Find where paid search overlaps organic

Paid and organic search are usually run by different people looking at different dashboards. Put the two side by side and the same pages show up in both, which raises two useful questions: is the ad spend on those pages incremental, and which paid-only pages point at demand the organic team has not gone after?

Steps

1. Pull the organic side. google_search_console.query with dimensions: ["page"] over 28 days ending 3 days ago, rowLimit: 500, and again with dimensions: ["query", "page"], rowLimit: 5000.

2. Pull paid landing pages from GA4. google_analytics.run_report with dimensions: ["landingPage", "sessionMedium"], metrics: ["sessions", "conversions", "totalRevenue"], the same dates, dimensionFilter on sessionMedium EXACT cpc. Run it a second time with organic so paid and organic conversion rates can be compared on the same pages.

3. Join on the path after stripping origin, query string and trailing slash from every URL.

4. Sort the pages into three groups.

   • Overlap: paid sessions on a page whose main organic queries sit at position 1 to 3 with solid clicks. These are the candidates for an incrementality test.
   • Paid only: paid sessions, no organic clicks. Paid has found demand organic has not. Pass the page's paid intent to query-clusters-to-content-plan.
   • Organic only: no action here.

5. Look at brand specifically. Filter the query rows to brand terms. If the site holds position 1 for its own brand and a brand ad is running, quantify the paid brand sessions separately. This is the most common overlap and the most contested.

6. Compare conversion on the overlap pages. Paid conversion rate versus organic conversion rate on the same pages. If they are similar, the page converts regardless of channel and the test is about volume; if paid is much higher, the ad copy or the query mix is different and pausing would lose something.

7. Report. The overlap table (page, organic position on main queries, organic clicks, paid sessions, paid conversions, organic conversions), the paid-only list as opportunities, the brand overlap figure, and a recommendation to test pausing on the two or three strongest overlap pages rather than a blanket cut. Say explicitly that cost is unknown.

Gotchas

• There is no cost data here. GA4 shows paid sessions and conversions, not spend. Without a Google Ads connection, the overlap can be described but not priced; say so plainly.
• Position 1 organic does not make the ad wasted. Ads plus organic take more of the results page than either alone, and brand ads block competitors bidding on the brand. The honest recommendation is a test, not a conclusion.
• cpc is every paid search engine and sometimes more. Anything tagged with medium cpc lands here, including Bing Ads and mis-tagged social. Check sessionSource before treating it as Google Ads.
• Search Console is Google only. The overlap is Google organic against all paid search, which slightly overstates paid-only pages.
• Search Console lags 2 to 3 days. End every window 3 days back.