Content Marketing vs Paid Ads: Which One Has a Higher ROI?

Compared to paid advertising, content marketing delivers a higher ROI. It builds customer loyalty, generates quality leads, produces long-lasting business results, and is cost-effective. Most importantly, paid ads require content marketing to be efficient.

As a business owner, your main goal is to generate high-quality leads and increase sales. However, the challenge is developing a strategy to help you accomplish that.

Paid advertising and content marketing are popular strategies you can utilize to meet your business goals.

But if you do not want to spend a large chunk of your marketing budget shooting blanks, you need to choose an approach that delivers better value.

This article will explain everything you need to know about content marketing and paid ads and why content marketing has a higher ROI.

Table of contents

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a marketing strategy that involves creating and sharing valuable content that will attract your target audience. It is based on reciprocity, where the content is geared toward triggering a response or driving them to action.

It is a long-term customer retention strategy. The information aims to engage the audience and convert them into paying customers.

The focus of this type of marketing is not just to sell to the customers. You are also playing a beneficial role in their lives and establishing yourself as an authority in your industry. They will never forget you in a hurry.

What are the types of content marketing?

There are several types of content marketing. Here are some common categories you can utilize

Blog content marketing

Blogs are an integral part of content marketing that help drive traffic to your site, build brand awareness and increase customer engagement.

Blogging is the second top media format used by 48% of marketers to increase sales in 2022.

With blog posts, you are providing valuable information for the audience while at the same time showcasing your expertise.

But the content has to be meaningful, unique, and consistent. You do not have to starve your audience of answers to their questions.

They need to know that they can trust you to give them valuable tips to help solve their problems anytime they come running to you.

Therefore, you need to be consistent and focus on delivering high-quality articles.

This can be a herculean task, but you can work with a unique content writing agency to create engaging articles. Get in touch with Redakthor to discuss your content writing needs.

They will help you create interesting content that can emotionally connect with your target audience.

And the catch is that a blog post can be repurposed to be shared on different media platforms.

Email lists

Email offers various content marketing options for you with the possibilities it provides, such as newsletters, drip campaigns, and personalized email messaging.

Since you have captured the attention of your audience, now what? You need to keep your memory alive, and building an email list is a fantastic alternative.

You can find the best way to keep them engaged by distributing newsletters or sending personalized messages that can warm cold leads.

Social media content marketing allows businesses to build their online presence and brand awareness. By constantly sharing content on your business profile the audience can engage with, you are creating an opportunity to boost your profitability.

You can share different content on social media networks, from long-form articles to fun pieces.

The audience can comment, share, or like your social media posts. As a result, you are increasing your online visibility.

77% of social media marketers say social media marketing has been somewhat to very effective for their company this year

Some popular social media channels you can leverage for your content marketing include Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Twitter.

Video

Recently, video content has become quite the rave among different demographics. People love checking out quick videos for information or solutions to their problems.

Creating TikTok or YouTube videos is another way to spice up your content strategy. It can generate great results for your business.

Infographics

Infographics are visual representations of ideas or information. This content type presents a comprehensive description of a subject.

This is particularly great for simplifying a complex topic that may be difficult to demonstrate in a blog post.

Lead magnets

Creating sales leads has become easier with lead magnets. These are free resources that are given away to attract prospects for the purpose of gathering contact details.

Some of them are as follows

Ebooks

Ebook is a long-form lead magnet that provides prospects with information about a specific subject that can arouse their interest in your company’s products or services.

Whitepapers

A whitepaper is an in-depth report about a specific topic. It uses visually appealing methods to present a detailed description of the problems your audience is facing and how your company offers the best solution.

Templates

This is a common lead magnet that attracts a lot of prospects because it saves them the stress of designing from scratch. Depending on your audience’s desires, you can create an easily downloadable template they can use to solve their problems.

Guides

People usually canvass the internet, looking for simplified ways to complete a task. How-to guides are a great way to document the processes your audience can use to accomplish a specific task.

What is paid advertising?

Paid advertising is a digital marketing model whereby you pay for a spot on an online platform to display your goods and services.

What are some examples of paid advertising?

