How to Choose Between Facebook vs. Google Ads

Marinela Peranić 4 days ago

A beginners guide to Facebook Advertising

You never used Facebook advertising platform? Or you did, but had no results? Maybe a simple click on...

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Have you heard about advertising? Your competition uses it to boost their sales.
Nowadays, everything is online, and if it’s not online, it’s out of reach for most users. Whether it is due to their commotion, they are unaware of your product or service, or some other reason.

Of Course, advertising of any type is not a perfect solution for everyone. So the first step is to determine what your business needs based on what you are offering, who needs it, and what the goals for the future.
Once the whole business plan is set up, it’s time for advertising.

So, Facebook vs. Google ads. What platform is best for your business? Or is it a combination, and in what ratio?
Let me take you through Facebook vs. Google advertising and their benefits and differences

What are Google Ads, and how do they work?

Google Ads is an online advertising platform developed by Google. It allows the creation and management of online advertisements.

It offers a variety of ad formats that can appear on platforms and websites. With a variety of ad formats, Google Ads accommodates diverse campaign objectives. Advertisers can set a budget for their campaigns, target specific demographics, locations, and interests, and track the performance of their ads through metrics such as clicks, impressions, conversion rates, conversion value, and more.

Google Ads offers a powerful platform for businesses to reach their target audience and drive traffic, leads, or sales to their websites or physical stores.

Characteristics of Google ads

An array of ad formats tailored to different business goals ensures the desired message is conveyed effectively and delivered to various users.

Mostly used ads:

Text ads / Search ads

Search ads are a cornerstone of digital marketing. They provide businesses with a dynamic platform to connect with users when they search for products, services, or solutions. Through Google Ads, advertisers can strategically bid on keywords, ensuring their ads appear in search results. This intent-driven approach captures users actively seeking information. By leveraging the power of Google advertising, it’s possible to tap into the immense potential of online search behavior to drive targeted traffic and conversions. Allows businesses to showcase their products and services to a wide audience actively searching for solutions.
They function through the concept of intent-driven advertising. Search ads connect businesses with users who are already expressing interest by entering specific search terms into Google’s search engine.
By selecting relevant keywords, ads appear when users search for those keywords. This targeted approach ensures that the ad reaches users at the right moment, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversion.

This is the most direct link between what users are looking for and the product or service provided.

A photo of a laptop screen with google search home screen opened with a white cup in the blurred background

Display ads

Visually engaging banners and images are placed on the websites within the Display Network. They’re used for brand exposure and capturing attention even when users aren’t actively searching for the product or service.

Key features of GDN are:

Content – visually engaging and effective for capturing attention
Reach – vast reach across different websites, apps, and platforms
Targeting – Target users based on demographics, interests, behaviors, search inquiries, or visited web pages
Re-targeting – re-engaging with users who previously visited our website

Due to various ad formats, large audiences, and visually appealing ads display advertising is a perfect tool for building brand awareness and sending the desired messages to a large sum of people.

Video ads

Hosted on YouTube and across partner sites, it allows engagement with users using dynamic visual content. They’re great for showcasing products, storytelling, and generating emotional connections with viewers.

How do Google ads work?

Google Ads operates on an auction-based model where advertisers compete for ad placements. An auction is triggered every time a user performs a search or visits a web page that’s part of the Google Display Network. All advertisers with relevant ads are eligible to participate in the auction, and then Google calculates an Ad Rank for each eligible ad. Ad Rank is determined by factors like bid amount, ad quality, and ad extensions. The ad with the highest Ad Rank wins the auction and is then displayed.

