Performance marketing is no longer just about clicks or rankings: it’s about experience and outcomes. For search advertisers, this means blurring the lines between Paid & Organic advertising. Those outcomes can no longer come without collaboration.
Here’s a snapshot of how performance marketing is getting smarter, and what it means when PPC and SEO work together, rather than apart.
The SERP is one shared ecosystem
It’s no surprise that the results page has changed significantly over time. What was a consistent and predictable page of listings has evolved to become far more experiential: AI Overviews, shopping carousels and the upcoming AI Mode (which is to be rolled into core search). It’s much harder to predict which element of a results page a user is going to interact with, meaning Organic and Paid must work together to ensure all bases are covered.
So what can you do?
- Develop a clear understanding of where you are and aren’t present across the results page. This doesn’t just mean what keywords you’re ranking on, but what features of the SERP are showcasing your business.
- Generate a combined organic and paid optimisation roadmap that takes into account wider visibility across the SERP than simply individual channel listings. That might be organic and paid feed optimisation or even structured data.
SEO has a natural head start, as these new SERP features aren’t yet available to paid teams. Making sure your SEO team understands these results and shares that insight with your PPC team will help you stay ahead when ads are eventually introduced.
Automation thrives off input
Paid Search platforms have become increasingly automated over recent years. Smart Bidding, Performance Max and even the rise of Broad Match are now features that do a lot of heavy lifting. A common mistake that advertisers continue to make is investing heavily in automated features, without giving the signals that feed them the care and attention they deserve. This is why it’s more important than ever that paid & organic take a combined approach to long-term optimisation. Simply put, what you are (or aren’t) doing from an SEO standpoint is having a direct impact on your paid campaigns.
Arguably, advertisers need to go back to basics and ensure some of the fundamentals of their website set-up are in order to make sure you’re not setting yourselves up for easy failure on your PPC campaigns.
For example:
- Landing page quality continues to have a huge impact on Quality Score and therefore conversion rates. Look for below-average landing page performance in your Paid keyword quality score data and use this as a framework for landing page optimisation.
- Content relevancy impacts not just your organic rankings, but also your PPC campaign engagement. Again, the impact on Quality Score (and the fact that this is a metric that bidding algorithms will use to determine CPC…) means that user intent is answered directly on the landing page isn’t just SEO’s problem.
- Structured data is vital for both organic listings and paid shopping activity to gain visibility. The most basic data won’t cut it if you want to stand out on a results page these days, whether it’s an Organic listing and or product ad, not to mention how this data is now being used to fuel snippets.
Measurement is King
With the evolution of data privacy in recent years, siloed use of platform-specific data or even just looking at CTR across Paid and Organic search terms isn’t enough anymore. Of course there’s merit in understanding individual channel performance: SEO can provide visibility of long-term trends and uncover emerging intent, whilst PPC offers speedy options of getting quick and clear feedback on what works from the consumer perspective. Combining oversight and analysis of how the two interact with each other is key though, and provides more informed and agile outcomes.
What can you start looking at?
If you can get hold of this data, it can become your most powerful metric and force both channels to build strategies that drive quality traffic, rather than focusing on what looks good from a channel attribution perspective.
If you’ve ever wondered the true impact of your paid or organic channels, incrementality testing can give you the answers you need, backed by robust data. You’ll be able to allocate budgets in a smarter way, whilst avoiding double-counting success across channels.
- Post-view and cross-channel influence
Exploring the customer journey beyond one channel, how does a user who has viewed one specific channel then go on to interact with another? Building reports in your chosen attribution platform is vital to helping marketers understand the full customer journey and how channels work together to drive conversions.
- LLM tracking
As more users shift to LLM platforms for their searches, it’s essential to understand how your brand is performing in this space. Search behaviour on LLMs differs from traditional search, often involving more complex queries. Tools like Profound, Scrunch, and Otterly.ai can help you start assessing your performance in these emerging environments.
Zero-click searches are on the rise, and while impressions aren’t a new metric, they offer valuable insight into how often your site appears in search results. Instead of focusing solely on clicks, tracking impressions can give you a clearer picture of your overall visibility and performance.
User experience unifies
It’s easy to get caught up in what a Paid ad or Organic snippet showcases on a results page. To the average consumer, search is just… search. Most people don’t actively think about what content they’re engaging with online. All users searching require the same things: speed, relevance and the answer to what they’re looking for.
I’ve spoken already about going back to basics and that point is no more important than when it comes to user experience.
- Content needs to be strong, regardless of the traffic source
- Landing pages should be fast, surface relevant information quickly and be optimised well for conversion
- Messaging must feel seamless and aligned across both channels
Search ads and organic activity share the responsibility of getting the user experience across search channels right, so it’s time we start collaborating on just that.
What now?
Smarter performance means smarter collaboration. If your teams are still working in isolation, you’re likely missing out on shared wins.
We believe the most effective work happens when people come together, across specialisms, channels and KPIs. So if your team is ready to think differently about how search really works today, we’re here to help start the conversation.
Ready to chat? Get in touch with us or dive deeper into SEO & PPC collaboration.
