Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Which Reigns Supreme?

Facebook and Google are both at the top of their respective niches. Facebook still has the most number of active users among all social media platforms today. Meanwhile, Google is the most popular search engine today by a great margin.

With the number of users they attract, it's no surprise how both Facebook and Google ads get a lot of traction in the market. But what would yield better results for your campaigns?

To help you decide which would work best for you, we're going to comprehensively cover every major difference between Facebook ads and Google ads. You'll also learn about the strong points of each platform and how you can make the most out of your ads budget. Let's get started!

Google Ads: The Power of Paid Search

Ads and Google just naturally go together, don't they? It has a lot of advertising options, allowing you to appear on Google Search, Google Shopping, and the rest of the display advertising network.

Google ads are based on keywords so that your advertisement will appear after using a particular search term. However, you can also narrow down your audience based on location and other criteria.

What Types of Ads Are There?

Ads on Google work on a bidding system where various advertisers bid for an ad placement. But how much you or your client is willing to spend isn't the only factor here. The relevance of your ad will help lower the costs as well as improve the impact of your ad.

If you're interested in using Google to place your ads, here's a quick run of your options:

• Search ads. Search ads appear at the top of the page when the user looks up something. These are text-based, consisting of the headline, the description, and site links.
• Display ads. For Google, display ads can take many forms, but they usually involve rich media like images, videos, GIFs, and responsive displays. These are placed on websites within the Google Display Network, allowing you to reach your target audience as they browse their favorite sites and apps.
• Shopping ads. These also appear with Google search, allowing e-commerce businesses to advertise their products. Shopping ads are composed of the product image, name, and price.
• Discovery ads. For this type of ad, your advertisement can be seen across all of Google's platforms. This can be in the form of an image carousel, video, or just a single image.

As you can see, all these options are either within Google properties or its expansive ad network. So, in all cases, users who will see your ad will be bound by Google's privacy policy.

Facebook Ads: Unleashing the Potential of Paid Social

Facebook is currently the largest asset of Meta, a conglomerate that also owns Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other assets. Like Google ads, it also supports a lot of ad formats. This makes it convenient for you to select the format that works best for your purposes.

But unlike its Google counterpart, Facebook ads are based on demographics. This makes it a viable option for companies that already know what their target market looks like.

Common Types of Ads for Facebook

If you have tried advertising in other Meta properties, you will be able to see the similarities:

• Photo ads. This is pretty simple. You have a photo with a caption plus a call to action. This call to action may lead to a Messenger chat or a landing page.
• Video ads. Videos can be placed in the main feed, in Stories, or as in-stream ads.
• Carousel ads. This type of ad is great if you offer a variety of products and want to show them in one ad.
• Slideshow ads. These are like videos but consume less data because these simply consist of images playing in video. Slideshows are great if you're targeting an area with a slow internet connection.
• Instant experience ads. Instant experience ads allow the users to interact with the ad by zooming in or out and/or tilting the screen to get a 360 view.
• Collection ads. This type of ad is the evolved version of carousel ads. Like its predecessor, it allows you to display various products. But this comes with an upgrade of going full screen with a swipe.

Keep in mind, Facebook ads manager categorises ad types based on their purpose instead of how it's presented. A few that you'll see when you try to set it up are website visitors, page likes, lead, and event ads.

Unlocking the Strong Points of Google Ads

There are a lot of strong reasons that advertisers gravitate towards Google ads for their campaigns. Here are the biggest advantages:

Google Has a Lot of Users

Google is more than just the leading search engine worldwide. It's more popular than any other option out there by a huge margin, with nearly 82% of the market share. For businesses and advertisers, this means:

• Greater potential exposure of your ads. And with more exposure, you will be able to get users to the next step of your marketing funnel.
• Access to a wide range of audiences. Google ads can help you access practically every demographic and psychographic out there.
• Better scalability. Even if you just started with a small local audience, you can easily expand to a global market the next day.

Its competitors like Bing and DuckDuckGo may be gaining more users. However, they're far from being able to provide these benefits to their advertisers.

