Given that 94 percent of B2B buyers report that they use the internet to do research before making a purchase, companies must have a strong inbound marketing strategy if they want buyers to find their products and services. While a large part of this effort comprises creating websites, blogs, and social media posts, here are four reasons why you shouldn’t overlook using paid media alongside your organic efforts.

1. Paid media offers greater visibility

In 2016, Google updated the layout of their SERP once again. This time, they eliminated the ads that appeared on the side of the search results, but increased the number of ads that could appear above the search results for certain queries.

Some queries can now have as many as four paid results before the organic results begin. This number pushes the organic listings down so far that sometimes they don’t appear at all above the fold. Users must then scroll if they want to find organic results, and often they don’t pay much attention.

As many as 36 percent of people report not recognizing that paid results are advertisements instead of organic results. Incorporating a paid strategy into your overall digital marketing efforts can help ensure that your company receives the traffic you need from your high-value keywords.

2. Paid media offers testing opportunities

Successful digital marketing requires several steps to go smoothly. You need to create content that attracts buyers searching for a particular topic. Your content must provide value and attract the attention it needs to rank highly on SERPs. It must be well-written enough to engage those who click on it. The keywords and content must also accurately identify the audience most likely to become a customer for your organization. If any of these steps fall short, then you’ll have wasted a large amount of time and effort.

Paid media ads also offer a great opportunity to test out different marketing approaches. For example, you can test out different landing page content and design for the same keyword, or experiment by using different bids on different devices. The combinations are virtually endless.

3. Paid media gets your content in front of the right audience immediately

With paid advertising, you can make sure your target buyer personas find your inbound marketing content. Not only can you target your personas based on their searches, but you can also reach people based upon particular demographics. For example, you can reach those with particular interests or locations on Facebook or those with certain job titles on LinkedIn. This level of precision is not available with organic, and it will introduce your organization to people who might not have otherwise realized that they want to find you.

Paid advertising also allows you to capitalize on your content right away. Ranking web pages highly can be a long process, particularly for smaller companies who do not have the domain authority of well-established websites. In the interim, you can use paid search to build traffic and attention for your site.

4. Paid advertising is profitable when you do it well

According to Google, brands typically earn an average of $2 for every $1 they spend on Google AdWords. Paid advertising, like other forms of content development, has the potential to be profitable for your business. The key is creating an effective strategy based on understanding what people want to find when they search for particular keywords. When you create engaging advertisements in addition to helpful content, you can build an successful paid strategy that complements the rest of your organic inbound marketing strategy.

Digital marketing takes a variety of forms. Although many companies understand the importance of focusing on organic efforts through websites and social media, don’t neglect paid search. Consider some of these ideas to incorporate it into your inbound marketing strategy.