Growth & Strategy
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
OK, so here's something that'll save you thousands of dollars and months of headaches: most businesses are asking the wrong question about marketing budgets.
They're asking "How much should I spend on Google Ads?" or "What's a good SEO budget?" But the real question is "Which channel actually makes sense for my specific situation?"
I learned this the hard way when I was working with a Shopify client who had over 1,000 products. They were burning through €2,000 monthly on Facebook Ads with a 2.5 ROAS - which sounds decent until you factor in their tiny margins. Meanwhile, I had another client spending zero on ads but generating massive traffic through SEO because their content strategy aligned perfectly with their business model.
The problem? Everyone treats this like a budget question when it's actually a product-channel fit question. You can have unlimited budget, but if your catalog complexity doesn't match Facebook's quick-decision environment, you're throwing money into the void.
In this playbook, I'll share what I discovered through real client work about budget allocation between Google Ads and SEO, including:
Why product-channel fit matters more than budget size
The hidden costs of paid ads that eat your budget
When SEO delivers better ROI than any ad spend
My framework for choosing the right channel mix
Real budget breakdowns from successful campaigns
This isn't theory - this is what actually happened when I helped businesses navigate the paid vs organic dilemma with real money on the line.
Channel Reality
The budget advice that's keeping you broke
Most marketing advice treats Google Ads and SEO budgets like they're interchangeable investments. You'll hear recommendations like "Spend 70% on paid ads for quick wins, then shift 30% to SEO for long-term growth." Or the classic "You need at least $3,000/month to make Google Ads work."
Here's what the industry typically recommends:
Start with paid ads for immediate results - supposedly the fastest way to validate market demand
Allocate 3-5x your target CPA as monthly ad spend - because you need "volume to optimize"
SEO takes 6-12 months, so budget for the long haul - treat it as a future investment, not immediate revenue
Split test both channels with equal budgets - let the data decide your allocation
Scale what works, pause what doesn't - sounds logical, right?
This conventional wisdom exists because it worked in the early days of digital marketing when competition was lower and tracking was simpler. Every agency wants predictable monthly retainers, so they push the "balanced approach" that keeps both channels funded.
But here's where this falls apart in 2025: your product determines which channel physics work in your favor. You can't change the rules of a marketing channel - you can only control how your product plays within those rules. Facebook Ads demands instant decisions. SEO rewards patient discovery. The question isn't how much to spend on each, but which one aligns with how people actually buy your product.
Most budget advice ignores this fundamental mismatch, leading businesses to optimize spend on channels that were never going to work for them anyway.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
My wake-up call came when working with that Shopify client I mentioned. They had this amazing catalog - over 1,000 SKUs across different categories, all quality items. Their problem wasn't the products; it was the channel mismatch.
They'd been running Facebook Ads for months with a 2.5 ROAS. On paper, that sounds acceptable. But when I dug into their margins and calculated the real profitability, we were barely breaking even. More importantly, I noticed something in their user behavior data that changed everything.
The people coming from ads would browse for maybe 30 seconds, add something to cart, then leave. Their session duration was terrible. Meanwhile, I had another client - a B2B SaaS with a completely different challenge. They'd tried Google Ads and were getting clicks, but the conversion rate was awful because their product required education and trust-building.
That's when I realized we were solving the wrong problem. Everyone was asking "How much should we spend?" when they should have been asking "Does our product fit this channel's decision-making environment?"
The Shopify client's strength was variety - customers needed time to browse, compare, and discover the right product. Facebook's quick-decision environment was fundamentally incompatible with this shopping behavior. We were forcing a square peg into a round hole, no matter how much budget we threw at it.
Instead of increasing ad spend, I convinced them to try something different: focus entirely on organic search where people had the time and intent to explore their full range. The results? Significant purchase generation through organic traffic from customers who actually engaged with their catalog depth.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's what I did instead of the traditional "test both channels" approach:
Step 1: Product-Channel Fit Analysis
I created a simple framework to evaluate whether a business should prioritize paid ads or SEO based on their product characteristics:
Decision Speed Required: Does your product need immediate action (emergency services, trending items) or research time (complex software, high-consideration purchases)?
