Do SEO & PPC Cannibalize Each Other?

Posted: January 5, 2009

ClickZ ran an article about PPC cannibalizing SEO recently; and it brings up the old debate “If I’m number one for my keyword, should I do PPC?”

This is a tricky question; but with most things in the PPC world – it comes down to numbers.

I once worked with a client who’s traffic on a highly branded term per month looked like:

800 Organic clicks
400 PPC clicks

So we stopped doing paid search for a month and ended up with 1000 Organic clicks for that word.

Ahh HA! PPC stole 200 organic clicks – we should stop buying that word.

Was that your reaction?

Mine was to ask where the other 200 clicks went. 200 branded clicks went to a competitor.

The real question should have been “Is it more profitable for our company to buy that keyword knowing we’re paying for some ‘free’ traffic than to give up those 200 highly branded clicks?”

In this case, it was a high converting term and it was worth ‘cannibalizing’ the organic traffic.

That doesn’t mean you should always buy traffic where you’re receiving organic traffic.

It means you should let the numbers tell the story.

Share and Enjoy:

Related Information:

« Using Symbols in Ad Copy can have Dramatic Effects on CTR

Predict Your PPC Future by Measuring Last Year’s Data »

Written by Brad Geddes aka eWhisper · Filed Under Blog

Comments

3 Responses to “Do SEO & PPC Cannibalize Each Other?”

Evan Morris on January 5th, 2009 5:56 pm

Hey Brad,

Interesting post. Since Patrick has me trying to learn as much as I can about both SEO and PPC, it’s nice to know I don’t have to shoot myself in the foot if a situation like this comes up.
Monique on January 5th, 2009 8:24 pm

What an interesting post! As a consumer, I know the majority of time I ignore the sponsored results. A lot of them just aren’t worth my time. But as a SEO Amateur, I am also in favor of ranking organically. I think it’s very important to analyze each case by itself, since it depends on the type of product, service, or keyword you are trying to drive traffic to. Thanks for sharing!
SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 6, 2009 on January 6th, 2009 4:59 pm

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