Users are always concerned about the benefits of search advertising (pay per click) over organic search listings (SEO). Typically, pay per click advertising is considered as a high-cost less efficient replacement for organic search traffic. These claims may be refuted by the latest study conducted by none other than Google's research team. The basis of the study was to identify the incremental traffic delivered by PPC ads. The key metrics used was Incremental Ad Clicks (IAC), and a model was built to measure this metric.  

IAC = TH - TL / PH - PL

TH = High spend total clicks

TL = Low spend total clicks

PH = High spend paid clicks

PL = Low spend paid clicks

The team conducted several tests by running/pausing sample paid search campaigns to measure the incremental traffic with and without paid search. Amazingly, the results showed that ppc drives a startling 89% incremental clicks.

The study was extended over diverse sample types, including multiple countries, industry verticals, and daily spend level. Interestingly, the results were similar in almost all cases pointing to 0ver 85% traffic being driven by paid search ads.

This insightful study reaffirms the importance of paid search in online advertising as it continues to be the most popular online advertising channel.