Are Paid or Organic Ads best for your Company?

There are countless aspects to Digital Marketing and various things to consider in order for your content to be effective. 4.62 billion people check their social media apps every single day. Billions of people that you can try and reach through ads. Paid or organic ads, there are pros and cons to them both. It is important to plan out everything from who your target audience is, the message you are trying to share and how you are going to do it. Here is a summary of the types of Marketing Channels available and which ones will work best for you.

Image of an open laptop on a table, the screen shows Google Analytics ads. A persons hands are hovering over the keyboard.

Paid Ads

Paid advertisements are a way to get views and clicks, by paying money. You are essentially paying for a position on a search page, the higher up on a page means a higher chance of the user clicking and engaging. Regardless, isn’t guaranteed success every time, but it does improve your chances as you can reach a large group of people at one time. There are various kinds of Paid Ads, 

One of the growing popular kinds being Paid Socials. As an example, Facebook ads are a common use of paid ads. Due to each ad placed on your feed has been carefully curated to target you specifically. The company pays for these ads to be shown to their target audience, in hopes of getting engagement and conversion. 

Other examples of paid ads are:

  • TV
  • Print
  • Radio
  • Sponsorships
  • Affiliates
  • Direct mail

Although, these are becoming less popular as social media is predominantly the main source of advertising in the present day. All social media platforms can be used for paid ads including:

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • TikTok
  • Snapchat

Undeniably, it is important to do research when looking into paid socials, to ensure you are using the right platform when targeting your audience. 

Image of a birds eye view of a table, with phones and an IPad, surrounded by social media logos used for ad campaigns.

Organic/Earned Ads:

Organic socials are defined by action taken through your own posts. Firstly, because you target your followers and their networks, but this encourages good customer relationships and retention. Obviously, this is a free way of advertising but requires a lot of work and dedication. Creating engaging, interesting content for your audience and posting consistently is how to begin seeing the engagement rate increase.

In order to reach a wider audience, it is important to engage with similar organisations’ content by retweeting and sharing, to receive the same support. Targeting people organically builds strong customer relationships as it gives your brand an identity, opposed to impersonal adverts they are uninterested in.

Examples of organic socials:

  • Other brands sharing your posts
  • Word of mouth
  • Friends referring friends
  • Personal posts

Both types of advertising work, the challenge is finding out what works best for your organisation. Being detailed and thorough about goals is important to ensure you are focusing your time on something valuable. To summarise, here are the pros and cons of both paid and organic ads;

Paid pros:

  • Can target new audiences and create brand awareness
  • Can reach a large audience quicker
  • More likely to turn into conversions
  • Can track your ads to monitor failures and successes

Paid cons:

  • More challenging to build customer relationships
  • Can be expensive
  • Must be skilled and familiar in running campaigns
  • There are no guaranteed sales, despite a high engagement rate

Organic ads pros:

  • It is free to share posts
  • Can build a strong customer relationship
  • Less like a ‘sales pitch’, posts feel more personal
  • You are completely in control

Organic ads cons:

  • It is a big time commitment, consistency is key when posting
  • Can take a while to see results
  • Can be difficult to track if using various platforms
  • SEO tactics always change, you need to stay on top of it

Everything has pros and cons, what works for other people may not work for you. It is important to do research for the right type of ads for your audience, to ensure your content is reaching the right people. Remember engagement will fluctuate, just stay consistent!