True Search v. Paid Search

Is there documented value to true search?

[snoopy]

I'm trying to figure out if there is a study that might show a number that clarifies the percentage of internet users that might click on a free listing v. a sponsored listing.

For example, if there was on Google Adword Featured listing at the top, and a similar True listing right below it, what percentage of users would click on the paid listing and what percentage would click on the pure listing.

Any help is appreciated.

[jeyval]

I think most people simply kind of refuses clicking in any type of ads if they know that there are in facts ads of some kind

If they were to display the adver-links (I hope this does not happens ever) in a way that they were easily confused with non-paid links the people will most definitely click on the ones above

[percentages]

The percentage is going to vary across different categories. It will also vary depending upon how the Ad is written and whether the true results seem to be relevant based upon site titles/descriptions/snippets.

For my cats the top Premium Ad gets an average click through rate of about 5%. The number #1 "true" site in Google SERPs gets about 99% CTR. I don't think the quality of Ad writing is a big factor between the two, most people just don't like Ads. They use the logic that true results must be more relevant, if not, they wouldn't be there.(Okay, we know that logic is flawed, but a lot of Joe Surfer's don't).

I have heard of people who have achieved CTR's up to 20% using Premium Ads, but in a competitive field with good relevant results I think this would be hard to achieve.

I occasionally click on the odd Ad for various reasons. It maybe because the true results haven't shown anything of use, or it maybe because I am looking to see what the competition is doing!

Measuring CTR can also be misleading. Many people see their conversation rates increase when in true SERPs vs Adwords. In a category where there are tens/hundreds of thousands of true competitors I'm sure there is some competitor "abuse" of Adwords. I wonder how many people are paying (often $3.00+ per click) so that competitors can see their wares?

If you know the popularity of a search term, which is not easy to find out unless you already have the #1 position for that term, you can test Adwords and look at the predictions for visitors. Then compare with your logs for that term.

Maybe we can get a consensus opinion from the folks in these positions as to the difference between predicted traffic from Adwords to the traffic actually achieved from true SERPs?

That may give a decent result across a wide number of categories.