The acronym SOV in marketing stands for Share of Voice, which is a metric used to gauge a brand’s visibility relative to its competitors. It provides a measure of how much of the conversation or presence within a specific market belongs to one brand compared to others. Understanding this metric helps marketers assess competitive standing and determine the success of their communication efforts. Analyzing this relationship guides effective resource allocation and strategic brand building.
Defining Share of Voice
Share of Voice measures the percentage of all media mentions, advertising spend, or audience impressions within a defined market that a particular brand captures relative to its direct rivals. For example, if a market includes five brands and one brand accounts for 20% of the total industry attention, that is its Share of Voice.
The metric is tracked across a wide range of marketing channels, reflecting the complexity of modern consumer engagement. Historically, this included traditional media like television, radio, and print advertising. The concept has been extended significantly into the digital space, encompassing platforms like social media, paid search, display advertising, and organic search results.
Tracking SOV across digital channels involves measuring inputs like the volume of social media mentions, organic search impressions, or the percentage of paid ad views. A high SOV signifies that a brand is successfully capturing a larger portion of the available mindshare in its industry, providing insight into overall market awareness and competitive intensity.
Why Share of Voice is a Predictive Metric
Share of Voice operates as a leading indicator of future market performance. Research demonstrates a strong correlation between a brand’s SOV and its eventual Share of Market (SOM), often referred to as the Extra Share of Voice (ESOV) rule. This principle suggests that sustained market growth is achieved when a brand’s SOV is maintained at a level higher than its current SOM.
A brand that increases its visibility beyond its current sales volume creates ESOV, which translates into a gain in market share over time. For instance, studies by marketing effectiveness experts Binet and Field showed that a brand’s SOM gains approximately 0.5% for every 10% of ESOV it maintains. This insight transforms SOV into a tool for forecasting sales growth and justifying long-term budget planning.
Tracking SOV helps marketing leadership allocate budget effectively by highlighting channels where competitors are dominating the conversation. If a brand’s SOV lags behind its SOM, it suggests the brand is under-investing in communications and is likely to see its market share decline. Conversely, a high SOV signals that the brand is outspending or out-communicating its competition, guiding decisions regarding investment levels required to achieve growth targets.
Calculating Share of Voice
The calculation of Share of Voice follows a basic formula: dividing a brand’s total metric volume by the total metric volume of the entire market (including all competitors), then multiplying by 100 to get a percentage. The specific “metric” used varies significantly depending on the type of SOV being calculated.
The two primary methods are Spend-based SOV and Impression/Mention-based SOV. Spend-based SOV, the traditional approach, calculates a brand’s percentage of the total advertising expenditure within a category. For example, if a brand spends $2 million on advertising and the entire market spends $10 million, the brand’s SOV is 20%.
Impression-based SOV is prevalent in the digital sphere, relying on measurable volume like social media mentions, public relations coverage, or search engine visibility. In paid search, the metric is Impression Share, measuring the percentage of times a brand’s ad was shown out of the total eligible impressions. Organic search SOV, or Share of Search, requires specialized SEO tools to track a brand’s visibility against competitors. Because obtaining precise competitor data is difficult, brands frequently rely on third-party monitoring and analytical tools to aggregate this information, making the measurement process more accurate and manageable.
Strategies to Increase Your Share of Voice
Increasing Share of Voice requires increasing marketing inputs and optimizing their quality to drive higher visibility. Strategies include:
Increasing investment in high-impact channels, such as paid advertising platforms, where Impression Share is directly influenced by budget and bidding strategy.
Concentrating on dominating organic search visibility by investing in comprehensive content strategies that establish topical authority in their niche.
Creating consistent, shareable content, such as videos, infographics, and thought leadership articles, to organically increase conversation volume.
Actively leveraging public relations and media outreach to secure earned media, including press mentions, guest posting opportunities, and appearances on industry podcasts.
An effective strategy also recognizes that the quality of the conversation matters alongside the quantity. Social listening tools should be employed to track sentiment—the emotional tone of the mentions—ensuring that the brand’s growing SOV is rooted in positive or neutral discussions.
Share of Voice Versus Share of Market
Share of Voice (SOV) and Share of Market (SOM) measure different stages of market performance. Share of Market is defined as the percentage of total sales revenue or units sold that a brand captures within its industry, measuring the ultimate commercial result.
SOV, in contrast, measures the brand’s communication and presence relative to competitors, making it a measure of marketing input. SOM is the measure of commercial output or the result of those inputs over time. While SOV determines how loudly a brand is speaking, SOM measures how many consumers are actually purchasing from that brand. This strategic relationship is why SOV is tracked as a predictor of future SOM growth.