A survey by BrightEdge found that 68% of all crawlable search traffic comes from paid and organic traffic .
With that in mind, our questions are:
Do you know how to differentiate one from the other?
Would you know which one to use in a marketing strategy ?
Broadly speaking, both traffic refers to the way your potential customers find your business page when they search for similar products or services on search engines (such as Google, or Bing).
As we will show, it is important to understand the difference between paid and organic results well to ensure better results.
So, spend a few minutes reading this article.
What is paid traffic?
Paid traffic means investing in ads on specific platforms in order to attract visitors to a website, store or profile.
We'll cover what these platforms are later on, but for now we'll focus on the concept.
Other terms used to refer to paid traffic are SEM ( Search Engine Marketing ) and PPC ( Pay Per Click ).
Its main premise is to offer website owners (which in this case are advertisers) the opportunity to pay a fee for the page in question, as well as information about a product or service, to appear in the top positions in search results. .
You know when you do a Google search and the first results are identified with the tag “Ads”?
Well, whenever a person clicks on one of these ads, they are directed to a website.
Thus, we say that the user arrived at this page through a paid result.
So here you can understand something important about this type of traffic: it requires an investment of money.
Why do paid traffic?
To fully understand what paid and organic traffic is, we need to understand why strategies are important.
Therefore, we have separated two main advantages of investing in a paid stock below:
Short-term payback
Since paid search is faster to run, your return tends to be faster as well.
That's because, as we'll see, organic traffic needs considerable time for search engines to find the site in question.
Paid search campaigns can be set up and activated in a day or two.
For this reason, there are businesses that decide to invest in this strategy as a more aggressive first step to kick-start their marketing efforts.
Qualified traffic
Between paid and organic traffic, one thing is for sure: Generating qualified leads (which are the people you actually consider to be your customer) can be easier with ads.
The reason for this is that they appear in the top positions of search engines.
Still, there's the fact that these ads often provide an answer to users' specific questions, something search engines value.
In addition, you can define specific targeting for your paid media campaigns, targeting your ads only to the audience that has the potential to become a customer.
How to get paid traffic?
Here we will talk about two tools:
Google Ads (+ Youtube)
Google Ads is Google's ad platform.
It is also the most used by marketers.
Remember when we said that one of the advantages of paid traffic is the qualified audience?
This is because in Google Ads, companies are able to segment the audience they want to reach, such as interest, location, age group, among other criteria.
The steps to create a Google Ads campaign are:
- Create an account on the Google Ads page.
- Configure the campaign, ie the type of campaign. It can be search network, display network, Gmail, Google Shopping, among others.
- Set the campaign name and start and end date.
- Do the segmentation.
- Decide what the investment will be.
- Define keywords.
- Structure the ad, with the final URL, titles and description.
Also through Google Ads it is possible to create campaigns in videos on Youtube .
Social Ads (Facebook / LinkedIn / Twitter / TikTok)
Social Ads are ads made on social media.
The tools for the advertisements are made available by the media themselves.
Although not directly related to search engines, this strategy can also be used to drive paid traffic to your site.
Starting with Facebook, which is the most used network in the world, the prerequisite for creating an ad on the network is that the business has a page instead of a personal profile.
Facebook Ads also allows access to other media such as Stories, Instagram and Messenger.
LinkedIn is suitable for anyone looking to reach a decision - making audience.
Twitter, on the other hand, has a platform for editing and analyzing ads, Twitter Ads .
Through it, it is possible to create targeted campaigns for those who are watching a program on television, for example.
In turn, Tik T ok , a network that has been gaining popularity, may be the option for those looking for a different and innovative way to make an advertisement.
How much does paid traffic cost?
The good news is that you don't have to invest a lot to create ads.
The amount to be charged varies greatly according to the platform to be used.
Before we get into that, it’s important to understand that there are two common billing options:
- Cost Per Click (CPC): The advertiser will only pay when the user clicks on the ad. The cost can be set manually or automatically.
- Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM): The advertiser pays when the ad appears a thousand times in searches.
As in CPC the advertiser will only pay when someone clicks on the ad, it is very important to think about the persona to whom it is aimed.
After all, you don't want disinterested people consuming your budget, do you?
CPM, on the other hand, is a well-suited modality when the company wants to have brand recognition or increase reach.
We also highlight that in both options the campaign goes offline as soon as the budget is consumed.
It is possible to make an initial investment in Google Ads of R$5.00 per day.
The same goes for Facebook.
LinkedIn can be a little more expensive, depending on the case.
So far, the minimum daily amount is R$20. Bidding in CPC or CPM must be at least R$4.00.
For Twitter, as explained here , campaigns do not have a fixed fee, as the values are defined in an auction model.
And on TikTok, the network charges a daily budget of at least $50.
What is organic traffic?
Organic traffic refers to visitors coming to a website thanks to unpaid search results.
In other words, it's the opposite of paid traffic.
Thus, the organic search results appear just below the listing of ads.
