Holistic Search 2.0: Optimizing and Measuring Organic & Paid Performance

In today’s competitive digital landscape, understanding the full impact of both organic and paid search efforts is crucial for driving effective marketing strategies.

Let us help.

Check out as we delve into the intricate relationship between organic and paid search channels, offering actionable insights for measuring success to maximize their combined potential.

We’re providing a comprehensive understanding of how to measure, analyze, and optimize holistic search marketing efforts, ensuring sustainable growth and superior ROI.

You’ll learn tips for:
- Integrated Metrics and KPIs: Define and track key metrics to capture performance of organic and paid search, to make informed strategic decisions with a holistic view.
- Attribution Models: Explore attribution models to understand the customer journey, identify influential touchpoints, and allocate budget effectively for maximum ROI.
- Optimization Strategies: How to leverage data from organic and paid search to optimize campaigns and increase conversions.

With Shaubhik Ray, we’ll equip you with the knowledge and tools necessary to excel in holistic search measurement. We’ll share marketing strategies that are data-driven, aligned with business goals, and poised to lead your organization to success.

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3. 2This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
SHAUBHIK RAY
•Over 15 years of analytics leadership experience
•Currently Sr. Director, Digital Analytics at iQuanti and leads
the digital analytics practice
•Focuses on developing and implementing digital analytics
solutions for clients, with a focus on financial services and
retail
•Previously, worked at Oracle and Tableau

4. 3This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
1
Power of a Holistic Search Strategy
Today we’ll discuss…
2
Roles of the Channels
3
Delivering a Connected Search Program

5. This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.4
Integrating Paid & Organic Search
Power of a Holistic Search Strategy

6. 5This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
•Integrates organic
and paid search
strategies to create
a unified approach
•Ensures both
channels
complement each
other, maximizing
visibility and
efficiency
Understanding Holistic Search
Paid
PAA
Organic
Local
Stories
Answer
Box

7. 6This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
•Enhanced Visibility: Combining efforts can improve overall search engine visibility.
•Cost Efficiency: Optimize budget allocation by understanding the strengths and
weaknesses of each channel.
•Better User Experience: A cohesive strategy provides a consistent message to users
across touchpoints.
•Improved Data Insights: Holistic approach offers a more complete picture of user
behavior and campaign performance.
Why Holistic Search Matters

8. 7This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
An Integrated Search Strategy Can be Difficult to Compile
OBSTACLES

9. 8This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
An Integrated Search Strategy Can be Difficult to Compile
Limited Resources
Firms struggle to allocate the necessary
resources to both channels. Paid search
requires a budget for advertising spend, while
organic search requires investment in content
creation, technical SEO, and other efforts.
.
OBSTACLES

10. 9This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
An Integrated Search Strategy Can be Difficult to Compile
Limited Resources
Firms struggle to allocate the necessary
resources to both channels. Paid search
requires a budget for advertising spend, while
organic search requires investment in content
creation, technical SEO, and other efforts.
.
Siloed Departments
Brands may have siloed departments
responsible for paid and organic search
efforts, which can make it difficult to
create a unified strategy that leverages
the strengths of both channels.
OBSTACLES

11. 10This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
An Integrated Search Strategy Can be Difficult to Compile
Limited Resources
Firms struggle to allocate the necessary
resources to both channels. Paid search
requires a budget for advertising spend, while
organic search requires investment in content
creation, technical SEO, and other efforts.
.
Siloed Departments
Brands may have siloed departments
responsible for paid and organic search
efforts, which can make it difficult to
create a unified strategy that leverages
the strengths of both channels.
Lack of Coordination
Even when departments are not siloed,
a lack of coordination between the
teams responsible for paid and organic
search can lead to fragmented efforts
and inconsistent messaging
OBSTACLES

