We had a heated argument with our customers the other day about paid social and paid search advertising. We ended up convincing them to invest in both after a long discussion and considering his advertising goals. But is picking a side risky for your business? Have you ever wondered which one, between Google and Facebook Ads, would work best for your business?
The features of these two may differ but the capabilities are the same. Both can help you increase sales or brand visibility. Therefore, choosing between the two could be tricky unless you understand them better and explore their strong-points.
Here are the basics of what you need to know about Google Ads and Facebook Ads:
Core Focus
The core focus consists of two parts: the purpose of your online advertising and your niche. Online Ads will randomly pop up on your timeline and could be very annoying, but that’s a happy moment for the person running them. The sole purpose of these ads is to reach more people even when the target audience is not looking for that specific brand, product, or service. To dominate your niche market, you need to understand there two Ad types and their conversion funnels. The end goal of these Ads is to get more conversions.
Target Audience
According to an article published last week by Denis Metev on Review42: Facebook has 1.4 billion active users daily and by 2021, more than 3 billion people are expected to be on social media. This means no matter the kind of niche your business is, you have a great potential of reaching more prospects. With these statistics, Facebook Ads would be a better choice when trying to increase visibility in this era.
However, Google Ads can also increase your visibility if your target audience is people searching for specific keywords on search engines, websites, or youtube. In this case, you can either decide to use Google AdWords or Google Display Network (GDN).
Google and Facebook Ads Functionality
Ads Placement
Google Display Network allows you to select specific sites that you find relevant to your business and manage your placements. You can either allow Google to randomly choose websites with audiences who have the same interest as yours or use Google Display Planner.
Unlike Facebook Ads which are pushed to users even when they are not searching for whatever is being advertised, for Google AdWords, the prospect searching for a specific keyword already has a clear idea of what they need. They may be at the consideration stage but there is a better chance of converting this traffic to a sale. Grabbing the attention of your target audience at the right time on their purchase journey is fundamental.
Ads Bidding
Just like any other auction, the highest bidder on online advertising gets the top spot. Although that’s not all that it takes. Your Ad relevance will affect its ranking on SERPs and placements on Facebook. Google Ads evaluate your quality score with relevance, landing page, and CTR. Whereas Facebook Ad’s relevance score is calculated by weighing positive interaction with your ad (such as likes, comments, shares, and clicks)
Optimizing your bids and maintain ad relevance will help you avoid spending so much on the results of your ads. Results may be clicks, landing page views, or form completion.
Google Vs Facebook Ads Spend
Facebook can automatically predict ad results with a set budget. For instance, the reach, landing page views e.t.c. You can as well estimate ad reactions on Google Ads, e.g. clicks. Therefore, with your budget, you can try a dry-run on both platforms to gauge what would give you a better conversion rate.
As both ad types allow you to set daily or lifetime budgets, it’s important to ensure that you get the most out of it. Facebook Ads have fixed spend but with Google Ads the more successful your ad, the more it will cost.