Bidding strategies in Google ads that help to allocate the budget accordingly to the desired target:

Manual CPC – sets individual bids for each ad group
Target CPA – aims for specific conversion costs
Maximize Clicks – sets up bids for more clicks
Target ROAS – optimizes bidding for selected conversion value
Enhanced CPC – still a manual option, but gives more freedom to Google in determining the value of bids
Target impression share – sets up bids to aim specific desired percentage of ad impressions
Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) – Set a bid for every thousand impressions
Maximize Conversions – sets up bids to allocate a maximum of conversion within a budget

The power of Google Ads is the ability to showcase offers but also the capacity to provide measurable results and conversion tracking. To measure the effectiveness of campaigns, tracking and reporting tools are provided. Conversion tracking allows monitoring users’ actions after clicking on ads, whether it’s making a purchase, filling out a form, or signing up for a newsletter. This data is used to optimize campaigns and allocate budget strategically.

Insights and its benefits:

Insights – track specific actions users take after clicking on the ad
Data-driven decision-making – accurate data is used to make an informed decision
Campaign effectiveness – separates campaigns by the ability to perform using ROI (return on investment )
Opportunities – gives insight into trends, patterns, or seasonality
Continuous Improvement – discovers weak points in advertising and gives information where improvement is needed

What are Facebook Ads, and how do they work

There can hardly be a person that hasn’t heard of Facebook. But how about Facebook advertising and all its benefits?

Facebook Ads are paid messages on a dynamic platform with an accent on two areas: reach and visual storytelling. These aspects create a powerful tool for a wide range of businesses. Ads also come in various types of formats, which allows for capturing the audience’s attention with alluring and interesting content, and the Facebook algorithm has such precise knowledge about its users that targeting the right audience should not be a problem. That can be achieved by targeting an audience based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. Where each category consists of numerous subcategories.

visual-interpretation-of-facebook's-wide-network

Characteristics of Facebook ads

Facebook Ads offers a wide range of ad formats and auction options for effective reach and goal completion. Each ad form, from basic picture to video or carousel ad, serves its purpose and, with proper optimization, drives proper conversion for your business.

Mostly used ads:

Photo ads

Probably the most popular ad type on the network. A single-image ad with a photo designed to capture users’ attention and highlight the top value of the offer. Text added next to the image elaborates the whole offer to the ones who are interested.

Key features for Photo ads:

Visual – the most important part of the Facebook ad, the first thing that catches the user’s eye and the one and only chance to make someone stop for long enough to read the full offer
Ad copy – think of it as a sales pitch. It needs to attract attention, and now that we have the attention, it’s mandatory to keep the interest of the reader and create a desire for the product or the service. The grand finale of good Ad copy is a call to action that will trigger users to take action right away
Call to action – except in the Ad copy, can be used in the headline of the ad or as a CTA button

Video ads

A powerful tool that uses compelling and engaging ad format for building brand awareness, driving engagement, and influencing purchasing decisions. The key is to create a video that resonates with the desired audience and drives them more efficiently toward expected action.

As for the key features of video ads, Ad copy and Call to action are the same as in Photo ads. Two out of three most important parts of the ad. However, visual is where the biggest difference is. Video content is highly engaging and can capture the attention of viewers more effectively than regular image ads.

Carousel ads

An ad format that allows the showcase of multiple static images in one ad, each one with its own landing page link. Quite an effective way to highlight multiple products or offers. The downside is that all images are gathered under the same Ad copy, which needs to be created to include info about everything displayed.

Instant experience ads

These ads provide a full-screen ad format and are fantastic for showcasing products, sharing stories, and driving engagement. They provide a rich experience that captures users’ attention and engages them with ads in different experiences from Image or Video ads.

Key features for instant experience ads:

Content – captivating, full-screen experience with various possible combinations of images, videos, and landing pages
Tamplets – predefined templates for easier setup or free-form for creating from scratch
Diversity – allows incorporation of various different elements such as images, videos, buttons, text, carousels
CTA – The importance of the call to action is the same in every type of ad; what makes it special here is the customizable CTA button
Engagement – Once opened in full-screen mode, the ad encourages users to engage and explore

How do Facebook ads work?

