Google Analytics 4 (GA4) helps compare organic and paid traffic. Reviewing the data can show how each channel contributes and inform your marketing strategy.

Step 1: Open acquisition reports

  1. Sign in to GA4.

  2. Go to Reports (Reports).

  3. Open the Acquisition (User acquisition).

  4. Select Traffic Acquisition (Traffic acquisition) to review all channels.

Step 2: Filter by traffic source

  1. Open the drop-down for Session default channel grouping.

  2. Select Organic Search (Organic Search) and Paid Search (Paid Search).

  3. Compare the main metrics:

    • Users (users)

    • Sessions (sessions)

    • Engagement Rate (engagement rate)

    • Conversions (conversions)

    • Revenue (revenue, if ecommerce tracking is configured)

Step 3: Build a custom comparison

  1. Go to Explore (Explorations) and open Free Form Exploration.

  2. Add these dimensions:

    • Session source/medium (traffic source/medium)

    • Landing page (landing page)

  3. Add these metrics:

    • Conversion rate (conversion rate)

    • Cost per conversion (cost per conversion from Google Ads)

    • Time on page (time on page)

  4. Use Filters to show only "google / organic" and "google / cpc" traffic.

Step 4: Analyse performance

  • Conversions and revenue Which channel contributes more conversions or sales?

  • Cost per conversion How cost-effective is PPC compared with organic search?

  • Time and engagement Are organic visitors more engaged?

  • Leading landing pages Do the same pages attract organic and paid traffic?

Step 5: Optimise using the data

  1. If PPC performs better:

    • Consider increasing budget for terms that generate conversions.

    • Test improvements to organic landing pages to increase conversion rates.

  2. If organic search performs better:

    • Consider lower bids for paid terms that overlap with strong organic performance.

    • Invest in improving organic content.

  3. If performance is similar:

    • Investigate whether paid traffic is replacing organic clicks.

    • Consider allocating PPC to new keywords without organic traffic.

Summary

Comparing SEO and PPC in GA4 helps assess channel contribution and informs decisions about campaign profitability.

 

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