Paid ads vs organic content – which is better? [#135]

Posted by Adam Franklin

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Updated on August 11th, 2020

Paid advertising versus content marketing?

[Icebergs, Bondi Beach, Sydney, NSW, Australia]

VIDEO: Paid ads organic content

TRANSCRIPT

Today’s question is:

“What’s better out of organic content and paid advertising?”

Well, look, let me share my opinion.

Pros of organic content vs paid ads

The pros of organic content, particularly when we’re talking about blog content that’s published to a website as opposed to a social media post, like a tweet which has a very short half life, if it’s a piece of organic content that is published on a blog, that is actually going to live online forever.

Organic content lives online forever

So you might publish it today, but somebody can still see it and read it and benefit from it next week, next month, next year. And if you focus on this, what you’re doing is you’re actually building a longterm asset.

Paid ads are instant but vanish after one click

So if we compare that to a paid ad. A paid ad, well, firstly, it costs you money, which organic content doesn’t. It costs you time and effort, of course, but in terms of actual dollars, a paid ad is going to cost you whereas organic content isn’t.

With a paid ad, yes, you get visibility straight away, assuming you pay enough money to be seen by the right people, so there’s benefit there. If you want quick results and you want people to see that, absolutely.

But the thing is to remember that once somebody’s clicked on it and you’ve paid your money to Google or Facebook or LinkedIn or whoever, then that visibility is gone.

Paid ads get reach but are always costing you money

You need to reach into your pocket and pay them more money for the same of visibility.

Now, ads are great if you have a new client pathway. If you have a sales funnel where you know that if you spend $5 on traffic, you’re going to get $10 back, that’s fantastic. But of course, as ad prices go up, it’s always going to be a constant battle to stay ahead of that.

Organic content takes time but you’re building an asset

But with organic content, every time you publish something, you create something, you’re building an asset that people can continue to find from all over the web for a long period of time.

My personal approach is to build these pathways into your business from not only publishing on your own site, but on other people’s websites too, particularly blog articles because they stay there forever and it’s more and more opportunities, more and more pathways into your business. Whereas a paid ad is just up there and then gone. So, anyway, that’s my take. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are.

My name’s Adam Franklin. Talk to you later.

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About Adam Franklin

Adam Franklin is the bestselling author of Web Marketing That Works. He is an international social media speaker and CEO of Bluewire Media. His blog was Australia's #1 Business Blog and his podcast was #9 on the top marketing podcasts in Entrepreneur magazine. His work has featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Huffington Post and iTunes. Download the popular Web Strategy Planning Template which has been used by hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. His weekly 'Bluewire News' email goes out to over 32,000 readers.