ROI on Google Ads vs SEO – Why businesses pay more for less efficiency

Most companies are willing to pay twice the price for a lead or customer if they feel they can control the outcome.

This is my experience from 12 years in Google marketing.

Here’s an example from my own business Morningscore

• A new customer from SEO costs us $100.
• A new customer from Google Ads is $250.

Both are healthy numbers.

However, most businesspeople looking at this get more excited about increasing Google Ads.

My guess is it’s because they feel a sense of control and precision.

They think, “I don’t have to rely on chance. I can just turn up the spend.”

With SEO, you’re more at the mercy of Google and its algorithm updates. You can’t forecast input/output as precisely.

My takeaway is that the majority prefer to pay more to reduce perceived risk.

Even when I tell them SEO has been our biggest driver of customers for 5 years running and we’ve never had a “bad year,” it doesn’t change their opinion.

And I get that. We all want to avoid sunk costs, and we love measurable results. In general, we avoid risk.

But I invite you to consider allocating some of your budget to a channel that often delivers 2x the ROI of advertising.

Calculated risk is the path to high growth.

If you feel like dipping your toes more in SEO and harvesting some of that amazing ROI, do give our SEO tool a free spin with access to all tools and features in 14 days and no credit card 😎