Focus On the Quality and Relevance of Advertising

Just to be clear, you'll still need money to run a Google ads campaign. However, throwing your money into it doesn't mean you'll get the numbers that you want. Google values the quality and relevance of the ad in determining your ad placement. This means that if you consistently do the work in delivering quality campaigns, you may be able to secure the most coveted spots.

Diverse Array of Ad Formats

Google has a lot of platforms that specialize in various types of content. So, you'll always be able to frame your promotion in the best light possible. For example, a website selling clothes is likely to do better with rich media advertising as opposed to text-based. More importantly, this also leaves a lot of room for experimentation to see which formats will resonate the most.

Harnessing the Strong Points of Facebook Ads

As another industry leader, Facebook gets a lot of business from advertisers. See why it can also be a great option for you.

High Level of Audience Precision

Using Facebook ads, you'll be able to enjoy a great range of targeting capabilities. Learn about the main options below:

• Core audiences. With this, you can use the data available on Facebook to target based on demographics, interests, and behaviors.
• Custom audiences. You can use your existing data to create a custom audience.
• Lookalike audiences. This option allows you to reach a market similar to the one you're already targeting.

Many Visual Advertising Options

If your brand will benefit from using visual media, the better choice is Facebook ads vs Google ads. Graphics are also more attractive to the audience compared to just text. Plus, the visual advertising options are a great fit for practically every purpose. So, you'll have a higher likelihood of getting people's attention.

Enormous ROI

Facebook ads allow for flexible budgeting, which lets you adjust your budget based on your ad performance. With Facebook users already engaged, they will be more likely to be interactive.

Used right, Facebook ads can deliver great returns to your advertising campaign. Take advantage of the tracking and analytics capabilities of the Ads Manager as well to yield even better outcomes.

Google Ads vs Facebook Ads: Choosing the Right Platform for Your Business

Have you decided on the ad platform that you should be using yet? There's no reason that you have to choose between Facebook ads and Google ads. Any advertiser is free to run independent campaigns or use them both under one digital marketing strategy.

But if you're working with a limited daily budget, this may not be possible. If you're not sure which has a higher chance of giving you a great ad performance, refer to the information below:

Campaign Goals

Even though there's a great range of flexibility when using either platform, Facebook ads tend to be preferred for brand awareness. But if you're after improving sales conversion rates, Google ads may be the better choice.

This is because, with social media, users get the chance to learn more about a brand in a less formal setting. Plus, we already established that Google ads are great for generating ROI. So, it only makes sense to create ads there if you want to close leads.

Audience Targeting Options

One key difference between Google ads and Facebook ads is the targeting capabilities. With Google ads, targeting is generally more focused on keywords. While you can also target based on the demographics, it's not nearly as extensive as what you can get when setting up Facebook ads.

By using Facebook, you can delve deeper into targeting. You can narrow down your audience based on behaviors and interests too.

Cost of Products or Services Sold

If you're selling cheaper products like ready-to-wear clothing, Facebook ads can work well for you. Such items don't require a big investment, so you're more likely to get a good conversion rate. Facebook ads can also work well when the product or service itself has a social component, like Duolingo or Datacamp.

But for more expensive purchases like a home or a corporate management system, Google ads tend to work better. It's also great if your target is to recapture the attention of those who have previously interacted with your ads.

Intent to Purchase

When people go to a social media network, they're not really looking to be sold to. Therefore, it may be a bigger struggle trying to get new customers using Facebook ads. So, if they're far from the bottom of the funnel, this may be the better option.

But if you're targeting a highly engaged audience, Google ads may serve you well. So, why is the preference here Google? Facebook ads (except for paid search) are based on demographics instead of keywords. So, with Google for ad campaigns, you're already targeting people who have already taken the first step of looking up something.

Supported Ad Formats

If you tend to lean towards visual ads, your best option is Facebook. Google ads can be made with other forms of media but are best with text-based ad formats. Display advertisements on Google tend to fall into banner blindness, where the user intuitively ignores anything that looks like an ad.

Besides, the Facebook platform itself was designed for visual media. So, image and video-based ad campaigns will not break the user browsing experience. And as a result, they'll be more likely to engage with the ads.

