How to balance paid and organic activity
Why is it important to balance paid and organic activity?
How can paid and organic activity inform each other?
Paid and organic marketing strategies may first appear to be on opposite ends of the marketing spectrum. However, despite their differences, they work best when given equal weight rather than treated as separate entities. Balanced paid and organic activity is essential to producing a cohesive marketing strategy that drives real, tangible results.
Think of paid and organic marketing efforts as different sides of the same coin. Businesses can improve their reach, engagement, and conversion rates by aligning them so they work in tandem. In this article, we’ll cover what you need to know about balancing paid and organic activity, including the benefits of balancing them both, exactly how they complement each other, and how you can put them into practice.
Why is it important to balance paid and organic activity?
As mentioned above, balancing paid and organic marketing activities can significantly impact overall marketing effectiveness. But why?
While paid activities, such as PPC, are tempting to prioritise over organic because of their speedy ROI, it’s easy to over-rely on them. Integrating organic strategies like SEO is key to diversifying your overall marketing strategy so you don’t get too dependent on one marketing channel. Although SEO is a long-game approach, it can substantially reduce marketing costs over time. Once well established, organic channels continue to drive traffic and engagement without the ongoing expenditure paid campaigns require, saving you and your business money in the long run.
PPC and SEO are great at working in tandem together. For instance, paid marketing provides quick wins and immediate visibility, which is particularly beneficial for new product launches or time-sensitive campaigns. Whilst organic strategies require a little more patience as search engines take time to crawl, index, and rank websites, these efforts over time will gain traction. This means that businesses can strategically reduce their ad spend, and rely more on the sustainable traffic generated through SEO.
By leveraging the differences between paid and organic marketing that complement each other, businesses can create a sustainable and robust marketing strategy that includes both short-term gains and long-term growth that doesn’t depend on just one marketing approach.
How can paid and organic activity inform each other?
So, we’ve covered why balancing paid and organic activity is essential for a well-rounded marketing strategy. But how exactly do they inform each other, and what lessons can be learned from this?
As we now know, integrating paid and organic marketing activities can create a more informed overall strategy. This is because each provides valuable insights that can be used to enhance the effectiveness of the other. This includes leveraging the data gathered from paid campaigns to inform SEO activity. Paid advertising provides immediate feedback on conversion rates and CTRs for specific keywords, offering a wealth of information that can be used to refine your SEO content strategy. By analysing this data, we can identify high-performing keywords and uncover keyword gaps, meaning we can create organic content that is more effective in targeting users. This data-driven approach ensures that organic content is aligned with high-performing paid search terms.
Another effective practice is using A/B testing in paid campaigns to inform organic strategies. Paid advertising allows for quick testing of meta titles, meta descriptions, on-page copy and so on, providing insights into what resonates best with users. The results from these tests can be applied to organic content to improve CTR and conversions.
Organic activity frequently attracts users with a research intent. They’re seeking answers to ‘what is this?’ or ‘how does this work ‘-style queries. While this type of traffic can benefit brand awareness, it may not directly lead to conversions. Often, they’re just looking for a quick answer. By implementing follow-up paid targeting for these users, we can retarget them with personalised and tailored messages through paid ads, helping convert them into customers.
There’s ample opportunity to maximise the way paid and organic activity inform each other and use this to drive traffic and increase conversions.
How do you put all of this into practice?
Let’s get practical. How do you implement everything we’ve covered about balancing organic and paid? It requires a tailored approach that aligns with your company’s specific priorities so that no hard-and-fast rules can be applied to all businesses. However, if you’re looking for a starting point, here’s a general perspective on how to go about it. While organic strategies are being developed and gradually implemented, companies can capitalise on the immediacy of paid advertising to quickly build visibility, drive traffic, and boost conversions.
Paid campaigns can provide the initial push needed to capture audience attention and establish a market presence. As organic efforts gain traction and improve performance over time, businesses can strategically reduce their paid advertising budget, allowing the two strategies to complement each other and eventually even out. This approach ensures a company maintains a strong presence while optimising its marketing spend.
Here’s a quick note about messaging to keep in mind. Consistency in messaging and keywords across organic and paid channels is crucial for capturing the same target audience. This consistency reinforces brand identity, which improves conversion rate. It ensures potential customers receive a cohesive experience, regardless of how they encounter the brand. By maintaining uniform messaging, businesses can target and guide the right audience through the conversion funnel.
The key takeaway here is that strategically aligning organic and paid efforts not only maximises the impact of each channel and reduces overheads but also creates a consistent brand presence, ultimately leading to better marketing outcomes.
Conclusion
Effectively balancing paid and organic marketing activities is essential for creating a well-rounded and impactful marketing strategy. By allowing these two approaches to work in tandem, businesses can leverage the immediacy of paid campaigns to drive traffic and conversions while investing in organic efforts that build a long-term, sustainable strategy.
The key lies in using data from paid activities to inform organic strategies, maintaining consistent messaging across both channels and adjusting budgets as organic performance improves. This holistic approach enhances visibility and engagement and fosters a cohesive brand experience that resonates with the target audience. By integrating paid and organic efforts, businesses can achieve sustainable marketing success and growth.