Search Incrementality: How Paid and Organic Overdeliver Together - Jon Kagan, Amsive Digital

MASTER
CLASS
NASHVILLE, TN ~ MAY 31 - JUNE 1, 2023
DIGIMARCONMIDSOUTH.COM | #DigiMarConMidSouth
Jon Kagan
DIRECTOR, SEARCH & MEDIA STRATEGY
AMSIVE DIGITAL
Search Incrementality:
How Paid and Organic
Overdeliver Together

SEARCH INCREMENTALITY:
How Paid and Organic Overdeliver Together
SEO+SEM: The Infamous 1+1=3 Theory

@JonKagan
What I’m Going to Cover
3
Agenda
• Who is this weird person on stage speaking to you?
This Part is Fluff, Feel Free to
Check Your Social Media Here

@JonKagan
4
Agenda
• Who does this weird person work for?

@JonKagan
5
Agenda
• When people tell me they can pause branded SEM to “not pay for organic traffic”

@JonKagan
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Agenda
• Search theory of incrementality 1+1=3
This Part is Important: Pay
Attention and Ask Questions

@JonKagan
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Agenda
• Providing real evidence to the theory

@JonKagan
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Agenda
• Understand how to measure and test this on your own

@JonKagan
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Agenda
• Understand how to measure and test this on your own
• The takeaway

The Fluffy Stuff
Who I am, Work For, What We Do, Who We Work With
10

@JonKagan
Who Am I?
11
Jon Kagan
Director of Search & Digital Media Strategy
18 Years
in Digital Media
17 Years
on the agency side
Did time with Forbes, WPP, Publicis and 9Rooftops
Leader of the very first Google Premier Partner certified agency
Specializes in regulated and viceverticals
2013 Recipient of Google Search Excellence Award
2x Finalist
Microsoft Ads Agency
Optimizer of the Year
3x Finalist
OMMA Search Innovation Award
2022 winner of best use of search at the US Search Awards
Named as a top 50 most influential search marketers last 4 years
Why am I here? I work from home and need contact with other
humans…and a free lunch

@JonKagan
Who Am I?
12
Jon Kagan
Director of Search & Digital Media Strategy
Fun Facts: I love the NY Jets, I watch all of the Real
Housewives franchises, unhealthy obsession with “The Office”,
and I have a small flock of chickens (follow @CTChickenDad on
Instagram and TikTok to Check them out)

@JonKagan
Who I Work For
13
Amsive Digital is a performance-driven digital marketing agency that amplifies results — and business
outcomes.
Industry Experts.
An award-winning agency with over
120+ digital experts specializing in
driving growth for our clients
Amsive, our parent company, provides
us with even more data services + a
strong direct marketing practice |
Backed by H.I.G. Capital, a 34B private
equity fund
Amplified Capabilities.
Full-service Solutions.
Branding | SEO | Paid Media | Social
Influencer | Amazon | E-Commerce
Performance Creative | Experiential
Data + Analytics | Strategy
Nashville, TN New York City, NY

@JonKagan 14
Analytics Is At The Core Of Our
Customer-centric Offerings.
Attribution & CRO
We develop attribution models that
help us create a user-experience that
engages consumers and drives KPIs.
Digital Media
SEO
Social Media
SEM
Creative
Services
Shopper
Marketing
(Amazon)
Content
Marketing
Influencer
Marketing
What We Do

@JonKagan
We love being good at what we do.
We love being good at what we do.
U.S. Search Awards
Best Use of Search – FMCG Campaign
Best SEO Campaign for Health
Davey Award 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022
Silver Winners | Social Category
Search Engine Land Awards
Best Enterprise SEO Campaign
2018, 2020
Marcom Awards
Platinum and Gold Winners: Website
Design & Development
Communicator Awards
Award of Excellence +
of Distinction
Microsoft Agency Awards
Independent Agency
of the Year
Google
Display Innovation Award
Winner — North America
Conductor
Best in Class Agency
Search Engine Land Awards
Best Overall SEO Initiative – Enterprise
2022
W3, 2022
Silver Winner
15

@JonKagan
Who We Know
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We have premier partnerships with the leading platforms.
Client Benefits:
• Top-tier agency — only allotted to the top 3% of agencies
• Support teams — not just one support representative
• Access to all betas — and most alphas, too
• Weekly office hours with leading platforms
• Access for immersion days and planning support
• Recognition from Google as an Innovation Award Winning Agency +
Microsoft’s Independent Agency of the Year.
Deep Relationships with All Major Advertising Platforms
This includes dedicated representatives, higher-level access, and white-glove servicing.

@JonKagan
Who We Work With
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We partner with a wide range of clients across diverse industries and verticals.

