1. Predictability: Traffic, rankings, returns and costs tend to more stable and more predictable than SEO. It is more immediately accountable, in terms of ROI, while SEO can take much longer to evaluate.
More straightforward to achieve high rankings – you simply have to bid more than your competitors, although Google also takes the Quality Score of your ad into account. SEO requires long-term, technically complex work on page optimization, site restucture and link-building, which can take months to implement and results to occur.
2. Speed: PPC listings appear much faster, usually in a few hours (or days if editor review is required).
3. Flexibility: Creative and bids can also be readily modified or turned-off for particular times. The results of SEO can take weeks or months to be achieved. Content modifications to existing pages for SEO are usually included within a few days. PPC budgets can also be reallocated to in line with changing marketing goals (eg: a bank can quickly switch paid-search budget from ‘loans’ to ‘savings’).
4. Automation: Bid management systems can help financial predictability through using rules to control bidding in line with your conversion rates to reach an appropriate cost per sale. However substantial manual intervention is required for the best results for different search ad networks.
5. Branding effect: Tests have shown that there is a branding effect with Pay Per Click, even if users do not click on the ad. This can be useful for the launch of products or major campaigns.