Paid Search vs SEO Case Study for Auto Parts

Pay per click (PPC) vs automotive SEO is an important combination for marketing. A common question in the auto parts industry is the PPC vs SEO debate. Are both types of online marketing are necessary? Or do these marketing efforts detract from each other when used at the same time? (You can scroll down to see our conclusion at the bottom.)

This blog post shows the results of a recent automotive SEO vs automotive PPC case study we did. But first let’s revisit a case study conducted by Google a few years ago.

Paid Search vs SEO case study from Google

For details from the case study, click on this infographic provided by Google and it will open in a larger pop up window.

If you want a quick summary, here it is: for Google Ads advertisers fortunate to have a top-ranked organic keyword, Google paid search ads created an incremental 50% more clicks.

Advertisers with keywords in positions two, three or four, received 82% additional clicks. Advertisers with keywords ranked fifth position or lower got about double the clicks they were receiving from Google Ads.

We have to look at Google’s case studies with a little skepticism. After all, it’s in Google’s best interest to promote Google Ads. However, we have been able to independently confirm similar results with Hedges & Company clients who are automotive parts advertisers.

There are also many other case studies around the Internet that show paid search works very well in conjunction with search engine optimization. You can find them pretty easily searching on Google.

Our newest auto parts SEO vs paid search case study

Hedges & Company recently pulled stats from Google Analytics for a client. We had been managing search engine optimization as well as paid search campaigns for over a year. We compared monthly sales and visits from organic traffic, as well as from paid search campaigns. While the Google case study mentioned above covers all types of advertisers, our SEO/PPC analysis focuses on automotive parts online marketing.

Our case study results are similar to the Google paid search case study. Online retailers received incremental web visits and sales using a combination of organic and paid search campaigns.

Here is a chart comparing sales from organic and paid traffic by month, for the past 13 months. (We removed any actual sales information and indexed the stats, to protect the actual, confidential data).

In December, sales from organic visits were up over 30% from the previous year. PPC campaigns had a 68% increase from the previous year.

These stats are to illustrate a point. If SEO competed with PPC, both results could not be up from a year ago as significantly as they are.

Sales are up in an efficient way, too. As you can see from the next chart down, even though visits are up, they’re not up as much as sales.

Monthly organic visits have been up 26%, and paid visits have been up 42%. This indicates highly qualified visitors resulting in better conversion rates than a year ago.

This results in very efficient auto parts SEO and paid search marketing campaigns.

PPC + SEO = more SERP real estate

One thing we like to emphasize is the concept of search engine results page (SERP) real estate.

It’s pretty simple. The more real estate you occupy on the SERP, the less real estate is left for your competitor. If you have more paid search results showing on a page, including Google Shopping, combined with more organic results, you will occupy significantly more real estate and squeeze out your competitors.

Conclusions on our SEO and paid search case study

Clearly, in the automotive industry as well as other industries, this case study makes it clear. The combination of SEO marketing, combined with paid search marketing, resulted in more sales and traffic than from just one of those types of marketing efforts. For our last SEO vs. paid search case study, look at our previous automotive case studies. As mentioned previously, a quick look on various search engine marketing blogs around the Internet will show other, similar case study results.

The bottom line is, if you want to maximize traffic and revenue for your auto parts website then a strategic combination of organic SEO marketing, with a well executed paid search marketing program, is your best choice.

SEO and paid search marketing do not conflict, but complement each other resulting in incremental sales and profits.

If you have questions or want to discuss your online marketing please give our office a call and speak with one of our online marketing experts.