In today’s world where every piece of information is just a fingertip away, shoppers have become smart and aware. Accordingly, the brands have to be on their toes to understand what’s on the consumer’s mind. Along with it, it’s also essential for brands to keep track of their competitor’s moves. While the traditional approaches have their own space, the universal metric of Share of Search is set to open a door of effective business insights and therefore more opportunities.
61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority.
Learn how Share of Search can change your digital commerce game and help you compete with utmost transparency and efficiency in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
What is Share of Search?
The simplest way to explain Share of Search is, that it is the percentage of search results on a particular keyword for which a brand appears. An SOS can be measured for general search queries on search engines and eCommerce marketplaces.
Share of search is a powerful metric for eCommerce marketers to understand and predict their market share and growth. In terms of digital shelf analytics, the share of search enables brand owners to get transparency of how their brands are performing online in comparison to their competition, get an insight into their brand performance and also revamp their search strategies.
Is Share of Search a substitute for Share of Voice?
There is an existing misconception that Share of Voice (SOV) can be substituted by Share of Search as both are derived from the same concept. Share of Voice determines the market share success by comparing the brand’s advertising spend with total media expenditure within the industry.
Whereas the share of search is determined based on how many times a brand’s keyword is organically typed rather than how much is spent to capture the market share.
Share of search gives a fair idea of a brand’s organic reach in digital platforms. By leveraging advanced intelligence solutions, one can better understand the search behaviour of a shopper – like if people are comparing products or trying to learn how to use the products based on keyword searches.
Therefore, it will not be a substitute but a collaboratively used metric to understand the pulse of the market, make crucial business decisions based on market position, and create effective strategies to stay relevant.
How Search Drives a Shopper’s Behaviour?
Today’s shoppers are smart and fast unlike earlier. And to tap the interest of these fast consumers, search plays a crucial role. Your product is just a quick search away. From discovering new and trending products, researching via reviews and ratings or even exploring other options, comparing prices and checking quality, they leverage the internet for everything before buying.
Therefore, it has become essential for brands to stay on top of their search game to ensure they don’t get overshadowed by competitors.
How does Share of Search Help to Stay Ahead of the Game?
According to a study conducted by James Hankins, the share of search entails 83% of a brand’s market share. When used ideally, this metric not only provides the brand’s market position but also enables marketers to accumulate search insights based on geography and product category, thereby understanding consumer preferences.
Share of search can help brands to:
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Appear In The Front Shelf
Stats say there are up to 60% higher chances of adding to a cart if a brand’s product appears within the first four search results. Imagine, your loyal customer is at the shampoo aisle looking for their favourite brand. But when searching your competitor’s product overshadows your product by taking the prime position in the aisle. This similar happens in online shopping when your competitors appear above you in the search results when looking for “shampoo”.
If your share of search is weak, there will be a higher chance of discovery for your competitor’s product until it goes out of stock. By understanding the competing brand’s share of search, you can identify the hidden tactics in the product detail pages (PDPs) and optimize them to appear on top of the digital shelf.
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Be Known for What You Do Best
Improve your brand’s positioning by covering not just branded but also non-branded keywords. According to an experiment done by HP in 2022, they found that there was a rapid rise in generic search terms like “best laptops”.
This experiment increased to 8.2% of customers shifting from consideration to purchase decision. The metric provides a wide coverage to the brand across both branded and non-branded keywords leaving a deeper impact on the customer’s mind.
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Stay ahead of competitor’s move
The product display pages [PDPs] require frequent updates to stay relevant in the dynamic environment of eCommerce businesses. 76% of the shoppers prioritise detailed product descriptions as a significant attribute when shopping.
By keeping track of the share of search, marketers can effectively improve the product descriptions, outdated images and missing sections along with incorporating the best-performing keywords.
This means that if you own a homemade product brand, the metric must be able to help showcase your product even when a person searches “homemade”.
Stay Ahead of Competitors with Insight-driven Analytics
The behaviour of a consumer’s search behaviour is dynamic and monitoring it is an ongoing process. It differs according to the stage in which a customer stands. Whether they are looking for a solution, or comparing the products with competitor’s products. All these lead to making the final decision.
To keep track of these dynamic changes, the brands require a holistic and advanced eCommerce analytics solution. mScanIt is a ecommerce competitive analysis that helps to fulfil these requirements and more with a comprehensive dashboard that enables one to keep track of search rankings and provides a transparent overview of the brand’s visibility.
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