So which do you think draws more traffic to your site. SEO or PPC? If you said SEO; you’re wrong. If you said PPC — wrong again!
For the second year in a row, the highest percentage of sales dollars (40%) was generated from visitors who arrived at a site via direct access or bookmarks. Engine Ready, an Internet marketing company, analyzed 18.7 million visits over two years to Web sites run by 27 of the company’s roughly 500 clients.
These figures once again prove out the importance of networking, relationship management and engagement with those visitors who you come in contact with!
- Organic listings – 12%
- Paid listings – 20%
- Direct Access/Bookmarks – 40%
- Other referrers – 28%
This could very likely be an indication of repeat visitors, despite the study showing that only 25% of the visitors were repeat visitors. Therefore one can surmise that the 25% repeat visitor value would have been closer to the 40% level had visitors not deleted their cookies.
Such visitors, who tend to be repeat customers, linger the longest, spend the most money, and are the most likely to “convert” to buyers, doing so on 3.3 percent of their visits. On average, their visits are worth $5.69 apiece.
Inbound links to a site from other domains are both beneficial for SEO as well as driving additional quality traffic. And it was found that visitors arriving from other domains and emails took top honors for the highest value per visitor at $7.19, beating out last studies victor, direct access/bookmark by $0.16.
“Ever since the pay per click model became a channel for marketers, there has been an ongoing debate whether an investment in search engine optimization generates a higher ROI than paying for clicks using a PPC advertising model.
On an individual basis, there’s a multitude of factors that determine how well your visitors will convert when arriving from a search engine. Looking at the big picture across our entire sample size, though, did show that visitors from PPC ads outperformed those from organic listings in every category except average number of page views per visit. This was consistent with our study results from 2007. Overall, we found that the average sales dollar value per visitor arriving from a PPC ad was $2.38, or 76% higher than that of a visitor from an organic listing.
Additionally, paid traffic converted at a 54% higher rate and experienced an average order value 10% above that of traffic from organic listings.”
What this study confirms to me is something I’ve thought myself for years. When I’m ready to buy, I don’t trust organics. I assume (right or wrong) that those paying for PPCs and sending out professional marketing e-mails are those who take their business and therefore their customers more seriously.
If your online “advertising” model is solely about fretting over the natural/organic rankings you have or don’t have — you don’t get it. You need to have a healthy mix of marketing activities to attract your target customer. And clearly once they do visit, it is your site, your service and your product quality that can only keep them coming back for more.
At your service,
Judith
About Judith
Great analysis …As a PPCer this is why we cant just stop at ddriving traffic we have to create the ultimate landing pages and also give searchers what they really want….IMHO many people do not realise the points that you make above, and that getting people there is just the start and PPC, SEO, Direct however they get there its the task then to win them over ;-)
Hey, Dave:
Couldn’t have said it better myself! ;-)
Thanks for stopping by!
The more I get into this business the more I know I don’t know. But that’s O.K. Keeps things interesting and fun. Guy Kawasaki said if you have more money than brains focus on outbound marketing. And if you have more brains than money focus on inbound marketing. In my situation and after looking at your charts I guess I need to look at my piggy-bank again and do a mix as best as I can. Can I use your charts with attribution? Thanks for your info.
.-= Jake Jacob´s last blog … Part One: Trends in Social Media for the Coming Year =-.
Hey, Jake:
Guy is a very wise guy! ;-) The thing is the marketing mix is unique to every single client, business or site I’ve worked on over the past 15+ years. Each site owner has to “play” to find out what works best for them — and then keep on testing! You’ll never know what really works or produces the results you desire without an proactive ongoing approach.
The charts were from the study I reference and link to over @ EngineReady.com. Thanks for stopping by!
I agree with you completely Judith. Both SEO and PPC are only tools to get people to see / visit your site. They are not sales tools. An internet business, just as any other, is definitely based on relationships, so yes you can use SEO, PPC and other methods to get people to your site… but they won’t buy if they don’t trust what you say or offer.
.-= Darvin @ Organic Food Coupons´s last blog … Do Follow Blog, Comment, Keyword Luv and Top Commenter =-.
Hey, Darvin:
Thanks for stopping by! It’s all about the trust — and relationships. People prefer to do business with people they like — and then if they can trust you — it’s a shoe in!
Recently a business owner in Cincinnati made the statement she thinks SEO is a scam. That was a perspective I’d never heard articulated that way, but I thought later on I think I agree. As long as it takes, and as unpredictable as it is, the more I thought about it… the more I agreed. It’s not even really a search engine… It’s a results engine…results of syntax, cybersyncro, google BS.
@James
Thanks for stopping by! I don’t know if I would go so far as saying SEO is a scam — but I do think there are allot of scammers offering pie-in-the-sky SEO services that give the whole process a bad name.
While SEO is just one of many things that all site owners/developers should consider, it isn’t the end all be all. And now with social media turning everything on its head, we’re back to the basics — business is about doing business with people. People you like; people you trust.
That is really interesting. I always believed that when people used the web to solve a problem or make a purchase they headed straight to the search engines. This being the reason why social traffic doesn’t convert. These results really highlight the importance of building trust and garnering referrals from other trust agents in your sphere. High quality content and top notch customer experience are still king after all.
Kel
.-= Kelvin Lam´s last blog … Relationships and Guilt =-.
@Kelvin
Thanks for stopping by!
You last sentence wraps this all up in a nutshell! If you proceed with that methodology, the rankings, conversions and contacts will follow!