Catalog Complexity: Do you have 1-3 hero products or hundreds of options?
Customer Journey Length: Do people buy immediately or need multiple touchpoints?
Educational Requirements: Can your value be communicated in 3 seconds or does it need explanation?
Step 2: The Channel Physics Test
For that Shopify client, I ran this analysis:
Facebook Ads reward simple, immediate decisions - their complex catalog didn't fit
Google Shopping worked better but had limited reach for their niche products
SEO aligned perfectly with discovery-based shopping behavior
Step 3: Complete SEO Pivot
Instead of splitting budget between channels, we went all-in on SEO for their ecommerce store:
Website revamp focused on product discoverability
Content optimization for their extensive catalog
Strategic content creation targeting long-tail keywords
Category page optimization for better product exploration
Step 4: Budget Reallocation Strategy
Here's exactly how we shifted the budget:
Month 1: Paused all Facebook Ads (saving €2,000/month)
Month 1-2: Invested €3,000 in website restructure and SEO foundation
Month 2-6: €800/month for ongoing content creation and optimization
Total 6-month investment: €7,000 vs €12,000 they would have spent on ads
The key insight: we spent 40% less money and got better results because we aligned our approach with how customers actually wanted to discover and buy their products.
Product-Channel Fit
Match your product's buying behavior to the channel's decision environment - complex catalogs need discovery time that ads can't provide
Budget Physics
Stop asking how much to spend and start asking which channel economics work for your margins and customer lifetime value
Timeline Reality
SEO takes 3-6 months to show results but then compounds - ads work immediately but stop the moment you pause spending
Hidden Costs
Factor in landing page creation creative production and ongoing optimization - your total ad costs are often 2-3x your media spend
The results validated everything I suspected about product-channel fit:
Traffic Growth: Organic traffic increased by 300% within 6 months, with visitors spending an average of 4.5 minutes on site (compared to 30 seconds from ad traffic).
Conversion Quality: While total conversion volume was similar, the quality improved dramatically. Customers from organic search had 60% higher average order values and 40% lower return rates.
Cost Efficiency: After the initial 6-month investment, ongoing SEO maintenance cost €300-500/month compared to the €2,000+ they were burning on ads with worse results.
Compound Growth: Unlike ads where results stop when you pause spending, the SEO improvements continued delivering new customers months after implementation. By month 12, they were getting 5x more qualified traffic than their best ad months.
The most surprising outcome? Their customer support tickets went down. People who found them through organic search were better informed about what they were buying and had more realistic expectations about the products.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons from this channel shift experiment:
Product-channel fit trumps budget size - You can have unlimited budget, but if your product doesn't match the channel's buying behavior, you're wasting money
Channel physics are unchangeable - Facebook will always favor quick decisions, SEO will always reward patience. Work with these realities, not against them
Hidden costs eat ad budgets - Creative production, landing pages, and ongoing optimization often double your true ad spend
Quality beats quantity in the long run - Better-matched traffic converts higher and churns less, improving lifetime value
Compounding effects matter more than immediate returns - SEO builds momentum; ads require constant feeding
Customer behavior data tells the real story - Look at session duration, pages per visit, and return rates, not just conversion rates
Sometimes the answer is "neither" - If your budget is too small for effective ads and SEO takes too long, focus on other channels first
What I'd do differently: I should have run the product-channel fit analysis before any spending. We could have saved months of mediocre ad performance by recognizing the mismatch earlier.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups, focus your budget on channels that support education and trust-building:
Start with content-driven SEO if you have complex features to explain
Use Google Ads only for high-intent keywords like "[competitor] alternative"
Budget at least 3-6 months for SEO to compound before expecting significant results
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores, let your catalog size and complexity guide your budget allocation:
Large catalogs (500+ products) perform better with SEO-focused strategies
Simple product lines with clear value props can succeed with ad spending
Always factor in creative production costs when calculating true ad spend