80% of a company's stock value is calculated on the expected cash flows generated over the next ten years, with 95% of sales coming from out of market buyers.

The "out-of-market buyer" is a term used by Jon Lombardo and Peter Weinberg of the B2B Business institute when describing future customers. They expound the view that "Our job is to make sure that when the 95% of out of market buyers come into the market, our brand is the first one they think of and is the easiest to find".

In other words, we as marketers are in the memory business, building mental availability and positive memories in the present and future consumers' minds. We must always take note that what people actually remember are brand names.

Until today, measuring the brand's financial impact has been done based on survey data and questions like, are you aware of a brand? Or if they could consider buying from it? Frankly, this is not an effective method as it's not very scalable, expensive and full of potential biases.

Share of Search* has gained a lot of traction recently as a viable, cost-effective alternative to measure the future financial impact of a brand as Share of Search tracks actual behaviour. 

New research conducted by the IPA Share of Search think tank, led by James Hakins and Les Binet and with contributions from My Telescope, found that in 40 categories (from FMCG to B2B), Share of Search represents 83% of a brand’s overall share of market. Further, the research conducted within the 40 categories shows a correlation on average over 0.78 (everything over 0.51 is very good) on all categories researched between search data and market share data. 

So what does this mean for you as a marketer, business owner, CEO or CFO?

Tracking how people search around a brand name, a financial number can be attached to the searches. The evidence shows that an increase in searches around a brand name leads to increased sales. When compared against competitors, it is an indication of market share.

In our view, this is a game-changer. We all knew that brands have value, but it was hard to prove and quantify. With Share of Search now we can!

*Small note on what is Share of Search – the concept of measuring branded searches compared to chosen competitors. The Method is proven to correlate with sales volumes and market share