The $113,000 paid search test: How much traffic did organic replace?

I turned off $113,000 a month in paid search . Thirteen weeks later, 65% of the paid-attributed revenue had been recaptured through organic and direct, and the analysis showed that nearly nine out of 10 dollars in the branded campaign I studied had been defending clicks organic was already positioned to win. Every performance marketer has the same recurring nightmare. You turn off paid search. Traffic goes rogue. Revenue goes full “Thelma & Louise” and drives off a cliff. Then, during Monday’s leadership meeting, someone asks (very calmly, which is somehow worse) what you thought would happen. So paid stays on. Forever. It becomes the…

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