The balance of organic and CPC advertising is totally subjective depending on the needs and goals of the advertiser. The following discusses the two most common scenarios for determining a balance of online marketing.
For Startups
The most relevant determining factor for startups is budget; which form of advertising will provide the fastest ROI? Generally speaking, top organic (non-paid) placements are the most effective (top organic placements get more attention) and lucrative form of promotion in the online marketplace and it should be the first target for any Internet marketing plan. Even 2nd page organic placements, however, can take time to achieve so depending on the budget available it is recommended that a small CPC campaign be implemented to generate interim traffic while organic placements are assessed. This two-pronged approach will ultimately provide the marketer with a clearer picture of which marketing tool is more efficient for their targeted terms, thus determining the proper balance for ROI.
The exception is where the competition is so well entrenched that obtaining a top placement is expected to take a great deal of time to attain. In this case, a larger CPC campaign should be created to generate traffic to the web site while organic placements slowly improve.
For Established Sites
In this scenario an established web site is assumed to have unreliable top 10 presence on the organic search listings. In this case, the marketer needs to increase sales to balance the dips in sales during negative organic listing fluctuations. CPC promotions are an excellent solution because they can be manipulated in real time and if properly tweaked they can be incredibly effective for maintaining traffic and reasonable ROI.