How is branded search demand measured?

Brandwave groups categories, branded terms, and competitors using public information about companies and brands. We collect search-volume estimates from third-party providers and update them regularly. The Brand Demand Index shares this data for free. Each page shows the most recent 12 months and updates monthly.

A competitive set is a group of brands that go after the same customers in one market. Brandwave estimates monthly branded-search demand for each brand in the set using search-volume estimates for the brand’s name and related terms, which you can find on each brand page. This method has some limits, but it gives a good overview of how branded-search interest compares and changes over time.

Branded searches tell you how often people look for a brand by name or related terms. Comparing these searches across competitors helps you see how popular each brand is over time. Share of Search shows each brand’s estimated searches as a percentage of all measured brands in its group, in the same market and month. It does not count customers, sales, or unique people.

No, Share of Search compares a brand’s estimated search volume with other brands in the same group. It measures searches for branded terms, not purchases, so it’s not the same as market share, revenue share, or customer share. A brand might have a high Share of Search but still sell less than a competitor. Brands people buy out of habit may be searched for less than brands people are still considering. Branded-search demand can give you an early sign that interest in a brand is changing. Keeping an eye on these changes can help you spot trends sooner.

These numbers are estimates and should be seen as showing general trends, not exact counts. The figures are rounded monthly search volumes, and a single month’s result might change for reasons that have nothing to do with the brand. Smaller brands have more roughly rounded numbers than larger ones. Search volume counts searches, not unique people. The real value comes from comparing brands: every brand in its competitor set is measured the same way, in the same market, and in the same month. This makes the differences between brands, and how those differences change over time, more meaningful than any single number.

Brandwave tracks brand demand both worldwide and by country because brands compete differently in each place. For example, global brands such as SaaS companies are compared worldwide, while retailers and local businesses are usually compared within their own country.

Brands in the same competitor group are always measured using the same geographic area. This ensures that global demand is not compared with demand from only one country.

Brandwave currently tracks branded terms in English. Our Global English Language Brand Demand Index includes searches for branded terms from every country, even if English is not the main language spoken there. Our regional market indexes, such as the New Zealand Brand Demand Index, currently cover only English-speaking countries.

Global and country estimates may overlap, so do not add them together.

Not always. It depends on what your campaign was meant to do. Our public marketing data shows when branded search demand changes, but it does not tell you why. Branded search volume can go up or down for many reasons. For example, a competitor’s campaign, a news story, a price change, the season, or more people shopping in your category can all have an effect. Checking the timing of these changes can give you helpful clues, so it’s useful to see what else was happening at the same time. Brandwave lets you track all your marketing activity and branded search volume together on one timeline, which makes this much easier.

Yes. Anyone may use, share, adapt, and redistribute data published in the Brandwave Brand Demand Index, including for commercial purposes, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). Give appropriate credit to Brandwave, link to the source page and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, and indicate if you made changes. This permission covers Brandwave’s published compilation and measurements; it does not grant rights to third-party trademarks or logos. Automated access must use the public pages or API and respect published rate limits.

Not necessarily. Brandwave creates these brand profiles using public information and data sources. We never share private customer data.