In the grand world of digital marketing, you have two different roads available to you. There’s the pay-per-click (PPC) route – and then there’s the organic alternative. Most SEM marketers straddle the line and dabble in both camps, but most corporate organizations place an emphasis on the PPC side.

A strict PPC strategy involves choosing external platform, picking keywords, assigning a budget and filing a follow-up report to capture results. Organic, on the other hand, leverages natively-hosted, creative content (shared on those same external platforms) to drive traffic. The difference is, with organic strategy, you’re not paying to play.

The external platforms (Google, Facebook, et al) make it simple for users to understand how to engage in PPC campaigns – because they want your advertising dollars. They’ll certainly get your content in front of the target audience you’re looking for. But they don’t acknowledge the limitations intrinsic in this strategy.

In the PPC sandbox, you’re playing by their rules of external platforms, within their boundaries. And your reach is only going to be what they’ll let it be. Organic, in stark comparison, puts control into the users hands – if the content is good and resonates with an audience, there are no limits. You stand to reach a lot more eyeballs.

Organic is cheaper. Easier. And reaches more people. So why do companies lean more towards PPC?

PPC is a lot easier to understand, as we’ve covered – and it falls in line with more traditional advertising models. It’s familiar. PPC strategy, “WE PAY YOU THIS, YOU GET US IN FRONT OF OUR AUDIENCE” is a lot safer than the organic strategy: “WE PAY FOR COOL CONTENT AND OUR AUDIENCE CHOOSES TO SHARE IT.”

But which method actually works? PPC? Or organic?

Let’s talk numbers. Real numbers.

At one software manufacturer (yes, a brand you’d recognize), they were spending $60,000 a quarter on a Google AdWords PPC campaign that equated to 14,000 impressions, 6 clicks and 2 conversions. Those conversions equated to $6,000 worth of business.

A few towns over, at a major beauty brand, they are spending $1-$1.2 per each physical magazine spread (and investing in several a month). They cataloged their success by impressions (determined by circulation), and this kind of spend netted 2-3 million impressions per buy.

Ouch.

Now let’s compare that spend to what you can do organically.

A full-time social media manager who would run your accounts 24/7, find and publish “free” content and respond to customers will cost you $50,000-$120,000 per year. If you really want to turbocharge them, give them a budget for software ($1,200-$12,000/yr) and supplemental content ($15k per video, $20k per interactive asset — let’s say $50,000-$150,000 per year).

On the higher end of the budget spectrum, that puts us at $282,000 per year.

The number of “impressions” that figure will net be determined by the nature and size of the audience they’re interacting with, but on average, 5 million impressions a month is a good, healthy number.

And an even better investment.