Share of Voice
The proportion of total market conversation or ad visibility that belongs to your brand compared to competitors. It can be measured across search, social, and advertising channels. In paid media, SOV is calculated as your ad impressions divided by total available impressions in the market. In organic search, SOV measures your visibility across tracked keywords versus competitors. In social media, SOV tracks brand mentions, hashtag usage, and conversation volume relative to the total category conversation.
Why It Matters
Share of voice is a leading indicator of market share. Brands that consistently maintain a higher share of voice than their market share tend to grow, while brands with declining share of voice typically lose ground to competitors over time. Research by Les Binet and Peter Field demonstrates that brands whose SOV exceeds their market share by 10 percentage points grow market share at roughly 0.5% per year. This principle, known as excess share of voice (eSOV), is one of the most validated predictive models in marketing effectiveness and guides long-term budget allocation.
Example
In the running shoes market, Brand A has 25% share of voice across paid search, social mentions, and display impressions, while holding only 18% market share. This positive gap predicts market share growth over the next 12 to 18 months. Using the eSOV framework, the 7-percentage-point surplus (25% SOV minus 18% market share) predicts approximately 0.35% annual market share growth. The brand increases paid search SOV from 25% to 30% in its highest-converting product category, which accelerates quarterly revenue growth by 12% and captures share primarily from competitors who reduced their advertising budgets.
Related Terms
Brand Lift
A measurement of the positive impact an advertising campaign has on brand perception, awareness, or purchase intent. It is typically measured through surveys comparing exposed and control groups using tools like Google Brand Lift, Meta Brand Lift, or third-party solutions like Kantar and Dynata. Key metrics include aided and unaided awareness, ad recall, brand favorability, consideration, and purchase intent. Brand lift studies require statistically significant sample sizes, typically 5,000 or more respondents per group, and run for 2 to 4 weeks alongside the campaign.
Engagement Rate
The percentage of an audience that interacts with content through likes, comments, shares, or saves. It is a primary metric for evaluating social media content performance and audience connection. The formula is total engagements divided by reach (or followers) multiplied by 100. Engagement rate can be calculated by reach, impressions, or follower count, each giving slightly different insights. Average engagement rates vary significantly by platform: Instagram averages 1.5-3%, TikTok 3-6%, LinkedIn 0.5-2%, and X (Twitter) 0.03-0.05% for organic posts.