@JonKagan
When people tell me they can
pause branded SEM and let
organic do the work.
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@JonKagan
Disclaimer
• Data shared in this presentation involves branded and non-branded keywords, unless noted
specifically
• Usage of brand in this scenario is to show the insights and theory as clearly as possible
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Important notes:

@JonKagan
“Hey Jon, We Don’t Need to Bid On Brand Keywords”
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“Our Organic Listings for Brand Are Rock Solid, We Don’t Want to Cannibalize Free Traffic”

@JonKagan
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How about…No

@JonKagan
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• No, just no

@JonKagan
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• No, just no
• I get asked if this is a good idea, no less than 4x per year
Only 1 time in my career did it ever prove out

@JonKagan
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• No, just no
• I typically respond with a variety of inappropriate comments, then I provide them with the insight of
the informally named theory of 1+1=3 (The Theory of Search Incrementality)

@JonKagan
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• No, just no
• I typically respond with a variety of inappropriate comments, then I provide them with the insight of
the informally named theory of 1+1=3 (The Theory of Search Incrementality)
• After my explanation/rant, 90% of them step away from the idea of pausing brand keywords
10% of them may or may not contact the local authorities on me

@JonKagan
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• The presence of SEM ads are a vital support unit to organic rankings, in an indirect way

@JonKagan
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• Think of your kids Halloween candy as organic and SEM listings on the same term

@JonKagan
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• Think of your kids Halloween candy as organic and SEM listings on the same term
When I go looking for a milk chocolate covered treat (as 11 pm while binge watching “The Office”), I look for just
that generic chocolate treat

@JonKagan
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• The presence of SEM ads are a vital support unit to organic rankings, in an
indirect way
• Think of your kids Halloween candy as organic and SEM listings on the same
term
When I go looking for a milk chocolate covered treat (as 11 pm while binge watching
“The Office”), I look for just that generic chocolate treat

@JonKagan
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• The presence of SEM ads are a vital support unit to organic
rankings, in an indirect way
• Think of your kids Halloween candy as organic and SEM listings on
the same term
When I go looking for a milk chocolate covered treat (as 11 pm while binge
watching “The Office”), I look for just that generic chocolate treat
But when I have a variety of paid and organic listings for the same, and
similarly adjacent products, then I am more apt to engage with one I see
most

@JonKagan
Search Theory of
Incrementality: 1+1=3
31

@JonKagan
Kelis is the G.O.A.T. of Search Incrementality
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She is more than just a gifted musical superstar; she hides her knowledge of search in her music
“My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
And they're like, it's better than yours
Damn right it's better than yours
I can teach you, but I have to charge”
| Kelis, ‘Milkshake’

@JonKagan 33
A LIVE LOOK AT MY HR REP AFTER SEEING THE PRIOR SLIDE AND REALIZING NO
ONE APPROVED THE DECK AND NOT SURE WHERE THIS ABOUT TO GO
BREAKING NEWS

@JonKagan
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WHAT KELIS REALLY MEANS
“My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard” – While often confused for a
reference of her usage of her own physical features to attract suitors, this actually
means that her methodology for a holistic approach to search does in fact drive
incremental site visits, despite no additional lift in impressions for brand queries

@JonKagan 35
35
“And they’re like, it’s better than yours” – No, this is not an indication by Kelis that
her physical features exceed that of her competitive peer set, but actually a
description of a search consumers confidence level on a brand, when both the
organic and paid listings are visibly present on a search query (valid for both brand
and non-brand)

@JonKagan 36
36
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“Damn right it’s better than yours” – Not a reaffirmation of the verbal indication in
the prior note, instead, this is actually just a gloating statement of a search
consumers confidence level of a specific brand, when both organic and paid
listings are visible on the search query generated (valid for both brand and non-
brand)

@JonKagan 37
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“I can teach you, but I have to charge” – Kelis is not referencing a required payment
from said competitive peer set, in order to share tactics on how she attained
specific physical features, but actually her way of indicating that you do in fact
need to pay for paid search ads, in conjunction with SEO efforts to successfully
execute an incremental search strategy

@JonKagan
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Kelis was right
• Organic listings by itself captures all impressions and provides “1” visitor, paid captures the impressions it is
present for, and generates “1” visitor, but together, we see increased opportunity

@JonKagan
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Kelis was right
• Having both organic and paid present at the same time on the SERP, provides greater visibility for the brand,
creating higher opportunity of a click through

@JonKagan
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Kelis was right
• It’s recommended to test this out on your own, but be sure to preset measurement expectations

@JonKagan
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Kelis was right
• It’s recommended to test this out on your own, but be sure to preset measurement expectations
• There are a few brands that have pulled it off, but they are usually only marketplaces and run a lot of non-
search media to scale brand awareness

