We analyzed ~2.3 cardinal keywords with ~4.99 cardinal apical ads to spot however often businesses advertise connected keywords wherever they already person an integrated ranking successful the apical 10 positions.

Here are immoderate of the cardinal statistics:

37.9% of advertised websites already fertile successful the apical 10 organically for the aforesaid keyword. This indicates that a important information of businesses are paying for ads erstwhile they already person visibility for that term.

When looking astatine circumstantial pages alternatively than full websites, 15.7% of advertised URLs person an integrated ranking successful the top 10. This shows that, adjacent astatine the leafage level, ads are often tally connected already high-ranking content.

Shockingly, 40.66% of pages that are advertised fertile #1 organically. Essentially, these businesses are paying for the apical advertisement placement connected Google erstwhile they already fertile successful the fig 1 integrated position.

Another astonishing penetration from our probe is that successful 51.09% of cases, businesses advertise a leafage that ranks successful the apical 10, adjacent erstwhile determination are nary competing ads present.

This suggests that galore businesses mightiness beryllium moving ads needlessly, generating costs without competing against different advertisers.

This overlap betwixt paid and integrated raises 2 important questions.

Are businesses simply trying to predominate the SERPs, oregon is this a motion of a deficiency of coordination betwixt SEO and PPC teams?

And possibly much importantly, does moving ads connected keywords wherever you already fertile good organically thrust importantly much clicks, oregon is it conscionable inflating your outgo per acquisition?

We recovered answers to these questions and a fewer others among the comments received connected LinkedIn (here and here). Here’s my effort to summarize the discussion:

• Use PPC selectively: PPC campaigns should lone complement integrated rankings for highly competitory keywords oregon those pushed beneath the fold by ads. Avoid redundant spending wherever integrated visibility is already strong.
• Measure interaction connected revenue, not vanity metrics: determination beyond clicks and CTR. The existent measurement of occurrence is incremental revenue.
• Rethink PPC for branded keywords: PPC for branded presumption often adds small worth if you already fertile good organically. Shift that fund to thing other unless facing nonstop competition.
• Eliminate siloed strategies: PPC and SEO should enactment together, not against each other. For example, you tin usage PPC to trial antithetic types of contented connected the keyword you already fertile (thanks for the idea, Olli!), oregon usage it to fertile for volatile keywords (like HubSpot does).

In 1 of the comments Nikolas Garfinkel shared probe done successful a akin field. Blake, Nosko, and Tadelis conducted a bid of large-scale experiments to measure the interaction of paid hunt advertizing for some branded and non-branded keywords astatine eBay in 2014.

Their decision was that for established brands, moving ads connected marque presumption was mostly redundant. The results for non-branded keywords were similar: most clicks attributed to ads would person occurred organically anyway, meaning the instrumentality connected concern (ROI) from these ads was negative. This aligns with our findings that businesses often vie against themselves by paying for clicks they could person received for escaped done beardown integrated rankings.

A large convey you to everyone who contributed with their comments!

If you privation to tally akin probe connected your site, you tin usage our Site Explorer. Enter your domain, spell to the Organic keywords report, and usage the SERP features filter (set it to Where people ranks and Top ads).

Final thoughts

Marketers request to measure their PPC and SEO strategies successful tandem. Are you genuinely adding worth by moving an advertisement for a keyword wherever you already person a presence, oregon could those advertisement dollars beryllium amended utilized elsewhere? Maybe it’s clip to beryllium down with some the PPC and SEO teams and revisit your overlapping efforts.

Got questions oregon comments? Share them successful this thread oregon fto Tim (the writer of the study) oregon me know.