SEO Battles : SEO Vs Facebook

GUESTS & RESOURCES

Episode Overview:

Join host Ben as he kicks off SEO Battles Week with the Director of European Marketing at Searchmetrics, Lillian Haase, to compare and contrast SEO and paid social. Together they discuss which methods work best for certain initiatives and where to best invest your time and efforts.

SEO searches are considered active endeavors compared to paid social, which is typically encountered while passively browsing the Internet. Effectively applying paid social strategies require knowing who your target audience is so you can place the right ad in front of the right people. SEO’s benefit is revealing search intent in users, whether they’re in browse or buy mode, whereas social intent isn’t always clear. Paid social can determine that intent with keyword usage tracking. 

Time to maturity is also a significant factor with these channels as SEO retargeting works best with large audiences. As you evaluate costs for SEO and paid ads on Facebook, consider where most of your conversions come from and what types of customers you’re gaining based on the content you’re creating. Although SEO is relatively free, other expensive overhead costs exist like hiring an SEO writer to create content.

Ultimately, it’s easier to get direct response results from performance marketing ads, but SEO ads more value over time. Both can be leveraged at different times to optimize for conversions in areas where your strategy is lagging.