@JonKagan
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@JonKagan
Search Incrementality
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The theory of 1 + 1 = 3
• Disclaimer: I did not create or author this theory or original study
• The concept has been around since at least 2009. Back then, in DMNews, Melissa Mackey, wrote an article on
it*
• The most formal analysis and study on it was done in 2010 for NYU by grad students Sha Yang and Anindya
Ghose**
• It is a fascinating read, but prepare for a lot of heavy text and math equations
*https://issuu.com/dmnews/docs/dmnews-search-guide-2009
**http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~aghose/paidorganic.pdf

@JonKagan
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The theory, while seemingly illogical is as follows:
1. Assume organic listings, operating by itself (without SEM), produces 100 visitors to your website
2. Assume you have 0 organic listings for a query, and SEM stands in and gets you 100 visitors to your website
3. Theoretically when you have organic listings present, and SEM keywords on, the two efforts together would
generate just 100 visitors to the website

@JonKagan
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• Numerous studies and analysis have shown, when organic listings and SEM ads are both present for a search
query, website visitors exceed the original 100
• Hence the concept of incrementality, or 1+1=3

@JonKagan
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• Numerous studies and analysis have shown, when organic listings and SEM ads are both present for a search
query, website visitors exceed the original 100
• Hence the concept of incrementality, or 1+1=3
• Yes, I know it could just be 1+1=1.01, but that isn’t as sexy as an equation

@JonKagan
Evidence of This Theory
One of the most the most straight forward efforts of this, relying on organic and ceasing paid, was done by
accident.
48
The case of the missing bacon
*All SEM traffic and roughly all of organic traffic entered the site via a brand query

@JonKagan
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accident
The scenario:
• Brand is a mid to large food brand, literally selling bacon online (yum) via a DTC ecom capability on their
website

@JonKagan
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accident
The scenario:
website
• Brand has been operating in Google Ads for years, paying via credit card,
when it abruptly shuts off without notice (card had been stolen), a new
card isn’t available for some time

@JonKagan
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accident
The scenario:
website
• Until this point, Google Organic and SEM made up 23% each, of site visits

@JonKagan
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accident
The scenario:
website
• Until this point, Google Organic and SEM made up 23% each, of site visits

@JonKagan
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• When Google SEM efforts turned off, the combined search efforts fell on the shoulders of Google organic
traffic

@JonKagan
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• When Google SEM efforts turned off, the combined search efforts fell on the shoulders
of Google organic traffic
• Google organic contribution of total site traffic should’ve risen to 42%-46%*

@JonKagan
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• When Google SEM efforts turned off, the combined search efforts fell on the
shoulders of Google organic traffic
• Google organic contribution of total site traffic should’ve risen to 42%-46%*
• Instead, it only reached 36% of visits, transactions, which previously combined
reached 36% of total transactions, only reached 29%

@JonKagan
Evidence of this theory
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• Upon relaunching of Google SEM efforts (brand keywords), the data returned to near
identical, pre-organic only levels

@JonKagan
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• The primary element to note is, the presence of organic rankings without SEM, was unable to compensate for
the total opportunity

@JonKagan
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Dental practice hates their competitors
• This is a reverse test, where the dental practice’s prior agency was against bidding on brand terms and insisted
that organic would be just fine

@JonKagan
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• You already know where this is going….

@JonKagan
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• You already know where this is going….

@JonKagan
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• After making a case, the dental practice provided an incremental test budget for the brand keyword effort

@JonKagan
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• After making a case, the dental practice provided an incremental test budget for the brand keyword effort
• Success would be gauged on whether or not organic and paid would see incremental traffic to the site, and
appointment leads

@JonKagan
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• Results: Boom

@JonKagan
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• Results: With the introduction of paid brand keywords, aggregate visits to the site increased 36% while
appointment leads rose a staggering 44%

@JonKagan
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Cleaner that couldn’t clean up
• After an unusual ROI analysis came back to the brand, indicating that paid
search produced the lowest indirect ROI of any advertising channel

@JonKagan
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• After an unusual ROI analysis came back to the brand, indicating that paid search
produced the lowest indirect ROI of any advertising channel
• At the time of the analysis, Google SEM and Organic, combined, accounted for roughly
70% of total users and sessions (50% from organic and 20% from SEM)

@JonKagan
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• After an unusual ROI analysis came back to the brand, indicating that paid search
produced the lowest indirect ROI of any advertising channel
• At the time of the analysis, Google SEM and Organic, combined, accounted for roughly
70% of total users and sessions (50% from organic and 20% from SEM)
• Specifically, Google branded SEM accounted for 12% of total website traffic

@JonKagan
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• Client decides that if SEM is a low ROI driver, then bidding on brand terms is
redundant, and having a heavy non-digital media presence (i.e., Infomercials)
pushing awareness in market, then they shouldn’t be paying for 12% of total site
traffic that should easily find them organically

@JonKagan
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@JonKagan
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• Client orders the ceasing of bidding on brand keywords, under the self-induced belief
that organic listings will capture all brand traffic

