Do you stop Adwords if keyword is ranking well?

Why stop Adwords?

You are taking a bigger chunk of the search page results.

You still need to compete against those competitors using Adwords. You would in effect give them a part of your business.

There are some research that suggests that having both an ad and an organic listing helps increase CTR on both. I don't buy much of that but it's possible. Whether it does or not, you still use up a larger portion of the result page.

Ads because they usually are more targeted and you have more control, convert at a higher rate. It would not make sense to do something that would reduce your sales.

Organic rankings are not static. You could drop down and if you relied only on organic traffic, you would notice. But if you had Adwords as well, the impact on profits may not be felt as much since you could still get that traffic.

You mentioned one keyword but typically, you can target more in PPC, keywords you are probably not ranking as well organically. That's the big advantage of PPC other than more control.

You could learn from your ad campaign and apply to SEO. The spend on ads is not always the dollars and cents, there's peripherals to look at which can bring more profits and making the campaign valuable in the long run.

Hi 60XCustomStrings,

If there are no other ads displaying anywhere you advertise for that keyword you might consider removing your ads provided you are in the top slot. However, if there are no other advertisers competing then you are likely getting clicks pretty cheaply and it's an easy way to double your share of the traffic from that query. If you have competitors advertising for the same keyword than it seems wise to continue advertising.

I'm sure you realize that the top ads slots appear above the organic results, the ad slots are much more prominent on the SERP than organic listings. Obviously, if you went to the trouble of targeting a keyword for SEO, it must be an important keyword for your niche.

Why give up the top position on the page to your competitor?

There might be some cases where it makes sense to stop advertising a keyword, but how your organic listing ranks should not be the deciding factor. Anything that increases your profits is likely worth continuing.

One of the biggest mistakes people make with their advertising campaigns is that look at it as a cost center, rather than a profit center. As long as you are looking at your marketing as a "cost center" it will likely lead to a lot of missed opportunities. If you ever want to take your adverting to the next level, or to be a dominate player in your niche, you will need to shift to managing your marketing as a profit center, and make investments that have big long term payoffs.

ROI is a measurement not a tangible value. Total profit is a bankable asset. Don't let a myopic focus on ROI blind you to opportunities to increase your total profit.