12. 11This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
An Integrated Search Strategy Can be Difficult to Compile
Limited Resources
Firms struggle to allocate the necessary
resources to both channels. Paid search
requires a budget for advertising spend, while
organic search requires investment in content
creation, technical SEO, and other efforts.
.
Siloed Departments
Brands may have siloed departments
responsible for paid and organic search
efforts, which can make it difficult to
create a unified strategy that leverages
the strengths of both channels.
Lack of Coordination
Even when departments are not siloed,
a lack of coordination between the
teams responsible for paid and organic
search can lead to fragmented efforts
and inconsistent messaging
Compliance & Regulatory
Most assets need to go through
compliance which can delay or even
derail messaging or pivot campaigns
OBSTACLES

13. 12This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
An Integrated Search Strategy Can be Difficult to Compile
Limited Resources
Firms struggle to allocate the necessary
resources to both channels. Paid search
requires a budget for advertising spend, while
organic search requires investment in content
creation, technical SEO, and other efforts.
.
Siloed Departments
Brands may have siloed departments
responsible for paid and organic search
efforts, which can make it difficult to
create a unified strategy that leverages
the strengths of both channels.
Lack of Coordination
Even when departments are not siloed,
a lack of coordination between the
teams responsible for paid and organic
search can lead to fragmented efforts
and inconsistent messaging
Compliance & Regulatory
Most assets need to go through
compliance which can delay or even
derail messaging or pivot campaigns
Measurement Difficulty
Measuring the ROI of both paid and
organic search can be challenging as
attribution models and tracking metrics
can differ between the two channels.OBSTACLES

14. 13This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
An Integrated Search Strategy Can be Difficult to Compile
Limited Resources
Firms struggle to allocate the necessary
resources to both channels. Paid search
requires a budget for advertising spend, while
organic search requires investment in content
creation, technical SEO, and other efforts.
.
Siloed Departments
Brands may have siloed departments
responsible for paid and organic search
efforts, which can make it difficult to
create a unified strategy that leverages
the strengths of both channels.
Lack of Coordination
Even when departments are not siloed,
a lack of coordination between the
teams responsible for paid and organic
search can lead to fragmented efforts
and inconsistent messaging
Compliance & Regulatory
Most assets need to go through
compliance which can delay or even
derail messaging or pivot campaigns
Measurement Difficulty
Measuring the ROI of both paid and
organic search can be challenging as
attribution models and tracking metrics
can differ between the two channels.
Competitive Landscape
Google organic is often referred to as a
black box, while the paid landscape is
competitive and changes frequently
OBSTACLES

15. 14This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
A QUICK POLL:​​
Which of the following challenges resonate with you?
a.Limited Resources
b. Siloed Departments
c.Compliance & Regulatory
d.Measurement Difficulty

16. 15This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
Understanding the roles and expectations for maximum contribution
Roles of the Channels

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Customer Centricity is Key
Always consider your customer’s needs, preferences, and behaviors
Customer’s Needs
Understanding what your
customer needs to educate
themselves to make a
purchasing decision.
Customer’s Behaviors
Get in the mindset of
your customer to know
what their behaviors,
thoughts, and pain points
may be.

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Connected Search & Customer Journeys
Leveraging paid for bottom funnel and organic & content marketing for mid-top funnel
Organic Search
Paid Search
Top funnel
Mid funnel
Bottom funnel

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Understanding the roles and expectations for maximum contribution
Delivering a Connected Search
Program

20. 19This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
Navigating Towards Delivering a Connected Search Program
Start attacking the SERP positions and journey milestones collectively
Organic SearchTestingFind optimization
opportunities
Integrated Measurement
•Prioritize keywords for
respective channels based
on performance
benchmarks and cost
efficiency
•Finalize testing ideas with
business buy-in
•Create roadmap for
hypothesis testing to
improve cumulative
performance of organic
and paid search channels
•Choose metrics that are
important, actionable, and
can be influenced by your
team
•Start measuring together
•Bring together bottom
funnel metrics

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Use the connected search dashboard to inform strategy
Use the connected dashboard to identify the highest impact areas of opportunity and for
monitoring ongoing performance
Insights
•Understanding of the SERP landscape
•Get visibility into performance of different
keyword segments
•Understand which queries are impactful for
each channel
•Evaluate content performance

