Chocolate and peanut butter. Abbott and Costello. Peaches and cream.
Some things are just better together. And adding paid search to your marketing mix is no different. By itself, paid search can be an effective standalone strategy for achieving your goals. But as part of a broader, coordinated campaign, it’s also an effective way to boost the impact of your other marketing investments.
Here’s how your paid search efforts can pay off in other ways by optimizing your other marketing efforts.
Organic Search & Paid Search
When customers search, 75% expect to see what they’re looking for near the top of the search results. With paid search, you have greater control over the placement of your results, enabling more customers to find your ads first.
And when your paid search ad appears alongside organic search results, you’ll see an even great impact. In fact, total clicks for retail brands increase by 31% when an ad appears next to organic search results, with a near-equal distribution of clicks going to each set of results.
Social Media & Paid Search
Paid search is an excellent way to increase the impact of your social media campaigns. Because social media advertising is a push medium that tends to interrupt the user, it is not typically used for bottom-of-the-funnel marketing. Social media is particularly helpful for generating brand awareness and introducing your brand to a new audience. However, it is not great for securing a sale.
On the other hand, paid search is an intent-based pull medium: consumers are already looking for what you have to offer, so paid search is a natural part of the process. And when the two strategies are combined, social can generate interest in your brand, triggering the consumer to then search for your product.
In a study with Pepperjam, Bing Ads demonstrated this concept. They found that while social only and search only yielded conversion rates of 3% and 6%, respectively, when social and search were combined, conversion rates increased to 14%.
TV & Paid Search
Do you run TV ads? If so, it may interest you to know that 87% of viewers are second screening and oftentimes, a TV commercial will trigger a search. BingAds studied the impact of brand and model-related search volume following commercials aired during the Superbowl in 2017. It turns out that search volumes spiked just following a commercial. In fact, an overall lift in search volume continued for up to 72 hours following the commercial. By running paid search ads, you can help ensure your brand is found during these post-TV ad search spikes.
Other Channels & Paid Search
Paid search boosts the impact of other channels as well,including display and email. In a 2015 study by Search Engine Watch, conversion rates increased by 52% and the number of impressions increased by 45% while display and search were running simultaneously.
In its study with Pepperjam, Bing Ads found that amplifying email through paid search yielded a 14% increase in average order value and shortened the purchase path by nearly 20%.
Don’t miss out on the opportunities that arise when you combine paid search with your other marketing efforts. To learn more about all the benefits that paid search marketing can offer your brand, take some time to review The growth marketer’s guide to search.
