Where should your marketing budget go: SEO vs PPC?

Search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) are two very different types of digital marketing. SEO can be considered as a longer-term success method, whereas PPC is generally considered to be a more short-term method of success. Within SEO, there are three elements that come together to support your website and content. These are ‘on-page’, ‘off-page’, and ‘technical’. Each element targets a different area but they align together to support your website, which then has a domino effect on business growth through increasing website authority and ranking, leading to a better digital footfall. 

Where SEO covers more all-round elements, PPC is slightly different in its approach as it’s more straightforward - if you want a click to your product and website, it will cost you to achieve this, hence pay per click. Despite being a very narrow strategy, it often achieves successful results delivering an average ROI of 200%. 

However, results and strategies do differ from industry to industry, which we'll discuss below.

SEO is a practice and method used by businesses and marketing agencies to support website optimisation through content, structure and visibility that will support your website’s reach in Google and other search engines. 

SEO has developed and changed over the years in line with advancements in  technology, such as AI. From an on-page H1 header to a back-end technical URL structure, there are many small factors that can be optimised and corrected to enhance the web page you are looking to upload. Building a brand new expensive website is great, but without having the strong foundations to build upon through SEO, your website will be penalised and this will lose you digital footfall. 

With a rise in AI over the last several years, we are now seeing two new types of SEO emerge:  
 
AEO: Answer engine optimisation is a marketing method that focuses on creating content aimed at appearing in direct answers within LLMs and AI. With a strong rise in AI and LLMs, people are now turning to these for high search intent queries for a quick answer rather than clicking within websites to scan for their answer. 
 
GEO: Generative engine optimisation is another marketing method that aims at creating content that will be picked up by LLMs such as ChatGPT and Copilot when delivering answers to a user's request. 

To find out more about these SEO tactics, head to our previous blog.  

PPC is a form of marketing that means businesses can pay a fee for each click on their ad. Choosing to appear on Google, Facebook, X or any other social media, PPC can be a very effective method of increasing footfall to your website and seeing strong immediate sales for the selected product of choice. 

Google ads: Google Ads are paid advertisements that allow businesses and individuals to target ads across Google and YouTube. This is implemented using a bid-based strategy in which Google picks the strongest ads to appear. 

Meta ads: Meta Ads are paid advertisements that are displayed across Meta’s platforms. Evolved from what was just Facebook ads, they are now present across Instagram and Messenger. 

Although both methods aim to achieve the objectives of increasing website traffic, they are very different in their approaches and require a well-thought-through strategy to achieve the results you want. PPC will require a strong budget, whereas SEO requires time and an effective direction as to where you want the website to rank in search engines.

So, when is SEO more impactful? Well, compared to PPC, SEO covers the foundations of your business. For example an SEO strategy is used to strengthen your website, the content that sits on it, and secure technical fixes such as meta titles on the backend. When SEO is implemented correctly, it gives you the strongest chance to rank as high as possible in search engines when a user is searching for a query relevant to your brand.  

However, something to consider is that ignoring these factors when building your website or creating content can cause problems with Google and other search engines, which can lead to penalising your website ranking due to poor SEO practice. This is why SEO is incredibly important at any stage within the life cycle of a business and therefore certainly impactful at the beginning when a business is looking to grow. 

Furthermore,  this also impacts content creation - high-quality, handwritten content with a clear aim and strategy of which keywords you want to rank for will always outperform AI-generated content. Google is always updating its software, and has recently updated its algorithms to flag AI content, which means SEO is still more impactful now than ever. 

Although AEO and GEO are slightly different to traditional SEO, the same rules apply when optimising your content. Doing it correctly will give you the maximum chance of appearing in AI overviews, AI-directed answers and LLMs which, given their steep increase over the last couple of years, will have a huge impact in the future.

When is PPC impactful? The answer to this is that paid ads are the most impactful when businesses need immediate results. Unlike SEO, which requires time to build, PPC is instant and very impactful if done correctly. Paid ads are certainly effective during seasonal campaigns, product launches, limited-time promotions and when entering competitive markets. PPC can also be used in platforms such as LinkedIn, which saw 39% of B2B ad budgets in 2026. Using PPC gives you a vast choice of different platforms to reach out to customers. 

In addition to this, paid ads also give you control over the demographics of your ads, meaning you can be incredibly specific and target only certain areas or specific users.

The figures below shows the return on investment average across the main platforms used within Paid Ads. 

ROI per platform on average 

• Meta: 4.5X 
• TikTok: £3.50 
• LinkedIn: £6-£12 
• Google: 200% increase on your investment 
• Multi-platform lift – 35% 

Paid advertising can put your business in front of the right audience almost immediately. While SEO is invaluable for building long-term visibility and sustainable growth, PPC helps businesses capitalise on opportunities in the moment, making it an effective way to support both short-term goals and overall business growth.

So, the answer you're here to see - which strategy is best?  

Well, the answer isn't as simple as one or the other but rather a strategy incorporating both SEO and PPC into your marketing strategy. However, this might not always be possible depending on your budget and your industry, therefore it's something to strategically consider. Traditionally, PPC works well within the e-commerce industry and B2C markets - although this is gradually changing - whereas SEO can be implemented across any business in any market. 

Regardless of size or industry, it’s always crucial to have your website as optimised as possible while uploading strong high-quality content that will support your website in gaining as much footfall to your website through Google or LLMs. So, SEO is certainly advised to be used either when building your website or when you have the capability to do this from an agency or in-house means. And more marketers are now confirming the impact they are seeing with proper SEO strategies - in fact 91% of marketers in 2024 said SEO improved their website. 

PPC is certainly a strong method to increase sales, especially for businesses that operate in markets and industries that see stronger sales through seasonal changes such as the summer, Easter or Christmas. But to be able to properly maximise PPC, it requires the budget and funds to implement, and the numbers below give you a rough idea on the industry average: 

• Lower-cost estimations: £500-£2,000/month 
• Mid-range estimations: £2,000-£10,000/month 
• Higher-cost estimations: £10,000+/month  

You could say PPC is a high-risk, high-reward strategy whereas SEO can be considered as a lower risk with lower reward. Incorporating both into your business would certainly yield higher results; however, it would also come at a much higher cost for the business. A reasonable suggestion would be to focus on SEO first regardless the size of the business, once the website is operating ‘healthier’, this gives you a stronger platform to then focus on PPC while also managing your budget more effectively. 

If you need support in SEO, PPC or both? Feel free to get in touch with our digital marketing experts to find out how we can support your strategies moving forward. 

If you want to keep up to date with the latest in SEO, PPC or all the forms of digital marketing, sign up to our newsletter below.