Share of Voice (SOV) Rules for Keyword Automation

SOV Rules enable advertisers to automatically react to visibility changes, such as:

• Organic rank drops
• Advertising rank declines
• Strong organic ranking (to reduce wasted ad spend)
• Competitive shifts in ad placements

SOV Rules extend the existing Keyword Rules engine. They function like other automated rules but use rank-based signals instead of relying only on performance metrics such as ACOS, Spend, or Conversions.

Available SOV Rule Criteria

You can create rules using the following rank metrics.

Organic Rank Criteria

• Organic Rank (absolute)
• Organic Rank (previous)
• Organic Rank (change

Advertising Rank Criteria

• Advertising Rank (absolute)
• Advertising Rank (previous)
• Advertising Rank (change)

These can be combined with other metrics such as ACOS, Spend, Clicks, Conversions, etc.

Absolute Comparison Options (Rank Threshold Rules)

These comparisons are used when selecting Organic Rank (absolute) or Advertising Rank (absolute).

Available operators

• Greater than
• Less than
• Equal to
• Greater than or equal to
• Less than or equal to

Example Rules

• Organic Rank greater than 10 → Increase bid
• Organic Rank less than or equal to 3 → Decrease bid
• Advertising Rank greater than 8 → Send alert

Rank Change Options (Relative Rank Movement Rules)

These comparisons are used when selecting Organic Rank (change) or Advertising Rank (change).

Available operators:

• Improved by  X positions (rank number decreased) - Less than or equal
• Dropped by  X positions (rank number increased) - Greater than or equal

How Rank Change Is Calculated

Rank change is calculated as:

Interpretation

• Positive value → Rank improved
• Negative value → Rank dropped
• Absolute value → Total movement

Example

Example SOV Rule Use Cases

1. Defensive Positioning

   Rule:

   If Organic Rank > 5 → Increase bid by 20%

   Goal: Maintain visibility when organic rankings decline.

    

2. Reduce Wasted Spend

   Rule:

   If Organic Rank ≤ 3 AND ACOS > 25% → Decrease bid by 20%

   Goal: Reduce ad spend when organic rank is already strong.

    

3. Competitive Monitoring

   Rule:

   If Advertising Rank dropped by ≥ 5 positions → Send alert

   Goal: Detect competitor bid increases or ad pressure.

    

4. New Product Launch Optimization

   Rule:

   If Organic Rank improved by ≥ 10 positions → Decrease bid by 15%

   Goal: Gradually reduce paid dependency as organic ranking strengthens.

    

SOV Tracking Requirements

SOV Rules require Share of Voice tracking to be enabled.

If SOV tracking is not enabled

• Rank-based rules cannot be created.
• Users will be prompted to enable SOV tracking.

If SOV tracking was recently enabled(within less than 7 days)

Rank metrics require historical data collection.

• Rules using only SOV metrics will not generate output initially.
• Evaluation begins once sufficient data is available (typically 7+ days).

If rules combine SOV metrics with performance metrics using an OR condition:

• The rule behaves like a standard performance rule until SOV data becomes available.

Data & Edge Case Behavior

No Rank Data

• Keywords without rank data are skipped during rule evaluation.

Partial SOV Tracking

• Rules apply only to keywords with SOV tracking enabled.
• Untracked keywords are ignored.

Insufficient Data

If limited data exists within the selected date range, average rank is calculated using available data.

Alerts Using SOV Criteria

Create alerts based on Share of Voice (SOV) rank metrics to stay informed when performance changes.

Organic Rank Criteria

• Organic Rank (absolute)
• Organic Rank (previous)
• Organic Rank (change

Advertising Rank Criteria

• Advertising Rank (absolute)
• Advertising Rank (previous)
• Advertising Rank (change)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)