Search Engine Land Columnist Thomas Stern provides data showing that when used together, SEO and PPC can better achieve desired marketing outcomes such as more qualified traffic and budgetary efficiency.

Oftentimes I’m asked, “Why should I invest in paid media when I already rank in position one for many organic search results?” Well, to answer that simply, investing simultaneously in PPC and SEO can and will result in an incremental rise in your brand’s bottom line. And we have the data to prove it.

The main synergy between the two lies in monitoring two factors: advertising spend and rankings. Whether your goal is to lower cost per click (CPC) or increase total traffic, SERP (search engine results page) position can inform how we manage paid search ads. At our agency (ZOG Digital), our teams work without silos and integrate performance data regularly. In analyzing a few accounts further as a sample set, we began to identify a correlation larger than previously understood between ad CTR (click-through rate), organic CTR and cost per click for the keywords.

To verify the connection between organic and paid search, we tracked high-traffic keywords and their positions across both channels. While both have the innate ability to show success in their own right, our data shows how each positively influences the other.

Read More: How SEO can create budget efficiencies in paid search campaigns