Strategy Formulation for Common Advertising and Marketing Scenarios

Most of the time, it's not directly about Facebook ads vs Google ads. Both advertising platforms offer a range of flexibility. So, even though one may be preferred for a certain goal, you can still use either one.

Let us say that you're set on using either Facebook or Google ads. How can you get stellar ads performance with them? Below, we've tackled a range of potential scenarios that you may encounter:

• You want to improve brand awareness. On Facebook, boosted posts and video ads can work well because they give your audience an opportunity to engage with just a click or comment. Through the Google Display Network, you may be able to achieve the same thing by using a combination of text and rich media.
• You want to generate leads. Forms on Facebook can be great for this purpose because it lets you capture their info right away. Meanwhile, Google ads on search results are great for presenting your offer as an alternative.
• You're about to have a product launch. Facebook is a great place to create buzz around your brand and product. We advise using various formats to reach a wider audience. With Google, you may find more success with display ads. This helps your new product get attention from those who are already in the market for something similar.
• You aim to get more app installs. Regardless of the platform you use, the best pricing model will be the cost per click (CPC). You can use app install or video Facebook ads that direct users to the app store after tapping the ad. Meanwhile, Universal App Campaigns on Google lets your app exposure across its platforms like the Play Store, among others.
• You want to remarket to existing customers. Dynamic Facebook ads combined with custom audiences will allow you to show personalized recommendations. This will improve your conversion rate. For Google, employ Remarketing Lists for Search Ads to show your ads to users in your remarketing list actively searching relevant terms.

These are just general guides for various scenarios. The best approach will depend on certain factors like the niche, daily budget, and expertise. For example, if you don't know how to use Google's Display Network, then it may be better to stick with Facebook ads.

Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Monitoring PPC Performance

What had a bigger impact on meeting your campaign goals, Google ads vs Facebook ads? Advertisers have their own opinions based on past experiences, but the only way to know is by analysing the data.

In this section, we're going to fully explore how you can get a better sense of how your Google or Facebook ads are performing. By the end of this section, you will have everything you need to make data-based decisions regarding your ads.

Key Metrics

For PPC, the most basic metric that you should be looking for is the Cost Per Click or CPC. Generally, the lower this number is, the better your campaign is doing. However, you should still measure it against ads benchmarks in your industry.

But even though you're most concerned about PPC performance, you should also look into other metrics, like:

• Impressions. The number of times the advertising network showed your ad.
• Return on Advertising Spend. Your profit from advertising.
• Click-through rate. Percentage of clicks on your ad based on the number of impressions.
• Conversion rate. The number of users converted from one level of the funnel to another.

Since the central focus is the same, there's no major difference in the key metrics between Google ads vs Facebook ads.

Management Tips

You have the statistics relevant to your campaign, so now what? Managing the performance of your Google or Facebook ads is a lot more than just knowing a few numbers. Keep these things in mind too:

1. Look at it from the macro perspective. For your personalized ad performance grader, it's important not to regard numbers individually. After all, any change in one is likely to have an effect on all of them.
2. Track and get insights. Always be in the know using free Google Analytics integration or Facebook Pixel. You can also help these to better make sense of data and gather deeper insights.
3. Continuously optimise. You can set parameters by which various elements of your campaign can be automatically changed. This way, you're always grabbing the opportunity to yield better results from your ad spend.

If you're not sure about how to go about ad management, contact us. We're happy to lend our expertise to you!

Facebook vs Google Ads? Win with a Multi-Platform Approach!

Both of these platforms are incredibly powerful. They also have a lot of features that can help improve the effectiveness of your campaign, no matter what industry your business is in. So, why miss out on advantages specific to one advertising platform when you can use both?

Going with both Google and Facebook advertising allows you to follow your target audience around the net. They complement each other so you may see ads on each platform perform better when both are used in a comprehensive campaign.

Now that you know every significant difference between Facebook and Google ads, craft a powerful advertising and marketing strategy that will play to each ad platform's strength. Just remember to be consistent with the messaging while formatting your ads based on the formats that you're using.