Share of voice is a powerful metric. It reveals exactly how much your brand is being talked about compared to your competitors.

Share of voice (SOV) includes metrics such as mentions on social media, advertising impressions, and your ranking on search engine results pages. The idea is to add all the data together and then compare it to like-for-like data sets for your industry. With this calculation, you can work out the size of your slice of the pie compared to your competitors. The result is a good indicator of brand health.

In this guide, we'll walk you through exactly how to measure share of voice across different marketing channels and what you can do to analyze that data.

We'll also look at how you can use those insights to improve your brand's performance.

What is share of voice and why does it matter?

Share of voice refers to how much of the conversation your brand dominates compared to competitors within your industry or market segment. Think of it this way: if all the online conversations about your industry were represented as a pie, what size slice would your brand own?

Historically, share of voice began as a metric primarily used in paid advertising to measure the percentage of ad space or air time a brand captured compared to the total market. However, as digital marketing evolved, so did the concept of share of voice. Today, it encompasses a brand's visibility across numerous channels, including:

  • Organic search results
  • Paid advertising impressions
  • Social media mentions and engagement
  • PR and media coverage
  • Industry conversations

The importance of measuring share of voice extends beyond simple visibility metrics. A strong share of voice can mean that you have increased brand awareness and recognition, as well as a greater market share and business growth.

Research consistently shows a correlation between a brand's share of voice and its share of market. According to Nielsen research, brands with a higher share of voice relative to their market share tend to grow, while those with lower share of voice typically see declining market share.

The share of voice formula: How to calculate SOV

Before diving into channel-specific measurement approaches, it's important to understand the fundamental formula for calculating share of voice.

Share of voice % = (Your brand metrics ÷ total market metrics) × 100

For example, if your brand gets 500 mentions on Instagram, and your industry as a whole (including competitors) gets 10,000 mentions, then your share of voice on Instagram would be 5%.

This straightforward formula is always the same regardless of the channel you're measuring, though the specific metrics will vary depending on what you're analyzing. Let's look at how to apply this formula across different marketing channels.

How to measure share of voice across different marketing channels

Share of voice can be applied to any channel where your brand or industry is mentioned. In this section, we'll look at how to calculate share of voice on different types of channels.

Measuring SEO share of voice

SEO share of voice represents your brand's visibility in organic search results compared to competitors. As organic search drives approximately 53% of website traffic, understanding your SEO share of voice can tell you a lot about your digital marketing success.

To calculate SEO share of voice, you'll need to track:

  1. Organic keyword rankings: How many keywords your site ranks for compared to competitors
  2. Search visibility: The percentage of all possible organic traffic your site captures
  3. Organic impressions: How often your site appears in search results
  4. Click-through rates: The percentage of impressions that result in clicks

You can use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to track these metrics. Ahrefs will give you a dedicated "Visibility" metric that represents your share of voice for a set of keywords, and SEMrush provides "Market Share" and "Position Tracking" features to monitor ranking positions.

Here's the step-by-step process for measuring your brand's share of voice:

  1. Identify your top competitors for organic search
  2. Compile a comprehensive list of relevant keywords for your industry
  3. Track rankings for these keywords across all competitors
  4. Calculate the weighted visibility based on search volume and position
  5. Apply the SOV formula: Your organic visibility ÷ total market visibility × 100

For example, if your website receives 15,000 monthly organic searches for your target keywords, and the total market (including competitors) receives 100,000 searches, your organic search share of voice would be 15%.

Measuring PPC share of voice

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an effective way of marketing your brand while sticking to a defined budget. Calculating your PPC share of voice helps you understand whether your return on investment (ROI) was worth it. PPC share of voice (often called "impression share" in Google Ads) helps you understand how much of the available paid advertising space your brand has captured compared to competitors.

To calculate PPC share of voice, track:

  1. Impression share: The percentage of impressions your ads received compared to the total impressions they were eligible to receive.
  2. Click share: The percentage of clicks your ads received compared to the estimated total clicks they could have received.
  3. Absolute top impression share: How often your ads appear in the very top position.

Here's the step-by-step process for measuring PPC share of voice:

  1. In Google Ads, navigate to Campaigns, Ad Groups, or Keywords
  2. Click the Columns icon and select "Competitive metrics"
  3. Add impression share columns to your report
  4. Analyze your impression share data against total available impressions

For example, if your impression share is 40%, it means your ads showed up in 40% of the auctions you were eligible for, giving you a 40% PPC share of voice in your market segment.

