In retail media, raw ad metrics only tell half the story. To truly assess your brand’s digital visibility, two advanced KPIs stand out: Share of Search and Share of Shelf.
These indicators show how often shoppers discover your brand online and where your products appear within digital shelves. As defined by Qualtrics and MetricsCart, these KPIs help benchmark against competitors and steer your optimization strategy effectively.
1. What Is Share of Search?
Share of Search measures the proportion of organic search interest your brand receives versus the total category. It’s a powerful early indicator of brand salience and often correlates with market share.
How to track it:
Use tools like Google Trends, DataWeave, or CommerceIQ to analyze search volume for your brand and competitors across marketplaces (e.g., Amazon, Walmart).
Why it matters:
A growing Share of Search signals increasing consumer interest, making it a strategic alert to adjust inventory, ad budgets, and messaging.
2. What Is Share of Shelf?
Share of Shelf tracks the percentage of product slots your brand occupies on key category pages. It reflects your merchandising strength and digital shelf presence.
How to track it:
Use planogram data or analytics platforms like Nielsen Digital Shelf Analytics or Instacart’s Share of Digital Shelf metric (Instacart Knowledge Owl).
Why it matters:
More shelf visibility means higher chances to win both organic ranking and paid ad placement, ultimately improving click-through and conversion rates.
3. Implementing These KPIs
Data Integration:
Set up automated pipelines via search volume APIs and digital shelf crawlers to feed your analytics dashboard.
Competitor Benchmarking:
Track your Share of Search & Share of Shelf weekly against your top 3 competitors.
Actionable Optimization:
- Invest in SKUs with high search interest but low shelf visibility.
- Refine creatives and bidding strategies accordingly.
- Reference: [Retail Media Budget Allocation: iGRP vs ROAS].
4. Real-World Example
During a product launch, Brand X improved their Share of Search by 15% by optimizing product titles for high-volume keywords. At the same time, their Share of Shelf rose from 10% to 25% through premium category placements—leading to a 40% lift in combined ad and organic traffic.
Conclusion & Next Steps
Tracking Share of Search and Share of Shelf offers a dual perspective on your brand’s discoverability and on-shelf visibility—both crucial to mastering data-driven retail media.
This is post #14 in the Retail Media Mastery series. Coming next: Attribution 2025 – Incrementality Test on Retail Media.
Don’t miss it!
