"Should we bet on SEO or PPC?" is one of the most common dilemmas for business owners and marketing managers advertising on search engines like Google, Bing, and others. In this article, the DGTalents marketing agency team shares our take on when to rely on each option — and how both serve your brand in the short and long term.

Let's start with why it matters to understand how search engine optimization (SEO) and PPC advertising (e.g. Google Ads) actually work. Both have the same goal: more online visibility and more traffic from users actively looking for information, products, or services in your business category.

That said, one requires a long-term commitment, consistency, and a strong focus on creating useful, relevant content. The other is a faster - but less sustainable - path to appearing at the top of search results. And our experience shows that at different stages of your business, you'll likely need both.

How Results and Search Behavior in Google Are Changing

Have you noticed a drop in clicks from ads or organic search to your website? So-called zero-click searches are becoming more and more common, as AI tools now answer user questions directly in the search engine - without requiring a visit to the source website.

Learn more about Google AI Mode

According to Similarweb, in just one year, searches that ended without a click grew from 56% to 69% (May 2024 – May 2025). At the same time, the click-through rate (CTR) for PPC ads on informational queries dropped by half when an AI Mode answer was shown in the results.

The takeaway: you're competing for an increasingly smaller share of user attention - whether you rely on SEO or PPC.

Unless you shift your strategy from driving website traffic to building brand visibility online - regardless of whether that happens in the top search results or in a ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Perplexity response.

Going forward, you'll need to focus less on where most of your users come from and more on who is actually engaging with your content - even beyond your website.

SEO: For Long-Term Goals and Sustainability

Think of SEO as a marathon. You need to keep a steady pace without interruption to stay ahead of competitors - and to avoid being overtaken.

Search engine optimization is about creating useful, authentic, and authoritative content - and presenting it in the right way to maintain visibility and recognition from both users and search engines.

One important thing to keep in mind: the rise of AI assistants has shifted the key performance indicators. Organic clicks and traffic are no longer the only measure of how well a web page is optimized. A user can discover your brand through an AI interaction. Whether that counts as a valuable action for your business is something only you can decide.

Key Advantages of SEO

Be patient and ready to invest real resources before you start receiving quality organic traffic, inquiries, and new clients without paying for every click.

• Less dependence on PPC advertising. If a page on your website ranks #1 organically in Google, you probably don't need a significant ad budget to maintain good visibility - which also means more users reaching your site without a direct cost per click.
• Greater trust from users. Organic results traditionally earn more trust, as they signal brand stability, authority, and recognition. They typically represent brands that invest in content marketing and consistently create useful, relevant formats. In a competitive niche, it's very hard to rank a brand new page from a new business at the top organically.
• SEO = visibility in AI platforms. While the topic is still debated, enough time has passed since the emergence of GenAI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to confirm one thing: well-optimized websites are also the preferred sources for AI models. The golden rules - unique, comprehensive, well-structured content on a fast, easily indexed page - have always been Google's favorites. Now they're what AI chat tools prefer too.

See also: How AI Is Changing Content Marketing

The Challenges of SEO

With SEO, you don't have 100% certainty about when results will come - but you'll still need to invest to get there. Some of the key downsides include:

• Fewer clicks for the same effort. The way search results are structured now allows users to get answers without visiting a website. Even if you rank well, it may not matter in certain scenarios.
• Results take time. For some businesses in competitive niches, reaching the top positions can take weeks, months, or even years.
• Your position isn't guaranteed. If someone tells you their website is #1 on Google, they probably don't fully understand how the SERP algorithm works. Your ranking depends on many factors - including context, location, user profile, and more — and a good position today can be taken away by an algorithm update or a shift in ranking signals.

When It's Worth Investing in SEO

SEO is a non-negotiable part of your digital marketing if you want to:

• build an authoritative, recognizable brand over the long term;
• generate inquiries, leads, and sales at a better cost;
• secure visibility in niches where advertising is expensive, heavily regulated, or restricted (e.g., clinics, financial services, etc.);
• build a sustainable content marketing strategy for visibility across multiple channels and platforms.

PPC Advertising: The Quick Win

With PPC, you can achieve instant visibility - and your results are directly tied to the budget you invest. But the moment you stop advertising, you lose both your search rankings and visibility across platforms.

Key Advantages of PPC Advertising

• Fast results. PPC advertising will start driving traffic to your website immediately after launch and can push your business to the very top of Google from day one.
• Precise targeting. If you know the nuances of advertising platforms, you can target very specific audiences based on demographics, location, interests, device, and more — making every euro of your ad budget work as efficiently as possible. This applies to Google Ads, Meta advertising, and beyond.
• Measurability and scalability. You can track every click - where it came from, who clicked, what they did after arriving on your site. This lets you calculate the direct and indirect return on investment that advertising brings to your business.

Disadvantages of PPC Advertising

PPC can be effective - but it's also an inherently unsustainable way to grow your business. Here's why:

• Rising costs in almost every industry. Data shows an 87% increase in costs in just one year across almost every niche. That means to achieve the same results you were getting in 2024, you now need to invest nearly double the ad budget.
• Investment unpredictability. We regularly see campaigns holding a strong impression share for weeks - only to reverse direction in a single day when a competitor starts spending more. When that happens, ROI, cost-per-click, and other metrics shift dynamically, making accurate forecasting harder.
• Creative fatigue. Over time, users start ignoring ads they see repeatedly. That means you need to continuously refresh ad groups and campaigns, create new creatives and variations, and test different targeting settings to keep reaching the right people at the best cost.

When It's Worth Investing in PPC Advertising

PPC typically carries the most weight in your marketing mix when:

• you're launching a new product or service and want to generate immediate interest;
• short-term sales and revenue are critical to your business;
• you have seasonal or promotional campaigns to run;
• you're operating in a saturated market where ranking #1 organically is difficult to achieve;
• you're generating leads and sales in industries where deal values are high.

The Right Strategy for Your Business: SEO, PPC, or Both?

The two aren't mutually exclusive - in fact, they complement each other. And in different situations, each will deliver a different kind of return.

If you need results now, PPC is your first move. You can put your business in front of the right people quickly, build brand awareness, promote your campaigns, and target only potential customers - all while controlling spend, messaging, and performance in real time.

If you're playing the long game, invest in SEO. Organic visibility compounds over time in a way that paid advertising simply can't replicate. Once you've built authoritative content and solid rankings, that asset keeps working for you without paying per click. SEO is worth the investment if you know your customers research thoroughly before they buy - and if you want to appear not just at the top of Google, but in AI-generated chatbot answers too.

Our team's philosophy is that almost every business should take advantage of both PPC and good search engine optimization. PPC gives you fast tests, validations, and insights that can feed your content strategy - and in turn, improve your SEO results. It's something we regularly practice on the long-term projects we work on.

Get in touch for a marketing consultation so we can put together a concrete action plan for your business - and show you how SEO and digital advertising can work together to deliver the best results.