With media outlets repeating the findings about the ineffective paid search, there has been generating a lot of discussion questioning about the indispensability of the traditional paid search. Although the AdWords is easy for online marketer to use, it is hard to strategically implement including A/B or multivariate testing. It’s evident that organic search (SEO) does get better results in term of clicks and ROI than what PPC attracts.
For instance, eBay discontinued paid search ads containing brand keywords for a limited time and claimed that there was little impact on traffic or sales from the ending the SEM campaigns. The truth is that SEM only works where consumers have been nearly ignorant of a brand and its offerings. But for a well-known brand like eBay, there is small yet detectable impact of SEM on new user acquisition and on informing infrequent users about the value of using eBay. On the other hand, SEM is a great appeal with respect to its profusion of data, metrics and ROI, which is practical for marketers to sketch out strategies for marketing optimization. It is wise for starters with no brand recognition to gain exposure quickly through paid search, as they lack of ability to attract organic traffic right away.
Therefore, the efficacy of SEM is still in controversy, but the fact of the matter is that retailers indeed gain plenty of opportunities to learn more about their customers’ needs through organic traffic searching channel.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237384