Share of Voice (SOV)
Your brand's percentage of total advertising visibility in your market compared to competitors. If your industry spends $100M on ads and you spend $10M, your SOV is 10%. It measures how much of the conversation you're winning.
Full Explanation
Share of Voice answers a fundamental marketing question: Are you being heard louder than your competitors? Think of it like radio airtime in the 1980s—if there were 10 stations playing music and yours played 2 hours per day while competitors played 1 hour, you had higher share of voice. You'd reach more listeners simply through frequency.
In today's fragmented digital landscape, SOV matters more than ever. Your brand competes for attention across search, social, display, email, and emerging channels. SOV measures your relative investment and visibility across these channels against competitors. If the automotive category spends $500M annually on digital ads and you spend $50M, your SOV is 10%—but only if you're measuring the same channels and timeframe as competitors.
Here's where it gets practical: Marketing teams use SOV to benchmark performance and justify budget. If your market share is 15% but your SOV is only 8%, you're underinvesting relative to competitors. Conversely, if your SOV is 20% but market share is 12%, you may have efficiency problems—you're spending more to win less.
AI tools now automate SOV tracking by monitoring competitor ad spend across channels, keywords, and creative variations. Platforms like Semrush, Pathmatics (now Semrush), and Brandwatch pull real-time data on competitor visibility. Instead of manually tracking competitor ads, AI aggregates this data and alerts you when competitors increase spending or enter new channels.
The practical implication: SOV becomes a real-time metric, not a quarterly report. You can adjust spend dynamically—increasing SOV in high-opportunity moments or defending share when competitors surge. This shifts marketing from reactive ("Why did we lose share?") to proactive ("Where should we invest to gain share?").
Why It Matters
SOV directly correlates with market share growth. Research shows brands with SOV higher than market share grow faster than those with lower SOV. For CMOs, this becomes a budget justification tool: if competitors are increasing SOV, you have a data-backed case for increased investment.
Vendor selection matters here. Some AI platforms bundle SOV tracking; others charge separately. Understanding your competitive SOV landscape before buying media tools prevents overpaying for channels where you're already dominant or underfunding areas where competitors own the conversation.
Competitive advantage emerges from SOV agility. Brands that monitor and adjust SOV in real-time can exploit competitor blind spots—increasing spend in channels where competitors are weak, or defending share when threats emerge. This reduces wasted spend and accelerates growth in high-ROI channels.
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Related Terms
Earned Media Value (EMV)
The estimated dollar value of media coverage your brand receives without paying for it—like press mentions, social shares, or influencer posts. CMOs use EMV to measure the return on PR and content efforts and justify marketing budgets.
Content Marketing
Creating and sharing valuable information—blog posts, videos, guides, reports—designed to attract and engage your target audience rather than directly selling to them. It's about earning attention by being genuinely helpful, which builds trust and eventually drives business results.
Thought Leadership
Positioning your brand or executives as trusted experts and innovators in your industry by consistently sharing valuable insights, research, and perspectives. It's about being known for what you know, not just what you sell.
Social Proof
Social proof is the marketing principle that people are more likely to trust and buy from a brand when they see that others—especially people like them—have already done so. It's why customer reviews, testimonials, and user counts matter so much in driving conversions.
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