It is this type of traffic that we need to pay attention to our search algorithms.
We'll talk about them below, but first:
Why invest in organic traffic?
According to the study by BrightEdge , B2B companies generate 2x more organic search revenue than any other channel .
Undoubtedly, this type of traffic brings many benefits in the long run.
The main ones are:
Build brand authority
As we will show later, organic traffic is mainly based on the content creation strategy.
Through it, the company publishes materials that can help its customers to clear up their doubts, solve a problem, etc.
By doing this, the business shows that it knows the segment it is in and, more importantly, cares about helping the audience.
Long-term stable results and growth
One of the important issues between paid and organic traffic is how much strategies help a business grow.
If, on the one hand, the paid strategy can be a good option for short-term results, on the other hand, it will not allow for scalable growth.
That is, to receive more paid traffic, it will always be necessary to increase the investment made in these channels.
This is because paid traffic thinks about the present, while organic traffic starts from the present to achieve future results.
How to get organic traffic?
For good organic traffic it is essential to focus on the business persona.
The better her experience in dealings with the company's website, the more prominent the company will be.
Talking about the algorithms , especially those of Google, keep in mind that they are the ones that determine the positioning of your page in the search results.
Therefore, the positioning of your company in the search rankings matters a lot, after all, it will be responsible for your website traffic.
To improve it and make a quality organic strategy, we list some actions.
Content Marketing
Briefly, it is an online content creation strategy with the objective of making the persona enter the company's funnel .
It is known as one of the most effective actions to drive traffic to a website.
Creating blog posts, sending email marketing, and posting on social media are all examples of content marketing.
Remember that when adopting this strategy, quality information is fundamental to success.
IF THE
SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) has to do with the process of improving a website.
Its purpose is to increase the visibility of the page when people search for products or services in search engines.
The relationship here is quite simple: the better the visibility of a website in the results of a search, the greater the chances of attracting good leads. That's why marketers always seek to take actions to optimize SEO.
Some strategies you can start doing right now are:
Check the usability of your website;
Make a mapping of keywords used and see if they are in accordance with the persona; and
Invest in content marketing.
Social media
You can also gain organic traffic through social media.
Some ways to do this are by creating posts sharing tips, starting a conversation, showing a walkthrough in images, sharing information of interest to the persona, among others.
Social media is where content goes viral, so focus on creating materials that can attract as many people to your profile as possible.
From there, they will want to know more about your business and will inevitably head to your website.
Don't forget that the more hits your page has, the more Google will see it as relevant.
Remembering that the content published on the site can – and should – be published on social networks, further increasing its reach.
How much does organic traffic cost?
As you can imagine, there is a cost behind good organic traffic that generates leads .
To name a few examples, you will need to invest in qualified professionals in content production, website optimization and SEO.
There are also marketing tools that can help streamline and automate some phases of the process.
Put in other terms, despite not involving ads, organic traffic also ends up reflecting in the marketing budget.
What is the difference between paid and organic results?
One of the differences between paid and organic traffic is cost.
As we've shown, organic search focuses on unpaid rankings in search results.
Meanwhile, paid search appears in the results list with the tag “ad”.
It is also worth noting that paid and organic traffic digital marketing varies in objective.
Companies often use organic to optimize their site's visibility or rankings in search results, as well as to gain authority, be referenced, and build relationships .
Paid results are the focus of companies that want to have quick sales results, greater reach or increase brand visibility.
Which is better: paid or organic traffic?
Why get paid traffic when you can get qualified leads with organic?
Or, why opt for organic results if paid ones have faster results?
That's why between paid and organic traffic the answer is: choose both strategies .
Understand that there is no magic formula when it comes to digital marketing.
For those who are focused on achieving the best possible results, the tip is to analyze paid and organic search tactics. We reinforce that:
- Paid traffic is seen as a good way to target customers most likely to convert ;
- While organic traffic is ideal to ensure long-term sustainable results.
So, don't forget that the two strategies can be complementary.
Everything will depend on the marketing plan and the objectives to be achieved.
How to measure the ROI of the two strategies?
ROI = (Recipe - Coast) / (Coast)
The first step is to know what the objective of the strategy is.
It can be getting subscribers to a webinar, increasing website traffic, converting leads, closing sales and so many others.
For organic traffic, Google Analytics can help you evaluate website visits, the most accessed texts (in the case of blog posts) and the most clicked links, for example.
It is also possible to know where this traffic comes from, that is, whether from an ad, the social network, etc.
In paid traffic, platforms such as Google Ads and Facebook Ads also bring conversion information.
This will help in defining the ROI of each campaign .
Concluding
Knowing about paid and organic traffic is essential to planning a marketing strategy that really brings results.
As the two serve different purposes and needs, each responds to a need.
However, we reinforce that, in general, it is not a matter of choosing between one and the other.
But, yes, to develop a strategy to improve SEO while seeking to gain visibility faster.
Always remembering that everything will depend on factors such as available budget, persona behavior and marketing objectives.
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