Facebook Ads and Google Ads are the two top pay-per-click advertising platforms. Google Ads target specific keywords and appear as the top results in Google searches, whereas Facebook Ads display in social feeds and are targeted using demographic and behavioral information. Each platform is used to do anything from build brand awareness to drive sales.
Facebook Ads and Google Ads each have different levels of usability. While Facebook is a more visual interface, Google Ads is a more data-focused interface. Most find it easy to use Facebook’s basic features, but struggle to learn its more advanced functionality. Google, on the other hand, is harder to learn at the beginning, but once a user acclimates, the entire platform is simple to manage.
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads cost almost a dollar less than Google Ads. The platform also offers comprehensive audience targeting options. This makes it a great choice for advertisers with limited budgets needing to build brand awareness.
Facebook, a social media and networking platform with 2.3 billion users worldwide, offers businesses the ability to advertise with pay-per-click (PPC) ads. These ads are created using the robust Facebook Ad Manager platform, and are then are displayed to a targeted audience defined by user demographics, interests, behavior, and Facebook engagement patterns. As part of the ad creation process, businesses select an ad budget, ad placement, and ad run time.
Facebook’s audience targeting is what really sets it apart from Google Ads. Since Facebook users aren’t on social media actively looking for a product or service, the platform encourages conversions by giving advertisers comprehensive targeting options—including factors like age, gender, income, and interests—that align closely with ad content. This is what makes Facebook marketing and Facebook advertising effective, despite the audience lacking the same level of intent as Google Ads.
Actual ad creation within Facebook is relatively easy. As mentioned, ads are built using the user-friendly Facebook Ads Manager. To build ads, click the “Create” button on your account dashboard, then choose your ad format, select your audience, edit ad settings, and create ad copy and images. Get step-by-step instructions on how to create a Facebook ad.
When to Use Facebook Ads: Facebook Ads are best for businesses seeking to increase awareness of their products or brands—especially among audiences that may not have heard of them before. With extensive audience targeting options, Facebook allows advertisers to quickly and concisely introduce themselves to their target audience via text, image, and compelling video ads.
Google Ads
One of the best things about Google AdWords is that the results are pretty much instant. As soon as your campaign has been approved, you can start receiving traffic in a matter of minutes. Simply enter the keywords you want to target, enter a maximum bid, and you’re good to go. Then you just sit back and watch all the traffic flow to your website. This means you can start getting sales on the same day you start your campaign. With results taking mere minutes, you’ll wonder why you ever spent money on anything else.
If you’re looking for a scalable marketing strategy, then Google AdWords is the perfect solution. With millions of keywords available to bid on and new ones every single day, you almost have an unlimited audience to target. With so many keywords to take advantage of, you can keep adding new keywords to your campaign to increase your traffic.
Google AdWords has an amazing array of analytics and charts built into its software. These stats allow users to see how well their campaigns are performing and if they should be making changes. The statistics cover everything from the average cost per click, to advert position and even conversion rate.
By having all of these analytics at your fingertips, it can help you make decisions on where to spend your money. If you currently have a very high converting keyword then it’s probably best to increase your spend for that keyword.
You could always try and start a new campaign with new keywords, but if you already have the statistics saying your campaign is successful, why bother? Just increase the daily spend of your current campaign, and you’ll move up on the ad position, which in turn will give you more traffic. With so much AdWords data available you will easily be able to provide evidence as to if Google AdWords is worth it or not. That’s perfect for showing to any upper management or worried accountants.
Stop AdWords Anytime: One of the other benefits of Google AdWords and PPC, in general, is that if your campaign isn’t profitable, then you can stop it at any time. Other marketing techniques such as SEO and print marketing often require businesses to commit for several months. This means if you sign a 6 months SEO contract and don’t see any improvements after 3 months, you’ll still have to continue paying. For some businesses, this can end up being a huge waste of money.
With Google AdWords however, you can stop a campaign in a matter of seconds and even pause them if you want to enable them later. This gives you a lot of flexibility and the ability to control your finances even better. This means no contracts, no fixed terms, and no wasting money.
Top Benefits of Google AdWords
- Adwords works faster than SEO.
- Increase brand awareness.
- Reach more customers through their Gmail Inbox.
- Reconnect with visitors of your website.
- Measure your performance consistently.
- Explore more using your ads.
- Tackle your competition better.
When to Use Google Ads: Google Ads are best for businesses with a product or service that users know they need and are actively searching for. These ads primarily target users in the buying phase, so ad copy that is concise, unambiguous, and highlights the clear advantages of a product/service will be the most successful.