Facebook Ads also operate on an auction mechanism. The auction considers factors like bid amount, ad quality, and user engagement. Winning the auction isn’t guaranteed with the highest bid, but the relevance and quality of the ad have a significant influence. This whole operation is run through Facebook’s algorithm.

Campaign objectives in Facebook ads that help to allocate the budget accordingly to the desired target:

Awareness – maximizes reach and is used for increasing brand awareness
Traffic – The landing page is a must-have for this objective. It drives users to the selected destination
App Promotion – Have an amazing app? Find the right audience that will install it and use it
Engagement – sometimes sales is not the only or most important goal. This optimization will help find an audience that will engage with the ad or Facebook page
Leads – for those who don’t sell finished products for a predetermined price but need to have contact with the client to set up an appointment or finish some customization
Sales – Have a webshop that doesn’t change products too often, and have a plan to run a campaign over some period of time? This is all you need!

This whole story only makes sense if there is some tracking of performance and budget consumption. Facebook Ads Manager offers a variety of insights into performance and even the ability to create custom metrics for those who need them.

Depending on the optimization of the campaign and the final desired goal, several basic metrics are mandatory to keep an eye on:

CTR – gives almost real-time insight into what your audience thinks about your ad. The higher the percentage, the more the audience is interested in what you’re showing them. Low CTR will, as a side effect, have more expensive advertising. If CTR is low, try with new creative. However, with time, even a good ad will have a drop in CTR, and that is a signal to change something
Purchases and Purchase ROAS – There is no good or bad number in general. It’s individual for each client. It’s determined for each business separately, but quite important numbers for those selling something
Frequency – How important is it for an audience to see an ad? It depends! Are we trying to sell them something or we’re just sharing some information with them? Is it something they need to think over for some time before making the decision, or can it be decided on in the same minute, and after the action is taken, there is no need to show that ad again?

There is no simple and single answer that will work for everybody and/or in every situation. However, that diversity allows optimization and customization to fit the needs of many different businesses.

Facebook vs. Google

Google is the world’s largest search engine, and we can think of the Google Ads platform as an online marketplace. Unlike Facebook, it generates concrete search inquiries from those who know what they want and are actively looking for it. Successful Search campaign depends on choosing the right keywords and the creation of relevant ads and landing pages. In addition, there are Display and Video formats for awareness and remarketing, but they generally don’t generate as many conversions.

The intention of Facebook buyers is similar to Display ads. The targeted audience doesn’t actively search for advertised products or services. However, the biggest difference is that the audience is likelier to shop on Facebook right after seeing an ad than on the GDN platform. Facebook also gives the possibility of more different ad types to capture attention. While Google remarketing campaigns depend on website visitors, Facebook can connect with both website visitors and Facebook and Instagram page engagers.

all-advertising-channels-summarised-in-one-picture

Facebook vs. Google Ads cons

Facebook ads are more likely to lead to user fatigue and don’t have a search intent audience.
Google ads won’t have the same visual strength as Facebook ads, and there is high competition for popular keywords which leads to a higher cost per click.

Facebook vs. Google Ads Formats

Google ads:

Short and direct text and ideal for immediate conversion
Image ads displayed across Google’s Display Network can be placed on relevant websites
Video ads engage users on YouTube and partner sites

Facebook ads:

Visually appealing image ads, with a higher ability for emotional connection with an audience
More engaging video format perfect for storytelling
Special ads such as carousel or instant experience that allow a whole new level of interaction with users

Facebook vs. Google ads – When to use them

Awareness stage – Although it can also be done through Google Display ads, this stage will probably be more effective with Facebook ads (of course, it depends on the type of product, services, and audience that needs to be reached)
Consideration stage – Here is where Google ads will take the main lead. Now that we have awareness, users will start researching products or services more.
Conversion stage – Both platforms! The key is to understand the goals and the path to their realization and then to choose the most adequate audience. A comprehensive marketing strategy will make the most of Google and Facebook ads.

Facebook vs Google Ads: The Winning Combination for Your Business