Ecommerce sites absolutely need both SEO and PPC, but for different strategic reasons. SEO generates compounding returns over 6-18 months with lower per-click costs once you rank, while PPC delivers instant traffic and protects high-intent keywords where competitors outrank you organically. Running only one channel leaves revenue on the table and cedes market share to competitors using both. PPC makes sense as your primary channel in three situations: new stores with no domain authority, seasonal promotions that can't wait for rankings, and product categories where organic results are dominated by Amazon or big-box retailers you can't displace. Google Shopping and brand defense campaigns typically return 300-600% ROAS for established ecommerce brands, and you control exactly which products appear for which searches. The cost is continuous—turn off ads and traffic stops immediately. SEO builds the opposite asset. Ranking for "best running shoes for plantar fasciitis" or "affordable Toronto office furniture" costs nothing per click once you're position 1-3, and that traffic continues during PPC budget cuts or account suspensions. Ecommerce SEO requires technical excellence (crawlable category trees, schema markup, fast load times), unique product descriptions, and authority-building content. Expect 8-14 months before category pages rank competitively in most verticals. The optimal split changes with business maturity. A new Shopify store might allocate 80% PPC and 20% SEO initially, gathering conversion data and revenue while SEO builds. After 12-18 months, that often inverts to 30% PPC and 70% SEO effort as organic revenue scales. We see established Canadian ecommerce clients derive 65-75% of revenue from organic search, using PPC primarily for new product launches and competitor brand terms. The real mistake is treating them as either-or. PPC conversion data informs which product categories to prioritize for SEO. SEO rankings reduce your cost-per-click in Quality Score calculations. Stores running both channels consistently outperform single-channel competitors by 40-90% in total digital revenue. Budget constraints are real, but even $800-1200 monthly across both channels beats $2000 in PPC alone for most product catalogs.