[Total volume: Relevant keywords in year A] – [Total volume: Relevant keywords in year B] = YoY change in market size
Is An External Factor Having An Impact?
Your business tactics could drive a jump or drop in performance, but it could be something that’s out of your control altogether.
Leadership will want to know whether it’s the “tide” or something the “boat” (your marketing team) is doing.
Sometimes, the quickest and easiest way to tell is to turn to search data — specifically our often-overlooked friend, Google Trends.
For the sake of example, let’s take a look at a simple case of an external factor driving increased demand for a service. Specifically, did the Olympics drive an increase in the demand for gymnastics lessons?
We know that the Olympics took place between Jul. 26 and Aug. 11, 2024. Now, we need to know how searches for “gymnastics lessons” in this window compare to other periods of time outside of the Olympics.
Screenshot from Google Trends, September 2024
It’s clear from the data that there was a significant increase in interest in gymnastics lessons during the Olympic window.
We see a much smaller increase during the window of the 2020 Olympics (Jul. 23 – Aug. 8, 2021), but we can probably attribute this to COVID-19 and related restrictions/behaviors.
This type of insight isn’t just valuable for gauging whether the industry tide affected performance.
It’s also invaluable for determining when to lean into specific products, information, or trends through levers such as increasing paid spend, launching social campaigns, or shifting the overall marketing mix to meet the moment.
How Does Demand For Our Brand Compare?
Search data allows us to compare active demand for Brand A to active demand for Brand B to answer this age-old question.
For this exercise, pull keyword volumes for any queries that contain Brand A’s name in the string. Then, do the same for Brand B over the same window of time.
Add the keyword volume for each respective brand to come up with the brand total. Then, calculate the difference to understand how they stack up.
[Total volume: Brand A branded KWs over X months] – [Total volume: Brand B branded KWs over X months] = Difference in active brand demand
Are We Visible Enough To Drive Awareness?
The search landscape is one big conversation. “Share of voice” can tell you how much of the conversation the brand is actually participating in.
This measurement takes the total keyword volume a brand is competing for as a percentage of the total volume of possible, relevant keyword opportunities for the brand.
Since only 0.44% of users visit the second page of search results, start by identifying keywords where a brand ranks on page one (either traditional placement, featured snippet, or AI Overviews). Because if it’s not on page one, a brand isn’t actually competing in most cases.
Calculate the aggregate volume for these keywords, divide it by the total volume across all relevant keyword opportunities (regardless of ranking), and multiply by 100.
( Brand-eligible keyword volume] / [Landscape keyword volume] ) x 100 = [% Share of Voice]
It Starts With A Simple Shift In Perspective
Looking at familiar numbers in new ways starts to unlock business-critical narratives.
And it doesn’t stop with search data!
Data from social media platforms and forum sites hold their own unique opportunities to understand markets even more through the lenses of engagement and consumer behavior.
Step one is making the mental shift from search data to demand data.
It’s a subtle shift that can take us out of our siloed way of looking at data. Breaking down those walls is the key to making digital market intelligence work for you.
Go forth and find those illuminating answers — at the speed of modern business.
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