Question: Your website is on the 1st page of Google for certain keywords. Will running a Google ad-words campaign at the same time add to your visitors or jeopardise your organic listing?
Google ran an experiment and this is what they found!
Google ‘paused’ ad-words to see whether it had any effect on organic search clicks. What the test found was that users did not suddenly click the natural organic listing in the absence of ad word results.
Google says that 50% of the time ad-words campaign is incremental when the organic listing is in the Top rank.
The experiment also reveals that if you suddenly stop your Google ad spend to zero, 89% of those clicks will vanish (and not go directly to your organic listing). This is because paid ads and natural search listing rarely appear on the same page together.
Google says “We found that on average, 81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks occur in the absence of an associated organic result on the first page of search results. In addition, we found that on average, 50% of the ad clicks that occur with a top rank organic result are incremental. The estimate for average incrementality of the ad clicks increases when the rank is lower; 82% of the ad clicks are incremental when the associated organic search result is between ranks 2 and 4, and 96% of the ad clicks are incremental when the advertiser’s organic result ranked lower than 4”. (See graphics below)
Lesson: A combination of both natural listings and paid ads are vital to maximise your ROI, because both results (paid and natural) are unlikely to appear together. Experiment with your ad’s to determine the best combination.
Note of caution: Would you be able to guess the result of the following survey: ‘Turkeys voting on the importance of Christmas’. Similarly Google has done its own survey on the importance of its ad words. I am not saying this survey is biased. There are so many variables and unknowns in this complicated experiment, it is important you conduct your own test to determine your optimum mix.
Source:http://googleresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/impact-of-organic-ranking-on-ad-click.html#!/2012/03/impact-of-organic-ranking-on-ad-click.html
+ Ravi Peal-Shankar
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