@JonKagan
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redundant, and having a heavy non-digital media presence (i.e., Infomercials) pushing
awareness in market, then they shouldn’t be paying for 12% of total site traffic that
should easily find them organically

@JonKagan
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redundant, and having a heavy non-digital media presence (i.e., Infomercials) pushing
awareness in market, then they shouldn’t be paying for 12% of total site traffic that
should easily find them organically
• Non-brand would remain at a constant funding level

@JonKagan
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• Client orders the ceasing of bidding on brand keywords, under the self-induced
belief that organic listings will capture all brand traffic
• Non-brand would remain at a constant funding level
• By this logic, Google organic, if it was to compensate for branded SEM going
offline, would need to increase by 24% of site visits, going from 50% to 62%

@JonKagan
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• The client's theory did not pan out well

@JonKagan
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• The client's theory did not pan out well
• By any sort of logic, organic data should at the very least, have increased, even if
it was just a little bit, the moment branded SEM went offline

@JonKagan
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• But, no
• Google organic traffic declined in total traffic contribution, going from 50% to ~37%
• Google SEM, without brand, dropped from 20% to 8%
• The logic of operating without branded keywords and organic offsetting for it, was
deemed as a net loss for aggregate Google search entities
*Note in the chart shared, Google CPC includes GDN and YouTube, but was stripped out when doing the analysis

@JonKagan
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Welp, I told you it was a bad idea
• In all three scenarios, it is evident, that when dropping to a single source (or
reduced source) of search traffic, organic itself, struggles to deliver the same
amount of inbound site traffic, then if both were present at once

@JonKagan
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Welp, I told you it was a bad idea
• In all three scenarios, it is evident, that when dropping to a single source (or
reduced source) of search traffic, organic itself, struggles to deliver the same
amount of inbound site traffic, then if both were present at once
• For those of you wondering, yes, this is something that can be easily shown in
the infamous chart involving “F-Around and Find Out”

@JonKagan
Understand How To Measure
& Test This On Your Own
79

@JonKagan
Understanding the Value of SEM & Organic Together
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1+1=3=Search Harmony
• There is a simplistic approach to it, and a more detailed way to approach it

@JonKagan
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Simplistic
1. Understand your current production of search for SEM and organic and tally it all up

@JonKagan
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Simplistic
2. Pause the SEM part of the efforts (run this for 1-3 weeks)

@JonKagan
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Simplistic
3. Track organic and SEM (if you only reduced it) production during the pause, note if there has been any change
in the combined production

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Simplistic
4. Reactivate SEM, go back to normal operations for the same period of time the test ran for

@JonKagan
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Simplistic
4. Reactivate SEM, go back to normal operations for the same period of time the test ran for
5. Compare pre, in, and post test data, to show you the difference in the traffic and KPI’s

@JonKagan
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Detailed
1. Track current production of search for SEM and organic

@JonKagan
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Detailed
2. Pause SEM part of the efforts (run this for 1-3 weeks)

@JonKagan
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Detailed
3. Track organic and SEM production during the pause, note if there has been any change in queries of the words
you paused (I like using Google Search Console for this)

@JonKagan
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Detailed
4. Reactivate SEM, return to normal operations for the same period of time the test ran for

@JonKagan
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Detailed
4. Reactivate SEM, return to normal operations for the same period of time the test ran for
5. Compare pre, in, and post test data, to show the difference in traffic and KPI’s

@JonKagan
The Takeaway
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Test it, but I don’t recommend sticking with it
• Yes, the concept of SEO+SEM (holistic search) is = to that of the Search Incrementality Theory of
1+1=3
• Very few brands successfully get away with not having to bid on brand SEM terms without an
adverse impact or missing opportunity
• In recent years, similar to this, some large brands have complained (and some even filed lawsuits)
about having to bid on their brand terms (because their competitors bid on their name), and in my
opinion: This is the cost of doing business, so suck it up
• I do not advocate turning off SEM (branded or altogether) and going organic only, I do believe
everyone should run a test around it, so they can see the impact it has

@JonKagan
The End…Please Go Home
93
(Unless there are more sessions, then please stay)
If you took pictures and post them, please tag me, so
I can justify my travel expenses
If you liked it, hated it, felt it needed more pictures of
chickens, have an opinion on Real Housewives or the
NY Jets, want a copy of the presentation, or have
comments/questions, you can reach me:
JKagan@AmsiveDigital.com
@JonKagan
(for some reason, I respond here faster than email)

Search Incrementality: How Paid and Organic Overdeliver Together - Jon Kagan, Amsive Digital

Search Incrementality: How Paid and Organic Overdeliver Together - Jon Kagan, Amsive Digital

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Search Incrementality: How Paid and Organic Overdeliver Together - Jon Kagan, Amsive Digital