Murdoch - 5:45 pm on Jan 31, 2007 (gmt 0)

I have worked both with companies that use PPC and those that rely mainly on organic rankings and the one thing that distinguishes the two is merely margins.

Can you afford a 3% conversion rate with $2.00 clicks on a product that averages $150.00 profit per order / booking? Sure. The same on a product that averages $50.00 per order? Not so much.

All about the ROI there. To be fair the company I did PPC with also had a strong organic presence, but the PPC acted as a good "credibility leader" and as long as we could squeeze a positive ROI out of it it was worth it in the long run.

Now I am working with a company who relies purely on organic rankings, and honestly I have told them not to follow the PPC route. It is typically costly in the beginning (for real competitive keywords) and unless you have the capital to keep throwing at to turn it around, it really isn't worth the struggle when you can keep your cost-per-acquisition at $0.00 with a strong presence in the SERPs.