Shifting from anecdotal to factual..Google research on organic vs PPC!

Today, Google revealed its first piece of major research on the value to a brand of balancing search results real-estate between Organic and PPC.

For some years now, I've listened to the sales banter from those organisations that make their business from both natural and paid-for search, convincing me that balancing can only be a good thing. Anecdotal stories about seeing a brand on both left and right hand areas of the screen and eyetracker visualisations showing me where my eyes apparently go still had the fundamental flaw that this is the obvious explanation from someone who made money out of selling me both services! These latest findings start (in some way) to shift from the anecdotal to the data-factual.

Run across their European sites, the research showed that coming top of organic listings raised purchase consideration of a brand by 4% and exposure to a listing in the top paid position (with no organic listing on the page) increased purchase consideration by 20%. Combining both a high-ranking natural listing and paid for, raised purchase consideration by 22% and, according to this first batch of research, this trend is seen across most verticals and all markets.

The cynic in me still has lots of questions, however, it's a great start and one backed by numbers not the sales targets...I wait with baited breath!