Organic Search Results and their Impact on Paid Search Ads

What role does an advertisers' organic search position and paid position have on their overall click performance?

The Google Research team analyzed 390 search ads paused studies to examine how organic search results and ranking impact ad impressions and ad clicks. On average, they found:

  • 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.