Several paid advertising methods exist. Here are some popular examples

This paid advertising method involves running ads on social media platforms. These platforms utilize data and user online behavior to deliver ads to your target audience.

These social media channels include Facebook, Instagram, X, Tiktok, and LinkedIn.

Paid search marketing

Paid search is a digital marketing advertising model that allows advertisers to place their ads in other to rank higher on search engine result pages.

This includes PPC advertising, display ads, google ads, and responsive ads.

Native ads

In this paid ad format, the ads are integrated to match the feel and look of the media platform they are displayed. They are assimilated into the design and are made to cohere with the page content.

Video ads

These are digital ads displayed on streaming platforms such as Youtube and Vimeo.

Influencer marketing

This paid advertising involves paying popular influencers to promote your product on their social media handles through endorsements and product placements.

3 differences between content marketing and paid advertising

Content marketing and paid advertising are essential strategies, but specific differences exist between them. They are as follows

1. Content marketing provides valuable information; paid ads focus on making quick sales

Paid advertising uses a direct and persistent form of advertising, while content marketing creates relevant articles, videos, and other media to attract the audience.

Prospects are presented with helpful information, and the company’s product is strategically integrated into the content.

It tells the audience: “Here is how you can solve your problem. And if you are interested, this product can make it easier for you.”

But for paid advertising, the advertiser directly tells you what their product can do for you. They present themselves as the solution to the problem without any preamble.

2. Content marketing is a long-term strategy, paid advertising is short-term

In content marketing, a brand tries to build a relationship with the customer. Thus, it is a longer-term strategy aimed at establishing trust between potential customers and the business.

Paid advertising, on the other hand, is a short-term advertising strategy that focuses on making quick sales in the shortest time possible to prospects.

Content marketing builds a strong relationship with the audience by providing valuable resources without directly asking for anything in return.

3. Content marketing gives your business a slower but predictable reach; paid ads are faster and sporadic

There is faster online visibility and reach for your business when you utilize paid advertising.

Ad platforms use digital technology to hyper-target prospects from different demographics and several stages of the buyer’s journey.

But with content marketing, the reach is slower but predictable. You must integrate SEO strategies to help you rank high on the search engine to get a favorable outcome.

The professional team of writers at Redakthor incorporates SEO best practices to drive organic traffic to your website. Get started with a free blog audit.

Pros of content marketing

Creating content helps you build brand awareness and deliver your products/ services to your target audience. Its advantages are endless and will benefit your business in the long run.

Here are some of them:

Content marketing generates high-quality leads

Creating relevant content generates better leads to your website than the one you purchased with paid advertising. This is because you are answering users’ questions with your content, and the organic searches will produce relevant traffic to your website.

According to a report, 51% of website traffic is from organic search, and 40% of revenue is generated from organic traffic.

These customers sought solutions to their problems and found you through organic search results. You did not shove your product on their faces.

A high-quality lead has a better chance of converting to a paying customer because you have established yourself as an expert in that subject. And you are attracting prospects through your content.

Content marketing earns you more revenue

Organic traffic will take time to produce results. But you will generate more revenue once you succeed.

With this strategy, you are playing the long game. However, the outcome is usually remarkable.

It organically helps your business rank higher. You own the ranking and leads, which are more likely to convert. The content will consistently deliver results in the long term.

Delayed gratification ensures more significant and long-lasting rewards. This is what content marketing offers. But a good content marketing strategy will help you deliver.

It will keep attracting quality leads even in the future, generating more revenue for your business.

Contrastively, paid advertising is a short-term strategy that shows you immediate results. However, it can be upended when you stop paying for that attention and visibility.

Content marketing builds loyalty and trust with the target audience

It is a strategic marketing approach focused on building a relationship with customers. These people will grow to trust your expertise, and they will become your unofficial brand ambassadors.

Due to the valuable information you dole out on that particular subject, you establish yourself as a thought leader, unlike paid advertising, where you are paying to get their attention.

But with content marketing, you are providing helpful content and positioning yourself as an authority in your industry.

As a result, they will always stick around if you continue to address their challenges and will patronize you when they are ready.

Your audience realizes you care about their well-being by feeding them with valuable knowledge instead of shoving your product on their faces.

