4 Considerations for Choosing Between Organic Promotion or Sponsored Promotion

Business owners, big and small, realized a long time ago that without an online presence it is very difficult to maintain a solid marketing base. An online presence is a must – a business without a website will have a very difficult time attracting new customers. After all, what do we all do when we are looking for a product or service? Google of course. How do we choose which site to enter? According to the search results.

How do websites get to the top of the results? – by promotion.

There are two main promotion methods – sponsored promotion and organic promotion, about the differences between them and 4 different considerations for choosing between organic and sponsored promotion in the article before you.

Before we continue, what is the difference between organic and sponsored promotion?

At its core, sponsored promotion is an advertisement. Google has an extensive system of various and diverse advertisements and publications that allow almost any business to advertise itself on its platforms. The best known are Google Ads Google Adds those ads that appear at the top of the search results before the organic results. These are advertisements for all intents and purposes.

To verify this, the organic promotion focuses on the natural results, those that Google examined, tested and found to be most relevant to the search. The goal is to bring the site to the top of the results for a certain phrase so that when surfers search for it, the promoted site will appear. The promotion is done in a variety of methods, some of which are completely technical and some of which are related to the nature and content of the promoted website.

#1 What is the level of credibility that surfers attribute to organic versus sponsored promotion?

In principle, the level of credibility that most of us attribute to advertisements is not high. We are all used to seeing advertisements upon advertisements in every corner and most of us tend to simply ignore them. Whether it’s app or TV ads, billboards or any other kind of advertising, most of us just ignore and move on. The same is true for most publications in sponsored promotion. For example, when we search for something on Google, most of us immediately skip the sponsored results and go to the organic results. But is this always true? Does every target audience immediately skip the ads at the top of the search results? Not necessarily.

If we are talking about a target audience over the age of 50-60 it is difficult to say that there is a significant difference in the level of credibility attributed to Google ads versus the organic results. If your business specifically addresses the elderly, provides a service or sells a product relevant only to a relatively older age group, the consideration of the credibility of the sponsored advertising is less relevant for you. It is likely that your target audience does not differentiate between sponsored and organic results and does not attach importance to the fact that the first results on the page are advertisements for all intents and purposes – they see the results and click. For the rest of the business owners who appeal to a different or wider audience, there is a great importance in how the surfer perceives the business and the results of his search.

The organic search results are perceived, well, as organic – natural , selected by the objective and unbiased algorithm of Google. Surfers trust Google as a search engine that has no interests, the top organic results are perceived as the most relevant to the search, as the best and the most “regarded”. A site that appears at the top of the results is seen as a leader in its field, more reliable and professional than its competitors.

The conclusion: for those whose business appeals to an audience that does not necessarily differentiate between Google Ads and organic results, the choice between organic and sponsored promotion has no great significance. For the rest of the business owners, the level of credibility of the organic results is higher than the sponsored ones in the eyes of the surfer and naturally, most surfers would prefer to click on a reliable result in their eyes and not an advertisement.

#2 How does organic promotion affect the quality of the site and the traffic of surfers?

Let’s start with the fact that a sponsored promotion done in a professional and correct way can lead to a good traffic of surfers to the website, usually in the immediate term. This is the great advantage of sponsored promotion, targeted and fast results. That is why sponsored promotion is very suitable for specific campaigns such as the launch of a new product line, a special sale, etc. Is it effective in the long term as a tool for creating a positive business image and stable traffic of surfers to the website? Not necessarily. It is very important to remember that bringing surfers to your business website is only part of the ultimate goal – the goal is to turn them into customers . Here, the organic promotion has an interesting “side effect” – organic promotion forces the site to be updated, relevant to surfers, accessible and attractive to them, easy to browse and with a strong emphasis on the user experience (these are some of the parameters that Google measures and therefore are part of the organic promotion efforts anyway). All these guarantee that a surfer who comes to the site will want to stay there, will have a positive impression of it and his business he belongs to and will want to contact or make a purchase.

The conclusion: for the short term, for advertising for a limited time, to support a specific campaign, etc. sponsored promotion is very suitable for almost any type of business. But as soon as the sponsored campaign is over, the traffic of the surfers will end along with it and the website will not gain anything from the campaign in the long run. The organic promotion for this nation has very great advantages as part of a broad marketing strategy.

#3 When do you see results?

The results of the sponsored promotion are seen immediately, if the ad was formulated in an accurate and professional manner and the parameters of the ad were defined correctly, it is possible to achieve very impressive results very quickly. This is the great advantage of sponsored promotion. The results of the organic promotion are not seen the next day, not even in a month and sometimes not even in six months. The main reason is the competitors – the more competition there is for a certain phrase, the harder it is to get to the top of the search results. Just as you promote your website, so do your competitors. For example, promotion of a brand new website in a category with great competition can take many months and a lot of effort on the part of the promoter.

Does this mean that it is not worth investing in organic promotion? Definately not. The trick here is to understand that this is a long-term investment that promotes the business as part of a broad marketing strategy , creating a positive business profile in the eyes of potential customers and maintaining high credibility (see section #1). Beyond that, a website promoter with extensive experience in promotion knows how to use creative, proven and reliable promotion methods to boost your website to the top in a reasonable amount of time.

The conclusion: sponsored promotion gives almost immediate results, organic promotion is a very profitable long-term investment.

#4 How much does organic promotion cost compared to sponsored promotion?

The question of the questions – how much does it cost me? Usually very simple when it comes to purchasing a product or service for the business. If we want to purchase a new computer, the price is X, the accountant’s service costs Y per month – simple. We know exactly how much it costs us.

But when it comes to sponsored promotion the focus should not be on how much it costs me but what I bought. The sponsored advertising is structured so that you pay per click, no one knows if the surfer who clicked on the ad actually became a customer (maybe it’s even a competitor who clicks on your ads), is it a mistake, is it just out of curiosity without a desire to purchase (happens a lot with particularly provocative ads ). Surfers who arrive through ads are considered to be of lower “quality”, they tend to see the site as less reliable (see section #1) and are therefore less inclined to leave details or make a purchase.

How do you run a funded campaign successfully? Accuracy and in-depth understanding of the system. Many business owners make the mistake of “pouring” money into a poorly defined sponsored promotion and find themselves with a large bill at the end of the month but very few results. Sponsored promotion is effective only when it is defined in a professional manner , monitored all the time and generally done by a professional who knows the field, all the “sticks and tricks” and can really get the most out of Google’s system.

For the nation of sponsored promotion, in organic promotion we know exactly what we bought and how much it cost us – a fixed price for results. What the business owner “purchases” here is ongoing maintenance of the site, its constant improvement and stable promotion over time at the top of Google’s search results. The business accepts surfers who come in advance with a positive opinion of the site (see section #1) and have a high potential to become customers.

The conclusion: it’s hard to know exactly what we paid for with sponsored promotion, only when it’s done in a very professional and accurate way is it effective, and here too, in the short term. Organic promotion offers stable long-term results and is therefore actually cheaper with a higher return. If you want to boost your organic business leads and sales then you need to hire the best digital marketing company in India.

What is true for my specific business, organic or sponsored promotion?

As we have seen, organic promotion is a long-term marketing investment with known and high-quality results, therefore – organic promotion is suitable for any business owner who wants to boost his website above the competition. Granted, sponsored promotion is suitable for short and targeted campaigns, it does not replace professional organic promotion and investment in a quality website. With the help of organic promotion, you can not only bring surfers to the site, but also make them stay there, be interested in what the business has to offer and establish contact – the first step in becoming a new customer.