Firstly – The Stats. Research shows that across industries nearly 40% of clicks on Search Result pages are on ads. If you doubt this, well, Google's empire is based almost entirely on revenue collected when people click on ads. You mightn’t click, but plenty of people are.
The Users – When running SEO training for marketers, I often start with a Google search results page and ask people to identify which results are advertisements and which are organic. Most people, but not all, correctly identify the main block of organic results, and the ads down the right hand side. Far fewer identify advertisements as such when they appear above the organic results, even though they are in a different colour and clearly labelled Sponsored Links. And Local Business Results shown on a map likewise create confusion. Users that aren’t aware of the distinction between ads and organic listings are not going to discriminate well in their clicks.
The Reasons: I click on ads sometimes. I admit it. I click on ads mostly when I am actually looking to buy something. I click on ads because they often offer the shortest path, having been specially designed to give me what I need to make a purchase. While organic listings generally provide the best, most reliable sources of information, and so are my focus when researching, when I’m looking to purchase, it’s often the ads that answer my needs most directly. This is particularly true if you want a local result (I live in Australia).
The Alternatives: Traditional marketers are surely displaying unreasonable scepticism in questioning why people click on search ads - advertisements that actually address the problem that the searcher is currently thinking about. Doesn’t putting ads in a magazines, or billboards and expecting people to be sufficiently interrupted from what they are trying to do to notice the ad, and later recall it and act on it require a far greater leap of faith?
And finally The Proof: The great thing about Pay Per Click advertising is that no faith is required. If you can quantify the value of an action on your website – be that the profit from a sale, or the average value of a lead – then you can see, quantifiably, after relatively low spend, whether PPC is creating a positive return on investment for you. And then there is no need for convincing arguments.
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