How effective is Reserve Share of Voice?

The Reserve Share of Voice feature has been live for a few weeks now and it’s been a welcome option for brands that want to protect their own brand search results and prevent competitors from creeping in. It lets brands lock in a fixed price and guarantees ownership of their brand keywords for a set period of time.

As advertising specialists, we feel it does offer clear benefits, but it won’t be the right fit for every brand. For category leaders with heavy competition, it can be a strong way to block rivals from stealing share – especially during peak periods like Black Friday Week. On the flip side, there’s a risk that it can push up the cost of Sponsored Brand campaigns for the same level of traffic that standard Sponsored Brands would have delivered.

For one brand, we saw a huge difference in efficiency: spend increased ten-fold while conversions only rose by around 70%. For another, we saw a ROAS of 50, which was in line with previous activity and remained efficient. These two examples show how differently it can perform depending on the situation. It’s still early days, and with more testing – supported by AMC – we should be able to understand whether it’s simply cannibalising sales we would have captured anyway, or whether it genuinely reinforces brand presence at the moments that matter.

We’d recommend that any brand at least tests Reserve Share of Voice, but it’s important to be clear on how it will be used and have proper controls in place to understand whether it’s actually working.