Paid Ads Don’t Work… Here’s Why

Organic and paid search are common topics in the marketing world, but do you know the statistics behind them? Deciding where to invest your time and money as a company can be challenging.

Let’s break down the statistics behind each search method to help you make well-informed, strategic decisions. Here’s some information on organic vs. paid search.

Plus, Andrew Marr, our CEO and Owner of Digital Storyteller is here to talk about why we are in the organic search space as opposed to paid.

Let’s get into it.

Organic Search

So, first, what is organic search? In its simplest terms, organic search refers to the search results of a search engine (like Google!) “that cannot be influenced by paid advertising. Organic search results are ranked according to their relevance to the search term.”

It’s argued that 35% of e-commerce traffic comes from organic search. Moreover, up to 80% of searches are only focused on organic results.

This considered, SEO is key in getting your organic search traffic to increase over time. Although ranking for organic search requires a bit more effort in aligning your SEO, keywords, and headlines, at the end of the day it is free! (As far as money goes that is; organic search definitely takes a lot of time and effort).

Paid Search

Next, what is paid search? Well, let’s take it from the pros: Google Ads.

“When you type something into Google, you are presented with a list of results [aka the search engine results page or SERP] which shows organic results and paid results.”

Paid search results have the word “ad” before the listing. When a listing says “ad,” you know that a company has paid to have their page show up first. Make sense?

Anyway, it’s argued that paid search gains 150% more clicks and attention than any organic search results—and we’re not surprised. Once you use paid search, you can’t flip flop between paying and driving organically on the same ads. It just won’t perform.

You will receive more traffic on a paid search ad from people who actually intend on making a purchase. Though, you should know small businesses only generate about $3 in revenue for every $1.60 spent on search ads. This considered, paid search can get expensive quickly, and may not be realistic for all of your marketing efforts.

Why Aren’t We in the Paid Ad Space?

Hear it best from Andrew.

It’s not because we don’t like paid ads, and it’s not because we don’t think paid ads are important to create more prospects and more clients.

At Digital Storyteller, the reason why we aren’t in the paid ad space is because we believe in our ‘marketing triangle.’ The most important part of our marketing triangle is the bottom, which sits ‘really good content.’

But what are the elements of ‘good content’? Good content…

• Is actionable
• Answers a question
• Is original
• Is user-generated (Don’t know what user-generated content (UGC) is? Check out our blog on the importance of user-generated content!)

Good content can look like a lot of different strategies working together: email marketing, social media, video content, an SEO optimized website, the list goes on.

The form in which content is delivered, however, changes as do algorithms. For example, right now video content is hot!

Additionally, it’s equally as important to know who your audience is. After all, you don’t want to be pitching to every person you walk past on the street—because your services and/or products aren’t for everyone. 

In a successful marketing strategy, you know exactly who you’re speaking to. You hit them time and time again with a consistent message of who your business is and how you help your clients.

Tell stories about:

• How your business has helped people
• How great your culture us
• How you’re different,
• Your origin stories
• And more

Doing this over a period of time will help build a huge amount of trust, and interest.

Read on for more about the importance of storytelling.

Then, once you determine which content is working best for you through analytics, we believe at Digital Storyteller that that is when you would boost things with paid advertising—specifically in the B2B space.

Again, it’s a different story if you’re about talking B2C and products. 

If you’re talking B2B, however, here’s your game plan:

1. Start with great content
2. Build trust
3. Figure out what is working best from an analytical standpoint
4. Add some ad spend around that

At Digital Storyteller, we like to think of paid advertising as adding fuel to the fire, giving things a little kick. Paid advertising shouldn’t be the whole cake, just an ingredient you add toward the end for some flavor.

A Final Word

So, there you have it, organic vs. paid search in a nutshell—plus, why we focus on organic. Interested in learning more? Read on to hear about why organic marketing is great for financial service companies specifically.