What is the difference between Google Ads and Facebook Ads?
Both of these platforms are great when it comes to delivering results if they are used correctly. It’s safe to say that they have earned their place in the digital marketing industry! Let’s take a look at what sets these two platforms apart.
Google Ads is also known as Paid Search. Google is the world’s largest pay-per-click advertising platform and is used by a large percentage of online users, processing more than 3 billion search queries a day. These ads will appear when a user types a keyword into the Google search engine. Google algorithms are used to determine when and where on Google’s search engine result page the ads will be shown. The position of your ad relies on its quality score as well as your bid amount. Google Ads can be in the form of text or images.
Facebook Ads is known as Paid Social. Facebook is the number one social network in the world, holding 2.89 billion users as of the second quarter in 2021. Facebook ads are targeted to users based on their interests, location, and demographic information. The ads you create on Facebook will only be shown to your selected audience. Facebook Ads are usually in the form of images or videos.
Deciding whether to use Google Ads or Facebook Ads, or both will depend on the results you are looking to achieve with paid ads. Your decision will be based on many factors, such as:
- Line of business – Some industries can make use of both Google Ads and Facebook Ads in their digital marketing strategies but not all industries are a good fit for both or either of these platforms. It’s very important to research what could work for your industry and to see what your competitors are doing when deciding which platforms to use.
- Audience – You need to know who you will be targeting your ads to and where on each platform to reach these audiences.
- Goals – Understanding your goals will help you decide which platform is going to work best for your business, or if you should be using both to achieve these goals.
- Budget – Your budget may only allow you to use one of the two platforms. How much you spend on digital marketing will be determined by your goals, audience, and the industry you are advertising for.
These factors need to be taken into consideration when making any decisions around which digital marketing platforms you will use for your business.
Deeper Look Into Google Ads
Google Ads is one of the most effective online advertising tools as it allows you to show your ads to the right people, at the right time, in the right place. This type of paid advertising is usually a good fit for any business that has a website and a product or service that people would generally search for on the internet.
Advantages of using Google Ads:
Instant increase in website traffic – If you have set up your ads correctly and used the right keywords, your ads will appear on Google causing the traffic to your website to increase quickly.
- Stay within budget – You are able to set daily budgets on your campaigns on Google Ads which allows you to manage how much you are spending on your ads. Google Ads also allows you to adjust your budget at any time.
- Target your ads – Google Ads offers many ways in which you can target your ads, narrowing your audience in order to get more relevant traffic from your ads.
- Easy to measure results – You will be able to see which ads are performing well and which need some attention. Google will review all your ads once changes are made, allowing only approved ads to be published.
Disadvantages of using Google Ads:
- Organic results are more trusted – People tend to trust organic results more than paid ads so therefore they ignore the paid ad and click on the organic result instead.
- Can get expensive – Seeing as though you pay-per-click it can get a bit expensive especially since not all clicks are going to be relevant or even convert.
- Keywords need to be specific – Having the wrong keywords can harm your campaigns and result in poor ad quality and wasted budget. The right keywords are generally more popular and in turn, cost more money.
Deeper Look Into Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads runs off of a platform called Business Manager. All your pages and ad accounts can be managed off this platform making it easier to run campaigns and track their performance effectively. This type of paid social advertising is good for any industry that has a Facebook page and is looking to reach a specific audience on Facebook and to remarket ads to previous visitors on their website.
Advantages of using Facebook Ads:
- Increased opportunities for conversions – Remarketing on Facebook can be used to redirect previous website visitors back to your website. These types of ads have great conversion rates as they are targeted to an audience that has already had an interaction with your website.
- Helps you get more visibility and brand awareness – Paid social ads are great for increasing the visibility of a business as the advertising is taken on to a social network that is used by billions of people every day.
- Target an exact audience – Very similar to Google Ads, Facebook Ads allows you to target audiences based on demographics, locations, behaviors, and interests. In order to get the conversions you want from these ads, make sure the audience is quality and consists of people who will buy your product or service.
- Find new leads – Using previously created audiences that have converted in the past, Facebook Ads allows you to create what is called a lookalike audience. This feature allows you to find people who are likely to buy your product or service that are similar to those in your other custom audiences.
Disadvantages of using Facebook Ads:
- Exposed negative feedback – Seeing as though your boosted posts or ads are on a social network that all Facebook users have access to, all comments will be seen, including the negative ones. The key is to respond to this negative feedback appropriately and fix any issues as they arise.
- Competition is tight – With the high amount of users on Facebook, many businesses are using Facebook as a form of advertising. Your ads need to stand out and be targeted to the right audience if you want them to stand out.
How Can The Two Platforms Be Used Together
The main difference between Google Ads and Facebook Ads is simply this: Google Ads will help you find new customers, while Facebook Ads will help new customers find you. And this is exactly why the two platforms work perfectly together!
Google Ads can be used to increase the overall traffic to your website and Facebook Ads can be used to complement the work that Google Ads has done by using remarketing ads to send people back to your website that didn’t convert the first time around.
Which Should You Be Using?
As much as these two tools have similarities and many users see them as competitors, using them both in a dual advertising strategy will ensure strong performing paid ad campaigns. It is important to know how to use each of them to maximize ROI and reach the goals set out in a digital marketing strategy.
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