22. 21This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
Use cases to test incrementality
•Discovery of high potential
keywords across products –
Low CPA and High SEO
Strength
•In a non-competitive
environment, lower your
reliance on SEM keywords
to reinvest and expand into
additional themes
•Determine incrementality
for SEM on keywords
ranking at different position
to prioritize SEO efforts &
content strategy
Use integrated search dashboard to identify optimization opportunities
across SEM & SEO
Illustrative: Integrated Search Dashboard to measure cumulative
performance

23. 22This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
In Non-Brand Search Our Approach is Focused on Segmenting Intents by
Conversion Potential
Leverage paid search to win in 1, 3 and selective strategic pockets in 2; prioritize organic for other
categories
Search
Volume
High
Harvest Traffic
Economically
Maximize Search
Presence
Reduce Focus; Only
Defend
Capture the Niche
High
Low
Conversion Potential
Typically, Upper-funnel
broad terms
Typically, Lower-funnel
terms
Typically, Upper-funnel
niche terms
Typically, Lower-funnel
niche terms

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Creating a hypothesis testing roadmap
Illustrative PlanIdentify & Prioritize Opportunities
•Short term when SEO is strong
•Mid term when SEO can be improved (rank
and/or CRO)
•Long term when SEO needs to be built

25. 24This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
Methods for measuring brand incrementality testing
This method involves finding two distinct
geolocations that have users with similar
traits and exposing them to different
conditions.
Illustrative list of features for
identification of similar Geos
1.Exposure data (SA 360): Spends,
Impressions, etc.
2.Web behavior (GA4): Sessions,
Engagement Rate, etc.
3.Conversion data (GA4/Backend system):
Approvals, Booked loans, etc.
Clustering approach
Match markets using time series model
Geo test
This method involves stop bidding on a
set of keywords for a period and
analyzing traffic and conversions before
and during the test period.
Illustrative list of criteria for selecting
keywords for testing
1. Organic performance (GSC, GA4):
Organic position, traffic , CTR, Conv. Rate,
etc.
2. Paid performance (SA 360): Spend,
CPA, etc.
3. Competition (SA 360/Third-party tools):
Impressions share, etc.
Segmentation approach
Identify keywords with high organic
performance and low paid performance or
low competition
On-off test
This method integrates geo testing and
on-off testing, wherein we first identify
geographies of similar characteristics
along with a list of target keywords.
Subsequently, we suspend bidding on
these selected keywords in the test
geography while continuing to bid on
them in the control geography
Hybrid test

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Illustrative Testing Plan: Phased Approach
Phase 1 (4-6 Weeks) Phase 2 (4-6 Weeks) Phase 3 (4-6 Weeks)
•Low-risk segments (low/no
competition* and top SEO)
•Medium-risk segment
(low/medium competition*
and top SEO)
•Expand test to include device
type as a variable (high
competition and top SEO)
Keyword
Segment
•Geo-Test OR On-Off Test •Geo Test •Geo TestTest
Approach
Test
outcomes
•Incrementality of keyword
segment
•Variation in CTR by search
terms
•Variation in CVR for organic
pages with incremental
traffic
•Variation in CTR by search
terms
•Variation in CVR for organic
pages with incremental
traffic
•Variation in traffic and
conversions by device
Note: Competition is measured based on competition impression share

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Use Causal Inference for analyzing test results
What is Causal Inference?
Causal inference is the process of determining the independent,
actual effect of a particular phenomenon that is a component of a
larger system.
Tools for conducting analysis
•Difference-in-Difference
•Synthetic Control
•Matching
Application of Causal Inference in Financial Services
•Measurement of marketing campaign effectiveness
•Measuring brand awareness efforts
•Optimization of Websites and Apps

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Bid Strategies; How Paid Can Be a Lever to Compliment Organic
Based on the maturity of your organic program, paid can compliment and fill in gaps

