The PRCA has launched an Innovation Forum and published a paper on Share of Search.

An audacious ad in the Weekend Financial Times in January promoted Share of Search as a metric for marketing effectiveness.

The ad led to a discussion in my House of Marketing & PR community of practice. The general view was that history was repeating itself. The communication and marketing industries are littered with simplified metrics that fail to effectively measure value.

The conversation resulted in a virtual meeting of interested people to kick around the issues. That group has come together several time over the past four months.

Along the way the PRCA offered support that led to the creation of a PRCA Innovation Forum. Today we are publishing a discussion paper called Beyond Share of Search: What matters for public relations.

The paper consists of a series of short essays that lead with practical examples. The project was led by Alex Judd, Clarity PR, and Kristian Foged, Simply Thought, and covers the following topics.

• What is Share of Search and how to use it

• What Share of Search tells us and what it doesn’t

• The role of search listening

• How to go further than just measuring brand awareness using Share of Search?

• A layer down the funnel: Share of Traffic

• PR’s absence at the marketing effectiveness table and the implications for Share of Search 

Our view is that while Share of Search has applications in some areas of brand marketing practice, it is a blunt metric. It also fails to address the sophistication of search marketing and public relations.

Stella Bayles, CoverageBook, and James Crawford, PR Agency One will present an overview of the PRCA Innovation Forum’s initial project at the AMEC Conference on 25-27 May.

PRCA Innovation Forum

The membership of the PRCA Innovation Forum is as follows. 

• Andrew Smith, Escherman

• James Crawford, PR Agency One

• Kristian Foged, Simply Thought

• Stella Bayles, CoverageBook

• Stephen Waddington, Wadds Inc.

• Hannah Harris, AnswerThePublic

• Steve Leigh, PR Agency One

• Alex Judd, Clarity PR

The group has the ambition to explore further issues related to innovation in public relations practice. These include platforms, tools, and voice.

To download a copy of Beyond Share of Search: What matters for public relations and find out more about the PRCA Innovation Forum visit the PRCA website.