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Most B2B marketers have heard that share of search tracks share of market. Far fewer have asked where that idea came from, or whether it survives contact with a B2B market. It was drawn from a handful of B2C examples, and it only holds when products, prices and routes to purchase are close to uniform — which, as Dale W. Harrison puts it, is the difference between a tub of yogurt and a multimillion-dollar ERP system.
In Episode 14, Dale W. Harrison and Liam Moroney ask what brand-aware search actually measures. They cover the conditions under which share of search does reflect market share, the price spreads, basket sizes, free trials and indirect sales that break it in B2B, why Buffer can hold nearly half the search volume in its category and about 1% of the revenue, how Sprout Social grew while its branded search fell, and why the metric is far more useful as a measure of category demand.
Timestamps
0:33 Back for another episode — Dale and Liam reunite
0:47 This week's topic: what does brand-aware search actually measure?
1:08 Liam's starting point: years of branded search data
1:53 How a few B2C examples became a universal rule
2:25 A tub of yogurt versus a multimillion-dollar ERP system
3:01 You can't outsource your thinking — to research or to AI
3:45 The original claim: share of search reflects share of market
4:50 Share of search as a stand-in for share of voice
5:29 Brands do not grow: market share barely moves
6:30 When a leader stumbles: the password management example
7:53 It's actually measuring a lot of other useful things
8:24 Slides: when share of search does track market share
8:54 Product parity, price parity and how things are sold
10:37 The supermarket with an unwatched back door
11:41 No door-to-door detergent salesmen
12:24 Price discrepancy: $20 versus $200,000
13:15 Volume: one search, a thousand licenses
14:16 Microsoft Office, Exxon and 100,000-fold basket sizes
15:10 Drinks, houses and boxes of Tide: why B2C variance is small
16:31 Ehrenberg's own caution about uniform basket size
17:01 Light and heavy buyers in B2B search data
17:46 Free trials: noise that inflates search volume
18:35 Penetration is not revenue
20:43 Partners, procurement and cross-selling: revenue that never searches
21:42 Liam's in-house story: the vendor that sold itself in
22:29 Ideal conditions versus the typical B2B picture
23:35 Real data: the social media management category
23:59 Buffer versus Sprout Social: volume versus value
25:54 Nearly half the search volume, about 1% of the revenue
27:16 Sprout Social: branded search down, revenue up
28:17 Two stories: the company picture and the category demand picture
29:03 Growth from bigger contracts, not more customers
31:08 Detergent for families with 12 kids
32:37 Penetration and market share are two different things
33:06 HubSpot's users versus Salesforce's money
33:43 “Our revenue's never been better”
34:37 Hightouch and the declining CDP category
35:51 Defining penetration: the Tide example
36:55 HubSpot: 50% greater penetration, a fraction of the revenue
38:00 The Fortune 1000: 85% versus 0.4%
39:34 Where a brand's revenue actually comes from
41:28 Audience question: can you segment around the variances?
42:14 Branded search as a measure of demand
43:37 Fax machines and Ricoh: share up, category collapsing
46:02 Category demand: missing from B2B conversations
46:22 The bowtie and trying to outrun a lack of new business
47:50 The 95:5 rule and stationary markets
48:33 Why laundry detergent grows at about 2% a year
50:26 Dynamic tech categories: fax machines and CRM
51:45 Conditional win probability and the odds a lead is in market
52:37 Why a hot category makes you look like a genius
53:01 Televisions and the 8K flop
54:14 When good enough is good enough
54:59 Marketing automation and mechanical lead scoring
55:16 The lessons: active demand and category health
56:25 B2B demo software and a 99:1 market
57:11 NFTs and the crypto bros
58:04 Wrapping up
Key Topics Discussed
- Where the idea that share of search reflects share of market came from, and why it doesn't generalize to B2B
- The conditions that make the proxy work: product parity, price parity and a single way to buy
- Price discrepancy, seat-based volume and 100,000-fold differences in basket size
- Free trials, partner ecosystems, procurement and installed bases: revenue that never shows up in search
- Buffer versus Sprout Social: share of search against share of revenue
- Two stories in one decline: company growth versus category demand
- Penetration is not revenue: HubSpot versus Salesforce
- Branded search as a gauge of category health, and what it means for the 95:5 rule
- Why growing and shrinking categories make marketers look like geniuses or failures
Notable Quotes
“Nobody wants 100% of a market of which there are no customers.” — Liam Moroney
“Market penetration is not the same thing as revenue, certainly not in B2B.” — Dale W. Harrison
“HubSpot have lots and lots and lots of users, and Salesforce have lots and lots and lots of money.” — Liam Moroney
“It is not because you're bad at sales and marketing or you're some kind of a sales and marketing genius. It's because the category is either growing or shrinking.” — Dale W. Harrison
Resources & Mentions
- How Brands Grow, and the light and heavy buyer model
- Andrew Ehrenberg's original work and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute
- Share of search data for the social media management category, including Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Sprinklr
- Sprout Social's quarterly earnings reports
- Hightouch and the CDP category
- The 95:5 rule and the NBD model of purchase frequency
- The bowtie model
Next Episode
TBC
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