The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
The average SEO-focused product page converts at only 2.9 percent[1], which is among the reasons many companies pursue paid advertising traffic to achieve their goals and KPIs.
But creating custom, campaign-specific landing pages is resource-intensive, and not every team has the necessary tools, expertise, or personnel to build the content. So, how do you know if you need a custom page or if you can safely send paid traffic to an organic page and still achieve your KPIs? This three-step, data-driven evaluation helps answer this question.
Paid vs. SEO landing pages — why have both?
Before diving into the evaluation process, you need to understand why having paid and organic pages is crucial and some of the drawbacks when you send paid traffic to your organic pages without analyzing them beforehand.
First, search intentions often differ between paid and organic users, and each group will have different content needs. We can classify these users into two groups based on whether they use high-intent or low-intent keywords.
Per WordStream’s definition[2], people who use high intent keywords like “best” want to conduct a transaction or perform an action, such as inquiring about a service, which can lead to an eventual conversion. This behavior aligns with the motivations of paid users, 75% of whom engage with ads because they believe landing pages make it easier to find their desired information[3].
In comparison, WordStream defines low intent keywords as navigational or informational in nature instead of transactional.
For example, somebody who wants to learn about a specific topic is more likely to use a longtail keyword