New research: Organic search results and their impact on search ads

The Google Research team has a new study out today that examines how organic search results and ranking impact ad impressions and ad clicks. The team analyzed 390 Search Ads Pause studies and found, on average:

• 81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks occur in the absence of an associated organic result on the first page of search results. All ad clicks in these situations are incremental.
• On average, for advertisers who appear in the top rank organic slot, 50% of ad clicks are incremental. This means that half of all ad clicks are not replaced by organic clicks when search ads are paused.
• For advertisers whose organic search results are in the 2nd to 4th position, 81% of ad clicks are incremental. For advertisers appearing in organic position of 5 or lower, 96% of ad clicks are incremental.

The numbers reported here are averages. As always, we encourage advertisers to experiment with their own accounts to determine their individual incrementality rate. This rate should be factored into ROI calculations.

You can read more about it and see the infographic on the Google Research blog here.

Posted by Christina Park, Product Marketing Manager