In today’s digital world, the focus for many brands is user experience. It’s no longer about the number of total clicks a page has; other metrics including bounce-rate, page views per session and average session duration have all become increasingly important in understanding the user journey. With Google processing over 8.5 billion searches per day, winning on Google – whether it’s through organic search listings, paid search listings, shopping ads listings or local search results – is vital for brands to be visible and win traffic share.

Google’s VP of Marketing for the Americas, Lisa Gevelber, describes how more and more people are using search to optimise their real-world experiences - as it helps them to feel more confident and less anxious. For users, the research process becomes part of the experience itself, and the research is meant to create the best experience possible. To deliver the best user experience, there are four conditions that needs to be met:

1.  Quality content
2.  Overall site experience
3.  Serving relevant ads and organic listing matched to the right quer
4.  Rich search insights and data to inform search strategy

So, how does Total Search come into all this? In short, Total Search is where SEO (organic search) meets paid search in one comprehensive strategy. 

What is SEO and what are the benefits?

SEO (or Search Engine Optimisation) focuses on enhancing the visibility of a website or webpage in the search engine results pages (SERPs), organically. The goal is to increase traffic by improving a website/web page’s ranking within the SERPs – getting it higher up the page, so that it is more likely to be clicked on. When SEO practices are implemented correctly, it can help to boost a brand’s credibility and attract relevant users. SEO typically produces long-term results, as moving up the SERP rankings through optimised content and keyword research can help with sustainable growth and improved marketing ROI. 

What is Paid Search and what are the benefits?

Paid Search (also known as PPC or ‘Pay-Per-Click’) marketing is, shockingly, a paid form of marketing. It’s a bit like renting a space at the top of the SERPs. Brands can bid for an ad placement in the SERPs, so when relevant customers search on Google, their brand will appear with a sponsored link that customers can click through to. This form of marketing generates instant results from the moment ads go live. It also attracts ready-to-buy users, as the ads focus on commercial search term results – reeling in users who are ready to spend. Beneficially, Paid Search also uses audience targeting, so ads can be directed to customers based on filters such as age, gender, and location. This advanced form of marketing can help brands to narrow down their audiences, creating specific ads for them. 

So, how does Total Search work to make the most of SEO and PPC?

Both paid and organic strategies are key to success; however, it’s important to find the right balance across the channels when looking at the search results. SEO and PPC both bring something uniquely beneficial when it comes to results, which is why considering both of their metrics is key to activating a holistic, channel-agnostic search strategy.

Search teams that are unified in their approach are more likely to succeed in today’s search landscape – which is where Total Search comes in. This strategy looks at bringing together paid and organic to deliver the best user experience and reduce spend wastage.

Merkle describes the process as ensuring that both paid and organic search activities work successfully together to achieve meaningful customer and business outcomes. Through Total Search, brands can maximise the value of both channels by: 

1. Reducing wastage: SEO teams are generally held accountable for delivering optimised content through keyword targeting. Through data sharing, brands can benefit from the expanding its keyword coverage between PPC and SEO to ensure ads are relevantly targeted to user search queries and intent.
2. Reducing cost: Often, brands see their ad cost driven up by inefficiencies, such as high bounce rate and low average session duration. This can be caused by site content not being optimised in a way that users expect or poor site experience -for example, slow loading times. Working with SEO to ensure high-paid traffic driving pages and overall site experience are optimised can help to improve quality score, thereby reducing cost.
3. Driving efficiencies and growth: Through a collaborative approach, brands can identify coverage gaps across both channels to provide an opportunity to test new search strategies (e.g. reduce bidding on branded terms if the site is ranking very strongly in organic search for branded, and focus more on generics), prioritise site optimisation to drive paid search returns, and inform new content creation to grow and expand.
4. Delivering a holistic view: By aligning on a shared set of KPIs, it also reduces cannibalisation where quick, single channel wins are pursed over more substantive business objectives. Joint reporting provides brands with holistic oversight of their marketing performance and can better support in devising a joint strategy for maximum performance.

 So, what are the benefits of a total search approach?

Bringing together the best of SEO and PPC will maximise SERP coverage – giving your brand better online visibility, which in turn will bring in those higher-quality customers. It will also give your brand a more consistent story by tapping into full-funnel coverage, so you can be there for your customers in a way that works for them – no matter where they are in the purchase funnel. This joint approach will also improve ROI and CTR. Balancing short-term wins with long-term brand value, aligning your SEO and PPC strategies will generate more high-quality traffic by having your brand show up in both organic and paid search results. This will also lean into your brand becoming more flexible and agile, as you’ll be able to leverage insights from both your PPC and SEO efforts – meaning you can more easily improve overall efficiencies within your strategies. Being able to target high-quality users at different stages of the buying journey will only help to build brand-awareness and trust overtime, resulting in more conversions. 

How has total search pivoted our work at dentsu?

Total Search reporting has already supported a huge number of our clients in driving more efficient spending across channels. Combining datasets has shone a light on blind spots (where either a channel has low/ no visibility in comparison to the other), areas of opportunity to pull back spend, and areas where neither channel has visibility.

Audiences don’t differentiate between paid and organic search results – so it’s essential that brands consider how to have a more connected approach to search as well. Working under a Total Search umbrella allows us to remove individual channel silos and foster strong integration across our teams.

We’ve worked with a range of clients, from completely siloed to total collaboration, and have experience in helping brands to take the first step towards a more joined-up approach.

In summary, for any brands looking to maximise their search strategy and looking to innovate, Total Search is a key win especially given the importance of “searching” as part of users’ day-to-day activity.

For more information, contact our team today to see how we can help you with implementing a Total Search strategy across your marketing efforts.