Does it make sense to purchase advertising if you are number 1, 2 or 3 on page one???

[apcorob]

Another possibly silly question.

I hope the many experts out there can help.

Does it ever make sense to purchase paid positions when you have the top organic listing for the same search term?

I know that I almost always click on the organic listings and ignore the paid listings.

Please help if you will.

[doc816]

I wouldn't do it.

Anyone whos going to click on your sponsored listing when you're showing up in organic results is most likely a competitor or a web crawler. Thats just my opinion.

[apcorob]

that is what I thought also....

thank you very much

Rob

[Robert_Charlton]

Originally Posted by apcorob

Does it ever make sense to purchase paid positions when you have the top organic listing for the same search term?

I know that I almost always click on the organic listings and ignore the paid listings.

Probably depends on the type of listing. If both paid and organic listings are recognizable as belonging to the same company, I'd strongly recommend maintaining the paid as well as the organic.

I've posted on this specific question twice, so I don't want to repeat the same material over and over, but I'll quote the essence of what I've said before and provide links to the two threads on the subject...

Originally Posted by Robert Charlton

Greg Jarboe at SES reported a symbiotic effect between top organic and top paid listings. Basically, he said, top rankings in both types of listings reinforce each other, tripling click through rates in both. This results in lower cost per click on your AdWords listing....

Ad Words vs Standard seach placement
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/...ad.php?p=32224

SEO vs Ads
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/...ad.php?p=29497

[Chris Boggs]

Look at it from a real estate point of view. If you own two restaurants on the most popular block in town, wouldn't you be happier? It depends really on your CPC and your profit margin, but I always say "the more the merrier." With 1, 2 oe 3 organic rank, I also like to sometimes bid in at #6,7, or 8 (depending if there are ads "on top") in order to have one listing "above the fold" and one below when they scroll down.

Robert's links are good reads...

[Discovery]

One of the most difficult things for me as a marketer is to not overly apply my own logic to what I think visitor behavior/logic should or could be. I, like many of you spend many hours online running a business, much of our behavior on the net is second nature to us. Although I believe I have a very good understanding of my target audience I am still frequently surprised by their behavior. Sometimes in designing ad creative, websites and even navigational schemes I have to keep myself in check and make sure I am designing for the lowest common denominator, not myself. What is simple and logical to me, is NOT a good representation of the whole.

So in sum I agree with the majority here, both spots are valuable. I know many people who do not trust the organic listings for they feel that many spammers live there (and they do). On the other hand many say they only go for organic listings, since these listings represent unsolicited recommendations by the search engine for being relevant.

Both opinions have truth to them. So both spots are needed.

Lead Discovery

[ElizabethReynolds]

Originally Posted by Discovery

Both opinions have truth to them. So both spots are needed.

Agreed. I think it's worth what you pay to a few crawlers to get the visibility. 70% of the time searchers click on organic listings (or something like that, don't worry about correcting me, you get the point), but they still see the paid listings on the right. Call it Branding, relevancy reinforcement, whatever you want, being seen twice is better than once IMHO.

-ER

[mcanerin]

I'll tell you this - if I see an ad on the right and the same website in the organics, I'll assume they are doing *something* right and click - on the organic, usually (unless the ad is really good).

They re-enforce each other - it's really hard to get onto page one once, let alone twice - I would not give that up without a fight and a really, really good reason.

I seem to remember some stats that say that a user who sees a listing in the organics and PPC on the same page is 3 TIMES more likely to click - not two times, three times!

My own personal experience appears to confirm this, though I actually haven't measured it scientifically.

Ian

[Nacho]

Originally Posted by Chris Boggs

Look at it from a real estate point of view.

That's exactly how we look at it for all our clients. Including partering with other listings on the SERPs to do their fulfillment when it comes to ecommerce. For PPC, if you still get an ROI, then go for it -- better to have that business that give it to your competition.

[AussieWebmaster]

If you already have the organic listing you can do an AB test of your own. Stop your PPC for a week and see if the numbers drop significantly.

Also tag the PPC and do a CPA analysis. If the price is acceptable I would leave them.

Not knowing your industry it could be different, but the numbers in mine and most of the people I know support having them both. The biggest thing is to test and measure... you should be able to get numbers for organic and PPC conversions if you are using the right software.

[shor]

Just to ram the point home, another vote for doing both.

As others have said the positive reinforcement and prominent above the fold visibility will increase not only your natural CTR but also paid CTR which then drives down PPC.

Remember, traditional (and online) marketing have been doing it for years. Setting up a roadblock for SERPs is a no-brainer IMO. The only concern (as noted by others) is your ROI i.e. making sure your CPA is within an acceptable range - however, in my experience we rarely found a paid listing in such a scenario that sat outside our CPA comfort zone.

[dannysullivan]

A little more reading:

PPC versus Organic Results
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?p=6269

Another thread here on the topic, which also lists a ClickZ article.

Balancing Paid and Organic Search Listings
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchd...le.php/3095871

Older article from SearchDay with coverage of this issue out of a Search Engine Strategies session on the same topic.

[Shak]

YES, YES and YES

purchase what ever you can in the land grab...

been there done that and got a very nice t-shirt

Shak

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by Shak

YES, YES and YES

purchase what ever you can in the land grab...

been there done that and got a very nice t-shirt

Shak

I didn't get the T-shirt!!!!!

But there are a bunch of listings we hold say 7 of the 20 listings.... combined CTR is higher than 35%

[vicyankees]

There was a cool study done on users and their eye-tracking... shows where people first look when they go to a result in google. Not like anyone expected it to be different than the results. but it's cool to see.

http://www.enquiro.com/eye-tracking-pr.asp

[adamjthompson]

I have been in that situation before. I was #1 &/or 2 on my main keywords. If I wasn't really concerned about sales, I paused my CPC campaigns. However, if I wanted the extra sales, I ean my CPC ads with the same profitibility as when I wasn't in the organic listings.

[jewboy]

And old and wise adage that certainly applies.

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by promediacorp

And old and wise adage that certainly applies.

Measure twice, cut once????

I would have thought... if at first you don't suceed, try, try again...

[jewboy]

A penny saved is a penny earned.

Think outside the box.

Any other cliches? J/K :-D

[labeler2003]

With PPC you write the text and can target it at a specific market segment. Create PPC text that complements the descriptions shown for your organic listings and pick up additional visitors who might not have otherwise clicked on the organic listing.