Brand Demand Scan · Finding 2 of 3

Demand Leakage shows
how much of your visibility
goes to competitors

Demand Leakage is the share of your demand that leaks to competitors. Visibility is the number of times your business appeared in search results. When buyers see your business in the results and the demand goes to a competitor, that part of your visibility has leaked.

What it means

Your business is seen, and the
demand still goes elsewhere

Demand Leakage occurs when buyers search for what you sell, your business appears in the results, and a competitor receives the demand. Your business was visible. The buyer chose another result.

The scan measures leakage as the part of your visibility that did not produce demand for you. If your business appeared 100 times and 60 of those appearances produced demand for you, the leakage is 40 per cent.

The scan names the cause. Visibility leaks when your content does not answer what the buyer searched for, so a competitor's content answers it instead.

Two terms to keep apart

Demand Leakage is also a term in sales and billing. In sales it means opportunities lost inside a sales pipeline. In subscription billing it means income lost after a sale through pricing or collection failures.

Here the term means something else: the part of your visibility that goes to competitors before any buyer contacts you.

How the scan finds it

The scan compares how often
you appeared with how much
demand you received

The scan sorts the queries in your Search Console export into branded, category and buying intent queries. It then records, for each kind, your visibility and the demand that visibility produced for you.

Demand Leakage is the share of your demand that leaks to competitors or does not convert. The scan calculates it for each kind of query and for the whole export.

The scan shows in which searches the leakage occurs, so you can see where a competitor receives the demand that your visibility created.

The commercial consequence

Leaked visibility is demand
that a competitor receives

Every appearance in the search results is a chance for a buyer to choose you. When the buyer chooses a competitor, the demand your visibility created goes to the competitor.

Buyers who research a category before they contact anyone compare the results they see. A business with high leakage appears in those results and is passed over, so it does not reach the buyer's shortlist.

Where you give the scan your average contract value, it states the leakage in revenue. Without it, the leakage is stated as a share of your demand.

The three findings

Demand Leakage is one of three
measures from the same data

Read together, the three findings show where your demand comes from, where it leaks and where it can grow.

Brand Demand Capture
The share of the demand your business captures that comes from searches for your name.
Demand Leakage
The share of your demand that leaks to competitors.
Untapped Potential
The share of your growth potential that is in category searches.

Questions

Four answers about Demand Leakage

What is Demand Leakage?

Demand Leakage is the share of your demand that leaks to competitors. It equals one minus the demand you capture divided by your visibility.

How is Demand Leakage different from conversion rate?

Conversion rate is calculated on visitors who have arrived. Demand Leakage covers the buyers who saw your business in the results and chose a competitor, so no conversion report records it.

How high is Demand Leakage in practice?

In the five anonymised case studies, Demand Leakage ranges from 82.0 to 99.7 per cent of visibility. In the one named case, Varkaus City Theatre, it was 55.88 per cent, and the ten-week result after the fixes is published.

What data does the scan need to calculate it?

The scan uses a Google Search Console export, or public search data if you have none. Nothing is installed.

Next step

One scan gives you all three figures

The scan works on the search data you already have, or on public search data if you have none. Nothing is installed.

Request a scan →