Google Ads also allows you to see reasons for lost impression share, such as running out of budget or rank issues (your ad rank was too low to win the auction).

This information is invaluable for improving your PPC share of voice through better keyword and campaign settings.

Measuring social media share of voice

Social media share of voice measures how much of the social conversation around your industry or product category is about your brand compared to your competitors.

To calculate social media SOV you'll need to track:

  1. Brand mentions: Direct mentions of your brand name, products, or campaigns
  2. Hashtag usage: Branded hashtags associated with your company
  3. Engagement metrics: Likes, comments, shares, and overall interaction rates
  4. Conversation volume: The total number of posts discussing topics relevant to your industry

Brandwatch and CisionOne are great social media tracking tools, as both offer comprehensive social listening and analytics.

Here's the step-by-step process for measuring social media SOV:

  1. Identify your key competitors and relevant industry topics
  2. Set up monitoring for brand mentions, hashtags, and industry keywords
  3. Collect mention data across all major social media platforms
  4. Calculate your brand's total mentions
  5. Divide by the total mentions in your category (your brand + all competitors)
  6. Multiply by 100 to get your percentage

For example, if your brand receives 2,500 mentions in a month, and the total industry conversation includes 10,000 mentions across all brands, your social media share of voice would be 25%.

Many social listening tools also offer sentiment analysis, allowing you to measure both the volume of conversation and whether that conversation is positive, negative, or neutral. This qualitative dimension adds critical context to your share of voice metrics.

Measuring PR and media share of voice

PR share of voice measures your brand's presence in news articles, press releases, industry publications, and other media outlets compared to competitors.

To calculate PR share of voice, you'll need to track:

  1. Media mentions: How often your brand appears in news sources
  2. Publication reach: The audience size of outlets featuring your brand
  3. Article prominence: Whether your brand is the focus or merely mentioned
  4. Message penetration: How well your key messages are being picked up

As for tools, you can use Brandwatch for easier tracking – the former offers extensive PR monitoring and analytics, while the latter is known for extensive social listening capabilities.

Here's the step-by-step process for measuring PR share of voice:

  1. Define the media outlets and publication types most relevant to your industry
  2. Set up monitoring for your brand and key competitors
  3. Collect mention data over a set period (typically monthly or quarterly)
  4. Apply weighting factors based on publication importance if necessary
  5. Calculate your total weighted mentions
  6. Divide by the total industry mentions and multiply by 100

For example, if your PR team secured 35 media placements in a quarter, and the total industry (including competitors) received 140 placements, your PR share of voice would be 25%.

How to use share of voice data in strategic decision making

Once you've established a system for measuring share of voice across marketing channels, the next challenge is turning that data into actionable insights.

Identifying opportunities for growth

Share of voice data can reveal specific areas where your brand has room to expand.

For example, you might identify what's known as 'channel gaps' (marketing channels where your SOV lags significantly behind competitors) or 'topic opportunities' (conversations where your voice is missing).

You might also find specific audience segments where your brand has low visibility, or geographic regions where your share of voice is weaker.

Through this analysis, you should look out for specific campaign opportunities and seasonal or trend-based openings for increased share.

For example, if your analysis shows strong SOV in organic search but a weak presence on social media platforms, this indicates an opportunity to increase investment in social content creation and community engagement.

Measuring marketing campaign effectiveness

Share of voice metrics provide a helpful framework for evaluating campaign performance. For example, if you track your SOV before campaign launch, this will give you a baseline to compare against during the campaign and after.

You'll get a clear picture of whether the campaign impacted your brand's voice share. You can also compare SOV gains against the money you've spent on a campaign to get an ROI figure.

This approach allows marketing teams to quantify the impact of their efforts beyond immediate conversion metrics, showing how campaigns contribute to broader brand visibility and market position.

Aligning share of voice with business objectives

To get the most out of your share of voice measurement, it's worth checking to see how it measures up with your overall business goals.

You could, for example, track the correlation between SOV increases and market share gains.

SOV also acts as a good indicator of brand awareness and brand recognition. What’s more, you can get a good idea of your competitive positioning if you compare your SOV data to that of your competitors.

