Search metrics provided by Google Search Console, and market SEO tools are no longer enough for managers to monitor search marketing performance in today’s hyper-competitive market. Innovative search data analytics from leading Search Intelligence Tools are filling this need. In this article, we will share five search metrics that managers should track over time to proactively monitor search marketing performance.
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Share of Search (SoS) is a valuable metric in search engine optimization (SEO) that helps businesses understand their brand visibility compared to competitors within their industry. It measures the proportion of search queries containing a brand’s name relative to the total search volume for all brands in that category.
Share of Search serves as a comprehensive indicator of your marketing performance, making it a top-priority metric for marketing managers to track consistently and incorporate into their planning. As SoS improves, your Search Paid Advertising ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) should also show improvement. As a manager, it is imperative to closely monitor these metrics to ensure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
Share of Search = (Your Branded Queries Search Volume) / (Branded Queries Search Volume of Your and Competitors)
Above-the-fold (ATF) Coverage
Above-the-fold (ATF) coverage is a metric that gauges the visibility of your ads on search engine results pages (SERPs) without requiring users to scroll down. This prime real estate in SERPs is highly visible and likely to attract clicks.
Notably, neither paid nor organic search performance reports from search engines like Google include this information. Nevertheless, tracking this valuable metric can offer insights into the effectiveness of your overall search program and activities.
Monitoring your above-the-fold coverage over time in comparison to your competitors enables you to identify opportunities for enhancing your visibility. Moreover, it aids in strategizing and aligning your paid and organic search teams to develop holistic search strategies that secure greater above-the-fold coverage.
True Rank
True Rank is a novel search metric that determines the precise position of page on a search engine results page (SERP), taking into account all elements present on the page. This includes organic search results, shopping ads, text ads, things to know, AI Overviews, and other features like featured snippets and knowledge panels.
While SEO ranking reports from search engines like Google and Bing show organic ranking, they do not consider how rankings drop due to presence of paid ads and other organic SERP features that are on the top of the page. In contrast, True Rank provides marketing insights into your domain’s exact position relative to your competitors, considering the entire SERP. It takes into account other SERP features that impacts your keyword rankings.
By understanding above-the-fold coverage and tracking True Rank over time in comparison to your competitors, you can accurately monitor the performance of your search activities and gain competitive insights to optimize your holistic search strategies, ultimately driving more clicks from SERPs.
The Inbound Share of Voice is a metric that calculates your brand’s visibility on your customers’ search queries. It helps measure the percentage availability of your ads relative to your competitors’ ads for all the keywords you target. This insight takes into account the number of keywords, their search volume, the number of ads, and the ad position in the SERP.
Tracking this search metric is essential for managers to assess the effectiveness of their search marketing performance. In addition to monitoring the Holistic Search Share of Voice, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) managers can track Paid Search SOV (Share of Voice), while SEO managers can analyze the Organic SOV by SERP features.
Click Share is a critical metric that measures the estimated number of clicks your brand might receive on search engines. It is calculated based on estimated CTR and keyword search volume. Click Share considers factors like true rank, above-the-fold visibility, the number of ads in any SERP and estimated CTR. This is multiplied by keyword search volume to calculate your vs. competitors’ click share.
Click Share = Estimated Click Through Rate (CTR)*Keyword Search Volume
Click Share is a crucial metric for search managers. It allows them to monitor rise and fall in site clicks based on a keyword’s true rank, the corresponding CTR and search volume. Improve your true rank, get better CTR and win more clicks. Correlation is straightforward. Given how SERP is changing, you must track this metric vs traditional blue link rank to better monitor rise and fall in clicks.
Conclusion
Tracking these search metrics is vital for leading search managers to monitor the effectiveness of holistic search marketing, understand the competitive landscape, and guide their search team to optimize the search budget for maximum ROI (Return on Investment).
