In a growing online store, SEO is often handled by one person, PPC by an agency and newsletters by someone else. Each has its own plan and its own report, so it is easy for search to push one category, ads another and email a discount on a third that is running out of stock. The answer is not another meeting of everyone with everyone. Choose one commercial priority for the period – one with demand, stock and margin – and give each channel a different role, with the same offer and landing page.
Why separate channels work against each other
Every channel optimises what it is judged on. The agency watches the cost-to-revenue ratio or ROAS of its campaigns, SEO watches traffic and rankings, email watches opens and revenue from sends. Each number can look fine while the business as a whole sends customers three different messages and pays twice for some sales.
Research on integrated marketing communications (IMC) has built on this for decades. Batra and Keller’s review describes how search, display, social media and other media interact while a customer makes a decision. It recommends choosing channels by what the customer needs at each stage and evaluating the programme as a whole rather than each channel separately. An earlier study by Naik and Raman supports this empirically, establishing synergy between TV and print advertising using Dockers brand data. Their model implies that when synergy is strong it pays to strengthen even the less effective channel, because its value lies in working with the others. This is a large brand and offline media, so the size of the effect does not transfer. The principle does apply to an online store: a channel judged in isolation can look useless or brilliant without that reflecting its real contribution.
Paid and organic search overlap
The most tangible clash is between SEO and PPC on the same query. In its own research, Google paused ads and observed how many clicks moved to organic results. Across hundreds of studies, 89% of ad clicks were incremental on average, meaning they would not have happened without the ad. It depends, however, on where the store ranks organically: with a top organic position only 50% of ad clicks were incremental, at positions two to four 82%, and lower down 96%. This is Google’s own research, it measures clicks rather than purchases, and its authors recommend confirming incrementality with your own test.
Independent experiments show that the overlap can be even larger. At eBay, advertising on the company’s own brand name had no measurable short-term benefit, because customers simply clicked the organic link. Large-scale experiments on Bing add an important exception, though: when competitors bid on a brand’s name and the brand itself does not, competitors take 18–42% of the clicks.
For a store owner this does not produce a simple rule such as “switch off ads where our SEO is good”. It means that ads on a query where the store already ranks well should be decided by someone who sees both – the ranking, the competition on the query and the cost. These studies come from Google, Bing and the US market. Seznam, the Czech search engine, and the Czech market are not covered, so the direction of the reasoning transfers, not the numbers.
Email has a different job: it talks to people who know you
In the Czech Republic, marketing email may be sent only with prior consent, or to your own customers about similar products with an opt-out in every message. Email therefore does not create new demand among people who have never heard of the store. Its strength is reminding people who have already bought or shown interest. Within a shared priority this is naturally a separate role: reaching your own customers for whom the topic is relevant, not the whole list.
The second lesson is about volume. A study of one US retailer found that customers active in email are not necessarily active in purchasing, and that the number of emails has a non-linear effect on profit: both too few and too many sends reduced lifetime profit per customer. The specific optimum from another market does not transfer. For coordination the conclusion is simple: the campaign for the shared priority should replace a regular slot in the email plan, not add an extra send.
Search, campaigns and email in one place
See demand, campaigns, email sends, sales and stock side by side, and group the campaigns behind one goal into a single activity.
When a shared priority makes sense
Coordination pays off only for a topic that passes four checks at once. If one fails, aligned channels simply promote the wrong thing together.
| Check | What to confirm | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Demand | People search for the topic in the period, ideally with a rising trend | Queries and impressions in Search Console; search volume and annual trend in Sklik’s keyword suggestion tool for Seznam |
| Stock | Goods last the whole period in most variants | Store inventory; availability in the feed must match the landing page and checkout |
| Margin | A sensible amount remains after any discount and ad costs | Purchase prices and campaign costs for the same period |
| Communication plan | The topic does not clash with another promotion, season or send | Promotions calendar and email plan |
Czech demand has two sources. Search Console shows the queries for which the store appears in Google, with clicks and average position. Sklik shows search volume on Seznam as a monthly average over the past twelve months, together with its trend. Looking at only one of them can under- or overstate demand.
Example: a four-week plan
An illustrative example with invented numbers. An outdoor store is considering “autumn hiking boots” as its October priority. According to the tools, related queries peak seasonally in September and October, there are more than 300 pairs in stock in common sizes, and the category’s gross margin is around 38%. All four checks pass.
| Channel | Role in the priority | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| SEO | Prepare the shared destination | Update the hiking boots category (copy, filters, links from the boot-buying guide); this page is the destination for every channel |
| PPC | Reach searchers who do not know the store | Non-brand category queries in Google Ads and Sklik; product campaigns only for variants in stock; on queries where the store ranks first organically, a capped test instead of a blanket budget increase |
| Remind the store’s own customers | One send to customers who bought outdoor gear in the past two years, replacing the regular October newsletter | |
| Shared | One offer and one yardstick | Same price and terms in every channel, ending 31 October; judged on revenue and margin after marketing for the whole category against a comparable period |
The plan also has a brake written in advance: if stock falls below a sensible number of sizes, PPC scales back product campaigns and the email is not sent. One person owns the plan, not three.
How to tell whether it worked
Do not add up the revenue claimed by the ad platform, the email tool and analytics. Each system attributes purchases by its own rules, so the same order can appear more than once in the total. For deciding the next priority, the more useful question is whether the whole category sold more and left more money after the cost of goods and marketing than in a comparable period. A seasonal topic would grow on its own, so compare the same period last year or a category that was not a priority.
When not to coordinate
Alignment costs time. If a topic lacks demand, stock or margin, do not choose it just so the channels have something in common. Nor does every channel have to do everything: brand ads, long-term SEO or automated post-purchase emails can keep running independently. A shared priority is one thing for one period, not a new way of managing all of marketing.
What to do now
- Pick one candidate category for the next four to six weeks.
- Check the four conditions. Demand in Search Console and Sklik, stock in the warehouse, margin after estimated costs, and clashes with the promotions plan.
- Write the roles on one page. What SEO, PPC and email will do, the shared landing page, offer and end date, and who owns the plan.
- Decide on search overlap. For queries where the store already ranks well organically, agree a test with the agency instead of a blanket increase.
- Set one yardstick in advance. Revenue and margin after marketing for the whole category against a comparable period, not the sum of claimed revenue.
Korzaro shows Search Console queries and rankings, Google Ads, Sklik and Meta campaigns, email results and the store’s sales, margin and stock in one app. In the Promotion section you can create an activity for one commercial goal, link existing campaigns from all three ad platforms to it, and record an owner, a main metric, an internal budget cap and a review date. Email campaigns are not linked to activities, and Korzaro changes nothing in ad or email accounts.