Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Which to Choose?
Before we select which advertising platform to work with, whether it be Google Ads or Facebook Ads, let’s first check out a few basics about the buying journey that customers go through.
The process that a buyer goes through before making a purchase is referred to as the buyer’s journey. To put it another way, purchasers don’t just get up in the morning and make a snap decision to make a purchase. They go through a process in which they become aware of a new product or service, examine and assess it, and ultimately decide whether or not to purchase it.
Each step can be conceptualized as
- Awareness Stage: The buyer realizes that they have an issue or a problem that needs to be solved. Example: “Why does my back hurt all the time?”
- Consideration Stage: During the consideration stage, the buyer identifies the challenge at hand and investigates potential solutions. Example: “How do you treat back pain?”
- Decision Stage: At this stage, the buyer does research and makes a selection on which provider will be used to manage the solution. Example: “Orthopedic doctor near me”
Now that we understand buyers’ journeys. Let’s get back to the topic of which platform to choose Google Ads or Facebook Ads
The difference between Google Ads and Facebook Ads
The search intent of a user is one of the most significant distinctions between Google Ads and Facebook Ads. People who search on Google are seeking something in particular, but people who use Facebook are presented with advertisements that are relevant to their interests. Facebook’s strategy is focused on building brand recognition, in contrast to Google’s pull marketing approach.
While Google Ads are used for search and display advertising, Facebook Ads are used for paid social campaigns on Facebook/Instagram. Even though they both run pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, such adverts are shown on distinct channels and often target consumers who are at different phases of the buyer’s journey.
In spite of the fact that the two platforms are often depicted as rivals, this is not at all how things really stand from a practical standpoint. Both Facebook Ads and Google Ads are beneficial to advertisers in their own distinct ways, yet they complement one another well.
How do Google Ads and Facebook Ads work?
Google Ads: Paid Search
The pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform that Google Ads, previously known as Google AdWords, is the biggest and most popular of its kind in the world. Because it is used so often, the word “paid search” may now be used interchangeably with it.
The usage of text-based adverts and the targeting of certain keywords are the primary objectives of paid search. Marketers that use Google Ads do something called “bidding” on keywords, which are particular words and phrases that are included in the search queries input by Google users. The advertisers’ objective is that their advertisements would be shown alongside the search results for the keywords in question.
Because an advertiser is charged a fixed amount of money each time a user clicks on one of their ads, this kind of advertising is known as “pay-per-click advertising.”
Google Ads offers more than paid search—you can advertise on:
- Google Search.
- Youtube Ads.
- Google Display Network.
- Google Shopping.
- Google Maps.
- Google Play.
Related Topics:
Facebook ads: Paid Social
Facebook ads are a prime example of paid social because we advertise on social networks. Taking into account the current surge in popularity of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, it is a fruitful investment for my companies to engage in digital advertising on these sites.
Facebook also has to offer a lot wrt how and where you can advertise
- Facebook News Feed.
- Instagram Feed.
- Facebook Marketplace.
- Facebook Video Feeds.
- Facebook Right Column.
- Audience Network.
- Facebook Messenger.
- Reels.
Paid social helps companies locate potential customers based on the things that interest them and the ways that they act online, as opposed to paid search, which helps businesses find new customers by using keywords.
Evaluating when to use Google Ads and Facebook Ads
- Campaign Goal.
To make things easier to grasp I’ve broken it down into the types of goals that we can achieve with the help of each platform.
Goal: Lead Generation / Demand Generation
Google Ads is well suited for demand capture, which is finding people who have a strong intention to make a purchase. If I were to search up the term “water bottle,” for instance, this may be seen as a hint that I’m interested in making a purchase of one.
Keeping this in mind, the advertisements that follow are in line with the search intent and have the potential to result in sales.
Goal: Brand Awareness
On the other hand, contacting customers who are close to the top of the sales funnel with Facebook Ads is an excellent strategy (i.e., great for brand and product awareness).
- Budgets.
Your objective should be to get the highest possible return on investment from whatever advertising campaign. That can be accomplished more quickly on certain platforms than on others.
When using Google Ads, you will need to consider both the level of competition for a certain keyword and the cost of that keyword. If the cost-per-click (CPC) for the keywords you’re targeting is expensive and you have a limited spending budget, it’s possible that this is not the greatest area for you to put your money to work.
Take for instance that you have a daily budget of 500 Rupees. You want to rank well in your local region for the term “Mobile Store” but the cost for that keyword is 150 Rupees. This indicates that you will get no more than 3 clicks every day, which is an extremely low number.
You could possibly reach more people on Facebook Ads with the same spend of 500 Rupees, and you could also run tests to learn more about which methods work for your target demographic in order to improve your ads.
- Check where your competitors are present.
If this is your first time running a campaign, you should investigate how your competition does it. Which ads do they have running? Where exactly do they have them running? What does the creative asset look like? What kind of message are they sending? This can be a good indicator of which platform you can start from.
Other things that can help you make a decision between Google Ads and Facebook Ads
- Audience Size.
Both Google and Facebook have a vast reach; Google processes an estimated more than 5.8 billion search queries each and every day, while Facebook has an estimated 1.73 billion members that are active each and every day.
It is quite likely that members of your target audience are active on both of these platforms; hence, audience size alone is not sufficient to help you choose if you should go ahead with Google ads or Facebook ads.
Instead, consider your answers to the following questions.
- Is there a presence of my ideal customer on these platforms?
- Is the focus of my product on social interaction or on search?
Even if Google processes 5.8 billion queries per day, it won’t be of any use to you if nobody is truly looking for the products that you sell.
Are you going to introduce a groundbreaking new product? Have others heard about what it is that you provide? If the answer is “no,” then Facebook is often a more suitable alternative for spreading the message.
- Buyer Intent.
When compared to Facebook Ads, Google Ads always come out on top when it comes to buyer intent. Think about the sort of company you run and ask yourself if customers often look for the product or service they want to buy online before making a purchase decision.
Think of it this way, If your printer breaks down you are to most likely search online to find someone who can help you fix the printer or buy a new printer. In this case, search ads from Google Ads will place your ads right when your services are needed.
Having said that, Facebook may be the ideal option for your advertising if the goal is to increase brand recognition rather than instant conversions since it is a more long-term strategy.
- Targeting Options.
Both Google Ads and Facebook Ads provide you with the flexibility to target (and retarget) certain audiences with your advertisements. You can narrow your focus on each platform by a variety of demographic factors, including age, gender, geography, and income level.
However, when it comes to more sophisticated targeting choices, Facebook is clearly the leader.
Do you want to go after parents? Check. Do you want to reach parents who have children between the ages of 5 and 7? Check. Do you want to reach vegetarian parents who have children between the ages of 5 and 7 and whose household income is between a certain range? Check.
You get what I am trying to say right? With Facebook, you can be very specific with the type of audience you would want to target.
So, which platform should you choose Google Ads or Facebook Ads?
If you had to choose between Google Ads and Facebook Ads for your company, which would you choose and why? To decide, ask yourself a few essential questions.
- What is the objective?
- Which platform is my audience present on?
- What is the budget?
- Consider the buying intent of the user.
Summing things up
Both Google Ads and Facebook Ads are fantastic choices for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and in many circumstances, the most effective usage of the two platforms is in combination with one another. If you choose to advertise on both, you need to ensure that you are precisely monitoring the outcomes of your campaign so that you can determine which platform is giving you the best results.