There is a significant uplift in brand recall when a brand appears in both the top ad placement and the top organic search result, rather than just the top organic listing, according to the results of a Google sponsored study carried out by Enquiro Research, published in a whitepaper. The study, using Honda as a test brand, found that for the unbranded keyword ‘fuel efficient cars’ there was a 16% uplift in brand recall where the top organic listing was accompanied by a top paid placement listing, rather than displaying only the top organic listing.

For brand owners keen on boosting brand recall, paying for a sponsored listing on keywords that already have a number one organic position may be off-putting because of the additional per click cost involved. However, our experience indicates that the high relevance of your site for the keyword you rank highly on organically would make achieving a high quality score – and a low cost per click (CPC) for paid listings – easy to attain.

Very dramatic decreases in the cost per click are achievable relatively quickly as long as the keyword quality score is high. As an example of this, a high quality score assigned to a specific keyword for a ringtone name resulted in the CPC dropping over a two week period from £0.12 to £0.01. The keyword in question had a very high CTR of 40%, which helped achieve an exceptionally high quality score.

So, while Google Traffic Estimator suggests a paid listing in a top three position for the keyword ‘fuel efficient cars’ in the UK would cost between £0.34 and £0.46, advertisers may need to pay far less per click on keywords they have a top organic listing on, due to the high relevancy of their web pages and the consequent ease with which they can achieve a high keyword quality score for paid search listings.

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