Digital Lexicon Hub

A brand's portion of total advertising, visibility or conversation in its market, expressed as a percentage of the competitive total.

Research by Binet and Field links share of voice above share of market with brand growth over time, so SOV helps set budgets and check whether a brand is visible enough against competitors in its category.

A brand has 2,500 social mentions in a month while it and 4 competitors total 10,000. Its SOV is 2,500 / 10,000 x 100 = 25%. With a 20% market share, its excess share of voice is 5 points.

SOV depends on the competitor set and data source chosen, so numbers from different tools are not comparable. The link to growth holds best for brand spend in competitive categories and does not prove causation for any single campaign.

SOV equals the brand's metric divided by the total for the market, multiplied by 100. The input changes by channel: media spend or impressions for advertising, Impression Share for paid search, visibility or traffic share for organic search, mentions from Social Listening, and citation share for AI Search Visibility. Excess share of voice, SOV minus share of market, is used in budget planning based on IPA effectiveness studies.