advertisements traffic vs. real search results' traffic?

Hi,
does anyone know which gets clicked on more in google search results: the number 1 (or 2 or 3) naturally ranked site in the results or the google ad just above it? My guess would be the naturally ranked site but I would like to hear what others think and maybe find out how much more traffic one receives on average.
Thanks, Matt

I've had this same question and haven't been able to find the answer. I've always clicked the natural results page but I've heard that the results are good with PPC. The logic in the little info that I found was that the people who know exactly what they're looking for follow the PPC ads and the CTR & ROI is higher. I would love to hear the numbers of the top PPC ads vs the top natural results though...hope someone knows!

Jake Marsh
Keller Williams Realty
Denver Colorado Real Estate | Denver MLS

There is a good article in SEW: http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3357841 on paid vs. natural clicks.

IMO, if you rank in the top 5 or so for a KW you are wasting your money if you are also placing an ad for that KW. Spend your time and money to improve your SERPs results. The take-away from the article:

"Generally, we found the majority of users (19 out of 24, representing almost 80 percent of the group) tend to skip over sponsored results and go first to the top organic results. If the users find something relevant in these results, they may never return to the sponsored listings."

I hold topSERPs on lots of keywords but still run adwords (bidding at a level that puts me on the right side of the SERPs instead of in the colorbar at top).

I do this for a couple reasons....

1) IMO many people look closely at the ads on the right

2) I use the adwords to offer something entirely different from the title tag(s) of the pages that I have in the natural SERPs.

Differentiating works. That would be the one exception in my mind. Good on ya Egol!

I'd expect a higher CTR from organic listing and higher conversion ratio from sponsored listing

I've read that research proved that if a user sees you in the SERPs and in AdWords than chances of them click either one improves dramatically because it proves relevancy to the user. I dont think most users even know that we can setup adwords targetting specific terms.

Also number 1 gets clicked more #2 is about double of #3