Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads
For the success of any business, marketing and advertising is necessary. Many businesses all over the world are leveraging the strengths of advertising to achieve maximum visibility, increase leads and sales, and find new customers. With the continuous improvement in technology, there are now numerous ways in which advertisers can place their ads, but Google Ads and Facebook Ads remain the cream of the crop! But which one is more effective?
In this piece, we will examine the things that make Google AdWords and Facebook Ads different, how the two platforms work, their individual advantages, and why you should consider using both or any of them as part of your tools for a wider digital marketing experience.
Differences between Google AdWords and Facebook Ad
Before any comparison will be made between this two giant advertising platforms, it will be proper to first identify the differences between them and how one can be used to fill up the lapses of the other.
Paid Search and Paid Social
While Google AdWords is the world’s most popular and largest Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising platform, it has become synonymous with the term “paid search”. Facebook Ads, on the other hand, is a perfect example of a “paid social” platform, otherwise known as the practice of advertising on social networks.
While paid search helps businesses find new customers using keywords, paid social helps users find businesses based on the things that they are interested in and the ways that they use the internet. Therefore the primary difference between Google AdWords and Facebook Ads is that; AdWords helps advertisers find new customers while Facebook helps new customers find advertisers.
We will now try to compare these two platforms based on their strengths and weaknesses based on timing, precise targeting, engagement, local business, and ad quality.
Timing
Advertisement on Google is search-related. This means that whenever your potential customer searches for something that is in relation with your keyword, they get to find your ad. On the other hand, just a few people are on Facebook searching for a product making it difficult for keywords search to be of much help here. This makes Google AdWords perfect for instant ad results. However, the differences in targeting is what makes Facebook Ads such a monster. That’s next…
Precise Targeting
Facebook ads let advertisers get really specific about the people that want to see their ads, while Google AdWords is based on keywords and customers have to search before the ad can be seen. A super targeted audience ultimately translates to a lower cost per click. Therefore Facebook ads win for precise targeting.
Engagement
While Google AdWords only offers user ratings, Facebook Ads allow brands to interact. This gives them the opportunity to answer questions, offer additional information and overcome anticipated objections. There is no arguing the fact that brand engagement increases sales and encourages customer loyalty.
Local business
Google AdWords lets customers find local businesses far more than Facebook ads. Say you’re in your car and looking for somewhere to have coffee or searching for the nearest fuel station, Google AdWords tends to help you out than Facebook. From a advertising perspective, local businesses can can reach customers and grow their businesses almost instantly when it comes to leads.
Ad quality
With Facebook ads, advertisers have the freedom to post their ads in all manner of fanciful ways, unlike on Google AdWords where the ad is text-based. On Facebook, you can post graphics and a whole bunch of other beautiful photos and video that go a long way to attract your target audience faster. Facebook Ads also allow for multiple ways to present ad quality through the various campaigns.
So far, we have looked at the differences between these two platforms and also compared some of their abilities, let us go ahead and take a look at their individual strengths and advantages.
The Strengths and Advantages of Google AdWords
A major strength Google AdWords has as an advertising platform is its immense reach. The platform handles over 45,000 searches in every second, which sums up to a total of over 1.5 trillion web searches in a year. No other search engine in the world can offer this amount of audience that Google does. This great audience potential combined with Google’s increasingly accurate search results makes Google AdWords the most popular and widely used PPC platform in the world.
The Strengths and Advantages of Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads are remarkably affordable, especially when considering their potential impact and the granularity with which advertisers can target their ideal audiences. This highly competitive pricing makes Facebook Ads a very attractive proposition to small businesses and companies with limited resources – not just big brands with vast marketing budgets.
