can tie share of search back to sales and see how, say, a 1% increase in their share of search relates to half of a percent increase in sales.

Once your eyes have been opened to the power of share of search, it’s a digital shelf metric you won’t want to do without.

Improving online visibility

Boosting your online visibility is crucial for increasing your share of search. Here are some effective strategies to consider:

1. Optimize content for search engines: Ensure your content is optimized for search engines by incorporating relevant keywords, meta tags, and descriptions. This helps improve your ranking and visibility in search results.
2. Increase brand search volume: Create high-quality content that resonates with your target audience to drive up your brand search volume. Engaging and informative content encourages more organic searches for your brand.
3. Use paid advertising: Paid advertising can significantly enhance your online visibility, allowing you to reach a broader audience and drive more traffic to your site.
4. Monitor and track share of search: Regularly monitor and track your share of search to identify areas for improvement. This ongoing analysis helps you stay ahead of competitors and adjust your strategies as needed.
5. Improve Brand Health: Focus on building a strong brand identity, fostering trust with your audience, and providing excellent customer service. A healthy brand is more likely to attract and retain customers, boosting your overall search performance.

By implementing these strategies and using a digital shelf analytics tool, you can enhance your online visibility and increase your share of search, ensuring your brand remains competitive in the digital marketplace.