Paid- vs Content Marketing – Which One is Best?

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The choice between using paid advertising or content marketing has been a tough one for many small business owners…

Do you simply run ads, and keep on spending money indefinitely, or do you try to build up a solid base of content and social audiences?

Some of them eventually try to do both, but unless you have a substantial marketing budget, it can be a strain to run both.

Note: Content marketing includes both search engine optimization (in any form) and social media marketing.

Which one will work best for you? Well, while the ideal solution is likely to be unique to your situation, there are some basic things you need to keep in mind.

Paid advertising vs content marketing – 7 things to keep in mind:

1. The time required to implement it.

If you only have enough money to do one of them…

Do you need to generate sales immediately?

If so, you may want to go with advertising. Content marketing is more of a medium term thing.

Or, would you prefer (and can you afford) working on something that will give you lasting free traffic?

Fair enough, “free traffic” doesn’t exist. While you may not pay for it with money, you will still be “paying” for it with the time you put into it.

However, depending on your niche and your target market, you may eventually be able to generate decent amounts of traffic from it, and by that time the cost per acquisition is likely to be substantially lower than it would have been for paid advertising.

2. Your target market:

In some niches, finding potential clients on social media is simply harder than others. In our niche, for instance, the market is incredibly competitive, and advertising costs are sky-high.

In other markets, though, you may find that people are not actively searching for what you have to offer, which is often true if you sell something new or a unique solution.

The bottom line is this:

In some markets, you will find that people don’t discuss it on social media – so any posts you make will struggle to get engagement, which in turn will limit its total exposure.

(Most social networks determine continued exposure by looking at initial engagement)

In other markets, you will find that not many people are searching for what you offer.

In other markets, especially for higher ticket service based, virtual- and digital offers, you are likely to find that establishing your expertise through content is more effective than simply running paid ads.

As always, consider your ideal customer profile, and what their perception would be of anything you do.

3. Both paid advertising and content marketing come with delayed results.

Really? Delayed results for paid advertising?

Yes.

In most cases, unless you are extremely lucky or unless you already understand your target audience, completely, the first while is likely to be a series of ineffective or mediocre (and thus unprofitable) ads.

Professional ad buyers often advise testing periods of up to three months for new advertisers.

This is due to the number of variables – like the location in which you advertise, targeted demographics, the time of day the ads are running, testing different versions of ads and ad copy, and if you are running display ads from an advertising network, eliminating traffic sources which don’t convert.

4. Algorithm fluctuations:

When it comes to content marketing, you have to deal with algorithm fluctuations from time to time. Algorithms for search engines and social networks – both of which determine your exposure – change from time to time.

In some cases you may find the impact to be positive, and on other occasions they may impact you negatively. In the case of negative impacts, you will have to deal with not only losing some of your traffic and/or reach (and thus a drop in revenue) overnight, but you will also have to figure out how to adapt to it.

5. Consistency:

Almost all social networks reward consistent activity with more exposure. Usually, the only exceptions are newcomers to the industry, who are still developing their algorithms.

If you do paid advertising for higher ticket clients, and you become overbooked, you can pause your ads for as long as it suits you. If you want to take a vacation, you can pause your paid ads too.

However, if you stop being active on social media, you will find that your reach is reduced when you return. If you want to take a vacation or find yourself with more buyers than you can handle, you can schedule content up front, and you can reduce the number of posts you publish per week, but stopping for anything more than a few days will have an impact on your results when you return.

For SEO content on your blog or website, the effect is likely to be less dramatic, but if left for long enough you will notice the reduction in traffic too.

Search engines reward websites that publish regular content.

6. AI search results:

Since AI was integrated into search engine results, it had a dramatic impact on website traffic for most smaller websites.

The reality is that, as AI becomes smarter, and their results become better, fewer and fewer people are likely to scroll down to see the rest of the results – in many cases.

What does that mean for YOU?

Well, unless you have a website or blog with a boatload of keyword-focused pages, you may struggle to show up in AI search results.

Unless, of course, you serve a very narrow niche or small area, in which there is not much competition.

7. The cost per acquisition when using paid ads:

Some niches are more competitive than others. This results in some pretty scary advertising costs for the more competitive niches.

In some niches, the cost per acquisition is – for smaller players – simply not worth it. Bigger companies who are able to command higher prices can absorb the additional costs, but smaller business often struggle.

On the flip side, though, depending on the niche and the target market, there may not be many people searching for what you offer (on social media or search engines), leaving you with no option but to use paid advertising in order to scale.

In cases like these, you may want to think out of the box – and consider options such as directly dealing with smaller- and micro-influencers on social media.

While it involves more work to establish connections, the actual cost per acquisition can often be reduced this way.

In conclusion:

So…

How do you know whether you should engage in content marketing or paid advertising, especially when you are unable to afford both?

First off, look at other, similar businesses. Do any of them have decent followings on social media, and what types of content do they put out? How regularly do they post? What do you see in terms of paid ads on Google and on social media when you do keyword searches which your prospects are likely to do?

In most cases, this should give you a pretty good indication – provided you are comparing apples with apples. For instance, if you are a plumber in a town of 50K people, don’t expect the same social media engagement numbers from your community as a plumber operating in the state capital.

On the flip side, however, the smaller the community is for which you provide products or services, the easier it becomes to establish your brand, and become the go-to person for your specific offer.

Then, run a short pilot test: Put out a few pieces of content, and put up a few paid ads for a short while. If the social media results in plenty of engagement and exposure, you may want to keep at it. But if the paid ads yield profitable results, that may be a good option too.

Do the math, and determine your likely cost per acquisition for both.