November 3, 2022 - When marketing your insurance agency, you may ask yourself if it’s better to get leads through organic search or paid search.
While 68 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine, the results from organic and paid search can vastly influence people’s purchasing decisions in different ways.
Not sure where to start? Here are the benefits of going with either an organic or paid search campaign:
Organic Search Benefits
No Upfront Costs
Perhaps the most significant perk of organic search is it costs you nothing other than your time. This may include taking the time to research keywords and being consistent with the amount of content you publish. Since you don’t need to budget for organic search, this may be a better route to take if you’re just starting off as a new insurance agent or would rather allocate your budget toward another aspect of your agency’s marketing plan. While there may be no upfront costs with getting started, we understand your time is valuable, so you may want to consider teaming up with a marketing agency like us to help!
Perceived Credibility
Whether a potential customer is searching for auto insurance, life insurance, or anything in between, it gives a more positive first impression when your agency appears at the top of organic search results. When your business shows up in organic search results, it means the content on your landing page, Google Business Profile and other business listings is relevant to what was searched, thereby adding more credibility to your agency. In contrast, your agency may not feel as credible if it has more paid search results than organic. Many internet users are savvy enough to know you paid for that top placement.
Attract More Relevant Users
Organic is usually a better avenue for helping your insurance office reach interested users. Since you can target a wide variety of searches/keywords for free, you can maximize your organic search results based on a variety of factors such as industry, audience, products and services.
Compounding Results
The beauty of organic search results is that they will continue to earn you results far after you publish your content. Over time, organic search content can ultimately help you generate more leads and improve your rankings and web traffic.
Paid Search Benefits
Faster Results
When it comes to delivering faster results, there’s a quicker turnaround for paid search ads – also known as PPC or pay-per-click ads – since you’re paying for them to appear at the top of peoples’ searches. While some ads may take 24-72 hours to be approved and go live, most platforms, such as Google, approve ads within minutes. On the other hand, it can take months or even longer to gain traction with organic search campaigns.
More Specific Audience
When creating your paid search campaign, you choose certain demographics, such as geographic location, age, marital status and interests.
This campaign type is especially useful as an insurance agent since you can focus product ads toward demographics more likely to make a purchase (e.g., targeting home insurance ads to consumers moving to a certain area). Paid search is also ideal for marketing time-sensitive products and specials.
Ability to Quickly A/B Test Ads
When running a PPC campaign, you can run two different ads simultaneously to figure out what converts better. This can allow you to better formulate your insurance marketing strategy by seeing what type of messaging and image elements work better than others.
Higher Purchase Intent
Although organic and paid search are both capable of attracting relevant audiences, paid search is more likely to attract consumers with higher purchase intent. When someone is ready to purchase a specific product, they’re more likely to click the ad at the top of the page that relates the most with what they’re looking for instead of scrolling through multiple results.
What’s Better?
The real answer to this question is it depends on where you are with your business, your budget, and your goals. Oftentimes, both methods can be used to your success, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. Whether you’re trying to grow organically, focus on paid search, or a mixture of both, Melon Local is here to help determine what works best for you!
Schedule a demo with us today to learn more about how you can achieve the leads you deserve through paid and organic search!