If you've got a product launch coming up, you could measure the SOV impact during the roll-out. Tracking your SOV can even be interesting during a crisis, as it can help you monitor reputation challenges.

You can get really specific with this by working SOV into your goals. For example, if you're launching a new product you might set a goal to achieve 30% share of voice in industry conversations about that specific product category within six months of launch, with specific targets for each marketing channel.

Improving PPC share of voice

To capture more paid advertising visibility, you'll need to look at your budget and see if you can invest a little more in high-performing campaigns.

You could also make bid adjustments for valuable keywords or refine your audience targeting by focusing on segments with a better potential for ROI.

Targeting relevant keywords that your competitors are using with success is another option.

To help with all this, Google Ads provides impression share columns that show exactly how much additional share is available and why you're missing out (budget or rank reasons). This data offers a roadmap for improving your PPC share of voice through better keyword and campaign settings.

Improving social media share of voice

To see more mentions of your brand in social media conversations, you should primarily focus on creating content that resonates with the interests of your target audience.

After that, you could try a few engagement tactics to increase interaction and get people talking about your brand. Influencer partnerships are great for spreading that conversation to other parts of social media, as is a bit of active community building (for example, taking part in relevant conversations).

Social listening can also be a good tool for identifying trending topics so that you can then use these for creating timely content. 

Consistency is key when managing social media accounts. This is because brands with the highest social media SOV typically tend to be visible and focused on constant engagement rather than popping up on social media sporadically.

Improving PR share of voice

To enhance your brand's media coverage, you could try developing stronger relationships with key journalists or position executives from your company as industry experts to provide thought leadership.

Publishing original research with interesting data revelations can also generate stories and coverage in the media. A bit of press release optimization might also help with crafting more compelling announcements.

Having some high-quality and attention-grabbing visuals to hand can also make coverage more likely.

Your PR team should also regularly analyze media channels where competitors receive coverage but your brand doesn't. This analysis can reveal new outlets to target and topics to address in future PR efforts.

The best share of voice tools and software

The right tools can help you get an accurate, efficient share of voice measurement. 

In this section, we'll break down some of the leading options based on channel specialization and comprehensive capabilities.

All-in-one share of voice tools

For brands who want to check on their SOV measurement across all channels at once, Brandwatch can provide advanced analytics. As a bonus, you'll also get AI-powered insights and custom dashboards.

Alternatively, CisionOne can provide real-time print, online, TV, radio, and social media monitoring.

Channel-specific share of voice tools

For brands focusing on specific marketing channels, you might want to consider a channel-specific tool, like one of those mentioned above.

For example, Ahrefs or SEMrush have features that will help to track your SEO share of voice, while Google Ads will tell you more about your impression share from advertising.

Again, Brandwatch and CisionOne are also great if you want to drill down specifically on social media or PR coverage.

The tools you choose will likely depend on your channel coverage needs, budget constraints, and the other tools you're already using, since integration is key.

Most vendors offer product demonstrations, allowing you to evaluate which platform best meets your specific share of voice measurement needs. If you're just getting started, our guide on choosing the right social media monitoring tool can help you navigate the options.

Making share of voice central to marketing success

Measuring share of voice is no longer optional for brands seeking competitive advantage in crowded markets – it's pretty much essential if you want to increase your market share and brand awareness.

As we've explored throughout this guide, SOV provides invaluable insights across all marketing channels, helping brands understand their position, identify opportunities, and quantify the impact of their marketing efforts.

By tracking your share of voice, you can benchmark your brand's visibility against competitors, and identify specific channels and topics for growth.

You can also quantify the impact of marketing campaigns and detect growth opportunities.

This all helps with making more informed resource allocation decisions.

Whether you're just beginning to track share of voice or looking to enhance your existing measurement approach, the strategies and tools outlined in this guide should give you a roadmap for success. Start with the channels most relevant to your business, establish consistent measurement processes, and gradually expand to a comprehensive voice analysis framework.

Remember that share of voice is not simply a vanity metric – it's a fundamental indicator of your brand's market presence and a proven predictor of business growth. By making share of voice central to your marketing strategy, you position your own brand for sustainable success in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Ready to improve your brand's share of voice? Start by establishing baseline measurements across your primary marketing channels, identifying your strongest competitors, and creating a regular reporting cadence. For more guidance on implementing effective marketing measurement, explore our other resources on social media analytics and competitive benchmarking tools.