I saw an interesting article over at Search Engine Land titled, “SEO Beats PPC & Social Media For Generating Leads, New Industry Report Says“.
Matt McGee reported on a new survey of online marketers. The 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report from Webmarketing123 shows that SEO (Search Engine Optimization, or Organic Search Engine Traffic) is the best source of leads for both Business-to-consumer and Business-to-business marketers.
In August and September of 2011, the survey asked 500 online marketers for their best source of leads between SEO, PPC (Pay-per click), and Social Media Marketing.
As you can see from the graphic below, SEO accounted for 57.4% of the lead generating for Business-to-business marketers and 41% for Business-to-consumer marketers.
They also asked the respondents where do they spend the majority of their budgets. While about a third of B2B marketers say SEO is the majority of their budget, B2C marketers say PPC accounts for the majority of their budget.
I think the B2C results are especially interesting, and obvious to anyone doing B2C marketing. You can not ignore PPC traffic, because even though many times it is not as profitable as SEO or organic traffic, it is still profitable and there is so much available. It also reminds us to take the PPC winners and heavily invest in SEO in these markets.
The survey also revealed that the biggest budget increases where planed for social media marketing. About 60% of the respondents say they will increase spending for social media marketing, while only 53% plan for increases in SEO and only 40% in PPC.
I’m not sure if this is the result of testing waters, so to speak, in social media or if they see actual potential for social media leads. It will be interesting how the top graphic will change in the coming years. My prediction is that while social media may increase its share, especially in B2C, SEO will remain King for years.
