Understanding Share of Voice: The Digital Brand’s North Star Metric

Part 1 of our 3-part series on mastering Share of Voice for digital brand success

Ah, the joy. The moment when you pull up your monthly performance dashboard and see those trend lines heading in the right direction. A rare point of agreement for both client and consultant. That steady climb in Search Performance KPIs isn’t just a validation of the underlying strategy; it’s a clear signal that your brand is gaining ground in the digital battlefield.

But what exactly are we looking at here, and why does it matter so much for a digital Brand?

Understanding Search Performance: The Digital Battleground

In a digital-first world, your brand’s search performance is arguably its most critical competitive advantage. Think about it – when was the last time you, or anyone you know, made a significant purchase decision without consulting Google? Search performance represents your brand’s ability to be present and prominent when potential customers are looking for solutions you provide.

But what exactly constitutes search performance? At its core, it’s your brand’s visibility and ranking in search engines compared to your competitors across the keywords that matter in your market. It’s not just about ranking well for a few terms – it’s about dominating the digital conversation in your industry.

Ranking position equates to being found, being ‘in the game’, to be seen by prospective customers at the top of the search funnel.

Share of Voice vs Position Score: The Two Pillars of Search Performance

At Cressive DX, we summarize search performance through two high-level KPIs: Position Score and Share of Voice (SOV). While both are important, they serve different purposes and provide different insights.

Position Score is the simpler of the two metrics. It provides a straightforward summary of your SERP (Search Engine Results Page) positions across all your target keywords.

For instance – from the below chart (which our tech team calls the “position tube map”) Cressive ranks No. 1 for the keyword Digital Brand Governance in March 2025.

Each keyword has similar daily position data that we collect, which when averaged out over all keywords and a period of time leads to Position Score. Think of it as your brand’s average ranking report card. It’s useful because:

• It gives you a quick snapshot of your overall ranking health
• It’s easy to understand and communicate to stakeholders
• It helps track basic SEO progress over time

But Share of Voice? That’s where things get really interesting.

Share of Voice goes beyond simple rankings to tell a more powerful story. While Position Score tells you where you rank, SOV reveals how much of the market you actually own by measuring your brand’s share of the digital conversation. It’s a sophisticated metric that analyses your visibility across search results, weighted by search volume and click-through rates. It takes into account:

• The actual search volume for each keyword
• The click-through rates at different positions
• Your competitors’ presence and rankings
• Both organic and paid search results
• The relative importance of different keywords in your market

This complexity makes SOV a more accurate representation of your brand’s true digital market presence and potential impact, relative to your competition. As referenced in multiple contributors on shareofvoice.com, SOV has historically been one of the most reliable predictors of market share growth, and in the digital age, this relationship has become even more pronounced.

Furthermore, as we cover here, a focus on Share of Voice/ Share of Search delivers value to the business in the short term.

The Market Dimensions of Share of Voice

The Keyword Dimension: Defining Your Market Space

Your market isn’t just about what you sell – it’s about the entire conversation surrounding your industry. Think of keywords as the language your potential customers use when they’re in your market space. This language can be understood through two complementary lenses:

First, looking at user intent:

• Problem Space Keywords: Terms people use when trying to understand or solve a problem (e.g., “how to gain muscle mass”)
• Solution Space Keywords: Terms related to specific solutions or product categories (e.g., “whey protein powder”)

Second, considering the buyer’s journey:

• Awareness Stage: Broad industry terms and educational queries (e.g., “what causes hair loss”)
• Consideration Stage: Comparison and evaluation terms (e.g., “minoxidil vs finasteride”)
• Conversion Stage: Purchase-intent keywords (e.g., “buy hair loss treatment online”)

Importantly, your market definition specifically excludes brand-specific terms (like your company name or product names). Why? Because brand searches don’t represent market share – they represent brand awareness. To truly understand your competitive position, you need to focus on non-branded searches where you’re competing for new customers. This becomes even more critical in the era of Google’s AI Overviews which are changing search behaviour, especially at the top of the funnel.

The Platform Dimension: Where the Conversations Happen

While Google remains the dominant player in search, the digital landscape has evolved significantly, especially post-2020. Here’s how the platform dimension breaks down:

As discussed in our Top 5 DM issues for 2025 article, we know the customer journey is becoming more non-linear and ‘across channel’ so data capture of these platforms and attribution to each of them is key to understanding the complete picture.

The Location Dimension

Geographic location of the searcher is also an important dimension as search results are localised and are becoming more so. This dimension is more important to search engine platforms rather than social media and community-based platforms.

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In our next article (Part 2 of the series), we’ll dive deeper into how Share of Voice is calculated and analyse a real-world example that demonstrates its impact on digital performance. We’ll explore the science behind the metric and reveal how leading brands are using it to drive measurable growth.

To learn more about how Cressive DX can help you measure and improve your brand’s Share of Voice, contact our team for a personalised demonstration of our DX Spotlight platform.