There are some who believe that once you achieve top organic rankings, that pay per click should be stopped and that you should invest your money elsewhere. The implication is that doing pay per click when you have good organic rankings is a waste of money or gives you a lower return on investment. The truth is that even if you have #1 organic ranking in a search term, doing pay per click on that same search term will get you more traffic and more leads. I have many clients who bid on search terms even when they have good organic rankings and still get a good return on their pay per click marketing
It is true that the cost per lead for pay per click is much higher than the cost per lead of the “free” organic traffic. It is also true that if you stop doing pay per click when you have good organic rankings, you will still get leads from the organic traffic.
The business case for pay per click really doesn’t change that much if you have great organic rankings. Ultimately with pay per click you are spending dollars to get customers. A good number to look at is cost to gain a customer. Whether that cost makes sense depends on the answer to the following question:
“What is the “life time value” of your average customer?”
For some businesses that sell a one per customer product, the cost of pay per click marketing may cut too deeply into the profit margin. A cost per customer of $75.00 would not make sense if you are selling a $100.00 product and your average customer only bought one product. There are many businesses where pay per click takes a sizable chunk of their margin and even if they could get all the business they want from pay per click, it would not make sense.
Many of my clients offer ongoing services such as contract manufacturing. A customer may need this service for years; the life time value of that client could easily exceed hundreds of thousands of dollars. In this case, even a $750.00 cost per acquisition number seems like no brainer.
Whatever your cost per client acquisition, your budget is always limited so the other comparison you should make is “how does that cost per client compare with other advertising and marketing methods?” Pay per click often stacks up well when compared to other marketing, but I hesitate to make any across the board statements. Email marketing, trade shows, paid directories; printed advertising, banner ads, social media, television and radio ads and telemarketing are other methods to gain clients. Each has a marketing cost and a business return that needs to be evaluated. Each has its distinct advantages as well as weaknesses.
My bet is if pay per click made sense before you had top organic rankings, it should still make good sense after.
