Which Is Better for You, Facebook Ads or Google Ads?

Choosing the right advertising platform for your business is not always an easy decision. Google Ads and Facebook ads are both highly effective platforms, but they have different strengths and weaknesses. 

Google offers more targeting options than Facebook, but Google's interface may be confusing for some people who are new to Adwords. 

On the other hand, Facebook has a simpler interface that many find intuitive. 

If you're still unsure which platform will work best for your company, take time to explore the pros and cons of each option before making any final decisions! 

Which platform you choose is often a matter of preference and depends on your objectives. If your main goal is to drive traffic, then Google Ads is probably the right choice. If you're looking to build brand awareness, then Facebook Ads might be the better choice for your business.

Or, if you're like many marketers who use both platforms, it's worth exploring the different combinations of ads available on each platform.

Whether you use one or both platforms, here are some things to consider when deciding which type of ad is best for your campaign:

1. Which channel is most attractive to your audience?

2. Which channel has better reach?

3. Are you targeting a local market?

4. How much traffic is available in each channel?

5. How does each channel work with your budget?

6. Can you track conversions on each channel separately?

7. Are there any restrictions on the type of advertising in each channel?

Facebook Ads: Pros & Cons

Pros:

Real-time reporting. Facebook Ads offers real-time reporting so that you can see your ad's performance at any time, day or night. You can also receive instant notification when something important happens, like a spike in clicks or an increased conversion rate.

Displays third-party metrics. Facebook Ads provides third-party metrics so you can compare your ads' performance to similar products. This feature provides valuable insight into which ads are performing well, which are underperforming, and why.

Allows for placement in the news feed. Facebook Ads allows for placement in the news feed, one of the most prominent places on Facebook. Ad placement here enables you to reach people actively engaged with their News Feeds, allowing them to see your ad no matter what else they're doing on Facebook. 

Allows for placement of Sponsored Stories and video ads. These ads enable businesses to display their ads on users' friends' timelines and their friends' profiles, respectively. They essentially make your business look more trustworthy and credible by displaying it as a "recommended" ad from someone the user knows and trusts (i.e., his friends).

Cons:

It's not easy to do well with Facebook Ads. Many available targeting options make it easy to target the wrong audience, and even if you choose correctly, you can still fail if your ads aren't creative enough.

Facebook's reach is based on users' profiles. If someone doesn't have an account or isn't logged in, they will not see your ad, no matter how much you spend on it.

Highly competitive. If you are selling a commodity product like insurance or weight loss pills, thousands of competitors are bidding on similar keywords and driving up the cost per click. 

People are on Facebook to socialize. Facebook has a much lower conversion rate than other paid traffic methods, such as Google Adwords or PPC (Pay-Per-Click) search engines. Many people visit Facebook to stay connected with friends and family and browse news, not research products or make purchases. For this reason, it may be harder to find success with Facebook ads than with other paid traffic methods.

Facebook shut-downs means your ads aren't being seen. When Facebook went down, so did the pages of many companies. The social media platform hosts many small businesses' entire web presence, including their website, email list, and customer service.

Facebook's outage meant that these brands missed out on business opportunities, as well as potentially losing money for paid advertising.

The one silver lining is that companies with websites hosted on their domains could carry on business as usual despite the outage.

Google Ads: Pros & Cons

Pros: 

Google has a better system for ad delivery. Google uses automation to place keywords in an action-based system where advertisers bid on keywords that are relevant to their ads. Google Ads is Google's primary revenue source, so it has a lot of resources behind its advertising platform and can offer very competitive rates for ad space on Google search pages and through the use of Google Adwords.

Google AdWords offers greater control over your budget. Google offers the option to set daily budgets that tell Google how much you want Google to spend on your ads. You can also manage where and when Google places your ads for maximum effect, as well as control ad placement by creating rules based on sites or pages Google displays your ads on.

With Google AdSense, you can choose to run your ads on content related to your business. For example, if you're an NBA fan that operates a basketball website, you can place ads on your site's sidebar any time there is new information about players or games. You can also select specific topics for your ads to appear on, such as sports, news, or entertainment. 

Google Ads also allow you to schedule and manage ad campaigns through Google Ad Manager, which is Google's online advertising platform. If you want people on your site immediately, Google ads are the better choice. Google Ad Manager lets you schedule ad campaigns and monitor their performance in terms of impressions and clicks. Google ads provide you with the option of setting up conversion tracking for each campaign so that you can measure their effectiveness.

Google AdSense also allows you to display your adverts across the websites that are part of Google's advertising network. The more sites you advertise with, the more potential customers you'll reach.

Cons: 

Google's ads are typically costlier than Facebook Ads. Google may also consider your ads to be less relevant if their targeting isn't accurate, which can potentially decrease the reach of your ads and increase costs. Google Ads require more effort and time to get started because Google requires you to set up separate campaigns for each ad group.  

Google Ads have character limits. The character limits for adverts are incredibly restrictive, making it very hard to come up with an engaging advert and will get people interested in clicking on it. The average web page is around 500 words long, so there is not much room for you to write about your website in the adverts themselves, which means you need to be careful about what you say and how you present yourself in them. Often advertisers try to get around this by adding links that take people off to a separate landing page, but this can affect your clickthrough rate (CTR) and increase the cost per click (CPC).  

Google Ads has limited info on users that click on your ads. You do not have access to the information about the person clicking on your ad, all you can see is their country and their gender, but this is not reliable information as anyone can change their country setting in Google Analytics. 

Google Ads must be regularly maintained. The main disadvantage of Google Ads is the constant need to be on top of your game. You can't just set it and forget it. You have to regularly check your campaign and the keywords you're bidding on.

Google's algorithm can change without warning, so if you aren't regularly checking what's going on, then you might find that your ads have been turned off or that you have been restricted. This will force you to start over again from scratch, which is a pain in the butt. 

To sum it all up, if you're a new business, Google is probably the best place to start. It has the largest selection of targeting options, making it easy to set up automated campaigns that can be tested, measured, and improved for optimal results.

If you already have a large customer base or engaged audience, Facebook will probably be the better option for you.  You can get started quickly and efficiently because its interface is easier to use. The demographics of Facebook users also make it ideal for businesses that want to target a specific group, such as stay-at-home parents who are interested in household goods.

Google Ads and Facebook Ads are two of the most powerful online advertising platforms. Most people will tell you that the best digital advertising strategy uses both Google Ads and Facebook Ads together.

One way to get started with Facebook Ads is to start with Google Ads first. Here's why:

Google Adwords enables you to drive traffic directly to your website by targeting the right audience based on their search intent. It gives you a chance to test your ads and keywords before launching a campaign on Facebook. You can learn how people talk about your products or services and what they are interested in knowing more about from their search behavior, all of which helps you create better ads for Facebook.

Google Ads and Facebook Ads are both great for digital marketing. Google Adwords is a better place to get started, but you can also easily use Google's platform with your ads on Facebook as well!

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We offer a unique blend of branding, graphic design, and marketing services to help our clients tell their stories and reach audiences with a powerful message.

If you're ready to partner with a company that will help your business fulfill its mission, I would love to hear from you.

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