That's generally true, but in some cases, particularly in certain niches, that argument breaks down. In the past several years I've staked significant money(6

That's generally true, but in some cases, particularly in certain niches, that argument breaks down. In the past several years I've staked significant money(6 figures) on my ability to predict traffic quality(how well a traffic source converts) and you may find that the people who click on ads(sometimes before clicking on any search results) convert much better than SEO traffic. I've seen 50-150% difference in conversion rate between targeted free and paid traffic several times. This is why many companies bid on their name in their SEM campaigns, even though they obviously easily rank first for it organically. This isn't necessarily always true, but it's something to think about.