Content marketing has been used by 78% of the most successful content marketers to build loyalty among customers, according to a report by Content Marketing Institute.

Content marketing is cost-effective

Customer acquisition cost is considerably lower in content marketing. If you deliver high-quality, relevant, consistent content, your business will always rank high on the search engine. And it wouldn’t dig a hole in your marketing budget.

But paid advertising will help you jump the queue if you can consistently part with thousands of dollars.

You need to spend a sizable amount of your marketing budget to outdo your competitors. What happens if they are a million-dollar company?

However, creating content can be a part of your strategy even if you are on a shoestring budget. By creating the content yourself, all you have to spend is your time and internet connection.

However, the content has to be high quality and unique. If you cannot deliver it yourself, you can enlist the services of Redakthor to create high-quality articles to keep your audience engaged.

Remember that you can also repurpose the pieces to create video content or podcasts to target a different audience. Thereby killing three birds with one stone.

Cons of content marketing

Though content marketing can benefit your business, it has some downsides. They are as follows

It takes longer to generate ROI

Content marketing is an ongoing process that compounds over time. It takes time before you start seeing significant results.

But the outcome is massive as soon as your content starts ranking in the organic search results. However, it takes time, patience, and commitment to see results.

Creating content can be a difficult process

Creating engaging and valuable content that converts can take a lot of work. For your articles to rank higher on search engine result pages, they must be useful and valuable to the audience.

However, the good news is that you can solve this problem by contracting content marketing agencies that deliver high-quality content that suits your business needs. Contact Redakthor to get started.

Pros of paid advertising

Paid advertising provides immediate results, and it is very easy to measure the monetary value of these results.

Here are the pros of this digital strategy for your business.

Paid ad gets you instant online visibility

Compared to content marketing, which depends on organic traffic, paid advertising makes your business rank faster on paid platforms.

You will gain instant business visibility if you promote your business on Google.

Paid advertising offers targeting options

With paid ads, you can get your brand in front of the right audience due to the targeting options it provides.

It presents an opportunity to target a particular audience based on their demographics, such as age, gender, and location.

Paid ads provide a retargeting opportunity

Paid advertising helps you remarket your product to prospective customers who have expressed interest in your product or services but are yet to make a purchase.

This feature reminds them of your products and services after they leave your website by showing them relevant ads when they visit other websites.

Cons of paid advertising

Even though paid advertising will give your business a faster and wider reach, there are some downsides to this form of advertising.

Here are some of them

Paid advertising is more expensive than content marketing

Running ads on paid platform costs money. You need to spend money to get considerable results with paid advertising.

This does not necessarily mean you do not spend much on content marketing. But overall, it costs less compared to paid advertising.

You get charged each time anyone clicks on your ad. And there’s no guarantee it will convert.

The visibility is not long-lasting

You need to keep paying to maintain that position to ensure increased online visibility. Once you stop, the visibility disappears like it was never there.

Unlike in content marketing, your content will continue to rank higher if you consistently deliver valuable resources.

Which one delivers a better ROI?

PPC and content marketing help boost your profitability, but content marketing delivers a better ROI. It gives you better leads, and the result is long-term.

If you need immediate visibility for your brand, PPC will provide that, but it is only helpful if your content is valuable. Users may only patronize your business if you provide helpful information.

About 70% of consumers want to learn more about a product through an article instead of ads.

Therefore, paid advertising needs content marketing to deliver results. It can give you immediate results if paired with good content.

For maximum benefit, paid advertising and content marketing should go hand in hand. The latter ensures long-term success for your brand.

Takeaway: Content marketing has a higher ROI than paid advertising

Paid ad offers instant online visibility and retargeting options, but the leads are sometimes low quality.

Content marketing is the way to go if generating quality leads with a high conversion rate is your business objective.

It delivers a better ROI than paid search by building customer loyalty, generating long-lasting business results, and is cost-effective.

However, it is not a walk in the park to hit it big using content marketing. You must consistently deliver valuable, relevant content to build trust and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.

Contact Redakthor to assist you in delivering high-quality content that will give you an edge over your competitors.