How to Measure Share of Search and Tell Created Demand From Harvested (Free Claude Skill)

What's inside

Three files, one job: see the demand you create

Built for growth and brand marketers, not econometricians.

The skill

Install once in Claude. It computes share of search and extra share of search from your Google Trends export, classifies your spend as capture or creation against the benchmark, separates created from harvested demand, and designs the branded-search holdout that proves what is incremental.

Install guide

A short setup walkthrough, plus a no-install option if you cannot add skills.

Plan B prompt

A single prompt you paste into any Claude chat to run the same analysis without installing anything.

How it works

Three steps, from your data to the growth read and its caveats.

Step 1Bring your data

A Google Trends export for your brand and competitors for share of search, your spend by channel for the capture-versus-creation split, or your branded-search and direct-traffic series with campaign dates to separate created demand from harvested.

Step 2Claude runs the analysis

It computes share of search and extra share of search and checks whether it leads your market share, classifies each line of spend against the 60 to 40 or 46 to 54 benchmark, tests whether search and direct step up after brand campaigns, or designs a geo holdout on branded terms, in code.

Step 3Get the read and the honest caveats

The growth signal, the spend gap, the created-versus-harvested split, and the holdout design, each flagged where it is correlational rather than proven.

The skill works from the data you bring, it does not connect to your ad account or analytics. Share of search and the separation read are correlational, so the skill tells you to confirm any budget-moving finding with a geo holdout before you act on it.

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How to measure share of search and tell created demand from harvested demand

Your best-performing channels by ROAS mostly intercept people already on their way to you, which is demand capture, not creation, and blended ROAS cannot tell the two apart. Share of search can. Here is what the metric is, why it leads market share, and how to separate the demand you created from the demand you merely harvested.

What share of search is and why it leads market share

Share of search is your brand's share of all category-branded search volume, your brand searches divided by all category-brand searches, computed monthly. The gap between it and your market share, the extra share of search, is the growth signal. Share of search correlates with market share and tends to move ahead of it, by roughly twelve months in cars and six in phones in Les Binet's work, with an IPA analysis of 30 case studies finding an 83 percent correlation. The key shift is that branded-search volume is an output of your upper-funnel work, not a channel to optimize, the footprint of demand you created rather than the creation itself.

Why blended ROAS hides your growth

A ROAS-maximizing optimizer always drifts down-funnel toward the last click, because that is where measured conversions concentrate, so it scales the channels that harvest existing intent and starves the ones that create it. That is why incrementality collapses precisely on brand terms, where the user already intended to reach you, yet those post the highest ROAS. And capture has a hard ceiling, only about 5 percent of business buyers are in-market in a given quarter, leaving 95 percent who will not buy for months or years, so growth means building memory in that 95, which ROAS cannot measure.

How to tell created demand from harvested

Two moves separate them. First, classify every line of spend as capture, branded search, retargeting, bottom-funnel and review sites, or creation, broad-reach video and audio, category education, PR, organic social and creator content, and compare the ratio against the evidence-based benchmark, about 60 to 40 for consumer and 46 to 54 for business. Second, test whether your branded search and direct traffic step up after brand campaigns, which is created demand later showing up as cheap capture. Because both reads are correlational, prove branded search with a geo holdout that splits contested from uncontested terms, and cut any uncontested cluster that shows under 20 percent incrementality.

How the skill computes it

The skill has four modes. SEARCH computes share of search and extra share of search from a Google Trends export and checks the lead against your market share. SPLIT classifies your spend as capture or creation against the benchmark. SEPARATE tests whether search and direct step up after brand campaigns and flags the read as correlational. HOLDOUT designs the geo test on branded terms and gives the cut rule. Each mode returns the deliverable plus a checks block listing missing fields and the honesty flags that apply.

What it cannot do, and how to stay honest

Share of search is correlational, not causal. A brand crisis spikes search the wrong way, not every search is demand, and it breaks down in dynamic-pricing categories like energy and insurance and for low-volume brands. The 5 percent in-market figure and the 60 to 40 split are heuristics that shift by category, and a pre-awareness startup should invert the sequence, winning non-branded category capture first before heavy creation. Validate any budget-moving finding with a geo holdout or a search-lift test before acting. For the full argument and the evidence, from the eBay experiment to Airbnb, read ROAS Rewards Harvesting, Not Growth.

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