We’re currently in the process of seeing mobile organic searches overtaking that of it’s father – the desktop. Over the past few years digital marketing has been fragmented across different devices (mobile, tablet and desktop) as well as further dividing between different platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc.). This has certainly made digital marketing more difficult for brands.

Search has continued to evolve, though now it’s less about the players in the game and more about the syndication of search, social media, paid search and organic search.

Paid and organic search has always been overlapping, and has been a subject in the industry for a while now.

Overall the number of brands that had both paid and organic listing was fairly flat year upon year at 21%, down from 22% from the previous year. Industry level is where it gets interesting. Across various groups there was a 15 point increase in technology and a 10 point decrease in travel. The pharmaceutical branch of the web continues to lag behind the market mostly because of the lack of content depth by brands other than sites like WebMD and FDA.

I expected an increase across the board to be honest. It’s the tandem of strong original content that the big brands have a monopoly over in organic searches, with their big budgets for their PPC campaigns.

The one thing we can agree on is brands use of data across all tactics has increased. We’re smarter now about harnessing our data and using it to create meaningful insights.

Maximize the Value of Paid & Organic with these 3 ways

So what should you think about for your brand as you optimize across paid and organic? Here are three things to consider to maximize the value.

  • Pros vs Cons / Value for Value: How much will you need to invest to develop content, technical updates etc. that would reach the first page of organic results? Can you quantify this? How does this compare to the overall investment you’re putting into advertising?
  • Test the value of both: Run tests on a few keywords to understand the impact on click-through rates and conversion rates. Is there a lift? Making a business case to reallocate money to focus on maximizing share of voice can be a very powerful statement to whoever you’re pitching it to – whether it’s to shift money towards content for organic or in fact to pump more money into your business’ paid advertising campaigns.
  • Begin a dialogue between all your digital marketing teams: A lot of brands aren’t viewing their programs as a collective search program. They think about paid and organic as you would church and state. It’s a lot less concrete than this though – it’s flexible enough for you to re-position money so that you get more bang for your buck. Hypothetically, it could be beneficial taking £10,000 from a paid search budget and putting it into your content creation. Whatever creates the most exposure and draws in the most traffic.