We’ve all been there. Pouring over our marketing reports only to find that we’ve been bidding on a search term we’re ranking organically for in P1. Now someone’s got the unenviable task of taking this information to a client or senior stakeholder and tell them we’ve essentially been pissing their budget up the wall.
This is quite a common problem, especially if you’re using different agencies for organic and paid marketing or even if you marketing teams sit in different parts of the office.
Communication is key but when deadlines and work demands are constantly looming it can be easier for employees to stay in their lanes, keep their heads down and get their deliverables done.
But this isn’t an ideal way to operate. Work silos’ breed inefficiency and can cause innovation to stagnate. So I’m going to run through a few quick ways in which you can get your paid and organic teams working more closely and more collaboratively together.
Dashboards can help but they’re not the solution
Ask any enterprise level marketing team how they’d tackle this problem and you’ll likely get a chorus of “build a dashboard” blared back at you. Create somewhere where you can see both paid and organic metrics and make decisions collaboratively.
This works in theory and is a good first step but dashboards won’t save you. Also they can be expensive and prone to breaking if they’re built by a third party.
Also, if your opposite team, whether it’s paid or organic, sits in another business and they’re not interested in your integrated solution then your dashboard is dead on arrival.
Data is vital in helping you diagnose problems and providing you data backed strategies but they’re not a silver bullet. In my opinion nothing beats discussing these issues face to face within a combined marketing team.
The best solutions is for one team, or one person to do it all
The paid team doesn’t need regular calls with organic if they’re sat right next to each other. They definitely don’t need a call if they’re the same person!
For large agencies and enterprise companies breaking down these silos can be difficult but it is necessary. Transitioning roles to cross-channel digital marketing experts as opposed to SEO or paid specialists upskills teams and removes operational barriers when an SEO manager needs to speak to a PPC exec, for example.
If one person can’t do both roles then teams should be built or pitched to clients as whole digital marketing packages. Remove the scope breakdown for organic, paid and email marketing and instead just pitch yourself as a complete marketing solution activated by a tight-knit team of experts.
If you want one person to fulfill both your paid and organic roles then leveraging AI needs to be a cornerstone of their workflows and strategy.
AI is collapsing traditional marketing roles
I believe we’re heading to a future where marketing teams are greatly reduced in size. Currently we have channel experts focusing on one role. In the near future I think we’re going to move to a single or very small team of digital marketers supported by a larger team of AI agents and workflows.
(I don’t think this is great by the way. This will take the bottom of the hiring pipeline out the industry but that’s a problem and discussion for another article),
There are benefits to this approach to engaged marketers that don’t want to be pigeon-holded into one niche. Having a high level, holistic view of the whole digital marketing ecosystem and activating at scale with the help of AI is a fun job.
It also practically removes the barriers between you Paid and SEO teams allowing them (if there is a them) to understand and action strategy quickly.
What is the solution
In a nutshell just sit your paid and organic experts next to each other. Get them to upskill each other in their respective marketing fields. A strong knowledge and understanding of both is essential for digital marketers in 2026.
Build regular collaboration sessions into their weeks and make sure they align on strategy at least once a quarter.
In the longer term leverage reporting dashboard and AI to streamline activation across channels and provide a layer of data to help make better strategic decisions.