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Boosting Efficiency: Annualized $840K savings on branded terms
Client Challenge
The client is a leading financial
services corporation, specializing in
credit cards, personal, student, and
home equity loans, and offers a
comprehensive suite of digital banking
solutions.
The client is spending over 50%
their paid search budget for
branded searches and aims to
optimize this spending without
significantly affecting traffic and
conversions.
Solution
•Developed and executed a comprehensive experimentation program aimed at
uncovering optimization opportunities.
•A total of 1,930 overlapping search terms were evaluated based on SEM CPA,
Imp Share and SEO coverage
•Eight keywords were identified for the first phase of testing, including keywords
with low paid performance, medium conquesting, and high conquesting
•We conducted a on-off test for 4 weeks. During which we paused bidding on
these 8 keywords. To rule out any seasonality, we created synthetic controls
using SEO performance data.
•Set up detailed monitoring reports for ongoing assessment of organic
performance and competitor activities during the test period.
•Applied a causal inference framework to accurately assess the incremental impact
of branded paid search
•Identified opportunity to redeploy $840K brand spend into non-
brand and achieve ~1,000 incremental annual accounts
•Identified keyword segments where optimizing the organic
experience resulted in a ~2X improvement in conversion rate
•Organic search was able to capture 53% of the paid traffic and
33% of accounts overall
•Mobile was able to capture higher share of paid traffic and
accounts 57% and 43% respectively
•Desktop less effective at capturing same level of traffic and
accounts 47% and 18%respectively
Learnings

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Holdout tests conducted for Paid search ads for a leading consumer lending
brand
Non-Brand Holdout Test & Results
A holdout test was launched to understand true incrementality
of Non-Brand Search over Brand SEM and SEO. Learnings from
these tests was factored into channel strategy & budget
planning for the remainder of the year
•Majority of Non-Brand incrementality is in new & former customer
segments. Approvals lost by 100% and loans by 92%
•The negative impact on Brand volumes in Holdout DMAs marginally
validates the hypothesis -customers that become aware of the brand via
a Non-Brand SEM ad and subsequently convert via a Brand SEM ad are
impacted
•In present customer segment, SEO & Brand captured more loans than
BAU indicating low incrementality
•Present customer segments were suppressed from existing Non-
Brand campaigns
•For budget allocation Non-Brand search was given higher weightage
in the custom-built attribution
Campaign changes
50% of DMAs in Holdout; 50% DMAs in BAU.
DMAs selected randomly but validated for historical SEM/SEO channel
performance similarly
Test Design
•BAU: 50% of target states where the non brand search campaign
continues running at BAU levels
•Holdout: 50% of target states are held out from the campaign.
Customers searching from non brand keywords here will not see
our ad, but may see our SEO result if applicable
Split
Non-Brand SEM+Brand SEM+SEO Apps, Loans in
Holdout DMAs vs. BAU DMAs
KPI

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Operationalization of SEO/SEM Initiatives
Holistic
Dashboard
Keyword
Mapping
Align Roles
Test OR
Implement
Initiatives
Execute &
Measure
Operationa
lize the
Learning
SEO &
SEM
Synergies
•Key focus areas
•Establish KPIs and Visualize
•Automation and monthly cadence
•Establish KW universe
•Identify funnel stages
•Dual Placements
•Paid to play primary role
•Organic to play primary role
•Implement learnings
•Test opportunities
•Performance monitoring
•Learning plan
•Scale the opportunity tested
across the KW universe

32. 31This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
A QUICK POLL:​​
Of all the tactics demonstrated today, which one you need
assistance/consultation with?
a.Assessing your current search strategies
b.Delivering a “Connected Search Program”
c.Identifying optimization opportunities with SEO & SEM
d.Measurement & Testing
e.None

34. 33This document and the information in it are provided in confidence, and may not be disclosed to any third party.
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Thank You!
Shaubhik Ray
Sr.Director, Digital Analytics
[email protected]