We ran this research to seek out out if working paid advertisements cannibalize natural site visitors or not.
Most SEOs are in opposition to bidding on branded phrases as a result of it’s believed that purchasing paid advertisements cannibalizes natural site visitors and it will possibly additionally influence attribution for conversions and income. Paid advertisers consider there may be an uplift in general site visitors. Who’s proper?
Let’s dig in and see what the info says, however first I need to give an enormous because of our knowledge scientist Xibeijia Guan for doing all of the onerous knowledge components of this research and to our CMO Tim Soulo for his enter.
We checked out 3 months of advert knowledge in Ahrefs throughout ~2.3 million key phrases from June 1, 2024, to August 31, 2024.
Fast information:
46.7% of the queries have been branded59.5% of corporations bid on their very own branded termsIn 63.9% of instances, the model was the one bidder
For branded phrases, working paid advertisements ends in 18.3% extra complete clicks on common. Calculated as +22.2% extra site visitors going to advertisements and -3.9% site visitors cannibalized from natural site visitors.
Each SEOs and paid advertisers have been proper of their assumptions. Paid cannibalizes a little bit of natural site visitors, however there’s a good uplift in general site visitors.
As you may see, working advertisements shifts site visitors in direction of greater standardized values, which means extra general site visitors.
Paid advertisements considerably improve the median site visitors, although the variability additionally will increase.
There may be robust proof (extra knowledge to the correct of 0) that paid advertisements constantly enhance complete site visitors in comparison with natural site visitors alone for branded queries.
For non-branded phrases, working advertisements has little impact on natural site visitors. Bid on the advertisements if the incremental further site visitors is sensible for what you are promoting.
There’s not a lot distinction in standardized values.
Advertisements don’t considerably improve the median standardized site visitors for non-branded queries.
Advertisements have a negligible impact on general site visitors variations for non-branded queries, with little proof of any site visitors uplift or site visitors cannibalization.
Closing ideas
Whether or not this further site visitors from bidding on branded phrases is value it or not will rely in your firm, however I’d say it’s value experimenting to see if it’s viable for what you are promoting.
I wouldn’t go by simply the uncooked site visitors numbers, have a look at the standard of the site visitors and if it converts. For instance, it might be rivals or your individual workers clicking on the advertisements, so further clicks could not end in further income. You’ll must strive it to seek out out.