Fine-tune your SEO–PPC synergy based on your—and your competition's—organic visibility

You can use Conductor to fine-tune your ad spend based on your visibility and success in search results. Better yet, you can investigate your competition's performance to discover new opportunities to compete.

Below, you'll find two ways to promote synergy by identifying keywords for which you can:

• Reduce PPC spend, based on good performance in their Google Search Console metrics, using the Search Console Analytics report. 
• Increase PPC spend, based on Page 1 competitive gaps, using the Rank Comparisons report.

Before you begin, you'll want to create a standard keyword group for the list of paid search keywords you are interested in measuring. Your Paid Search Manager or any member of your Demand Generation team should be able to supply you with a list of active keywords being used in Google Ads campaigns. You can share this resource from Google Ads to assist the download of the search term reports.

1. In Conductor, go to Search Console Analytics↗️.
2. In Search Console Analytics, use the Select Keyword Groups filter to choose your newly created paid search keyword group.
3. In the table, sort the Position column to show the highest rank first.
4. Review these keywords. Look for keywords near position 1 that have a very high or above average (about 30%) clickthrough rates (CTR). Consider reducing spend for these keywords because they are already performing incredibly well organically.
   
5. In Conductor, go to Rank Comparisons↗️.
6. In Rank Comparisons, use the Select Keyword Groups filter to choose your newly created paid search keyword group.
7. At the top, choose a competitor to compare you ranks with.
8. On the left, choose the following filters:
   • In the Your Visibility filter, select Not on 1st Page for the most recent time period.
   • In the Selected Web Properties' Visibility filter, select On 1st Page for the most recent time period.
     
9. Review these keywords. Look for competitive gaps in your organic performance that PPC spend can help make up for.

What's next?

Take what you lean from this workflow to influence smart allocation of your organization's finite digital marketing resources.