Are you using the right platform? Google Ads Vs Facebook Ads

Time and budget limitations make it hard to take advantage of every advertising platform and, with both Google Ads and Facebook excelling when it comes to delivering results, what platform is right for your business?

In an ideal world, you would market everywhere, on every platform, all of the time. However, for most businesses, this isn’t practical. Time and budget limitations make it hard to take advantage of every advertising platform and, with both Google Ads and Facebook excelling when it comes to delivering results, what platform is right for your business? The answer always depends on your product or service, audience, objectives and budget, and, while the two platforms have a lot of common ground, some significant differences might determine which is the best fit.

One of the main advantages of using the Google Ads platform is its vast reach; as the largest digital ad seller in 2019, it accounts for 31.1% of worldwide ad spending and owns approximately 93% of the worldwide Search Engine market share. With the increasing sophistication in its artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, this volume is likely to increase, along with the potential for businesses to reach new customers.

There are a few common ways to advertise your brand with Google Ads. For example, the Search Network allows ads to appear for searches based on selected keywords. This is best for businesses with a product or service that users know they need and are actively searching for, therefore targeting users with active intent.

The Google Display Network, on the other hand, offers advertisers more visual ads and the opportunity to target users based on their long-term interests and browsing history. With the ability to reach an astonishing 90% of the world’s internet users, the Display Network is a great choice in accomplishing marketing goals that aren’t necessarily conversion-driven, such as raising brand awareness.

Similarly, Facebook advertising helps passive intent users to discover businesses based on interests and online behaviour. Facebook collects a lot of data, such as the pages you like, the topics you engage in, your friends, your birthday, your relationship status, your current location and your holidays. This volume of data means better audience granularity than Google Ads, allowing you to serve ads to users based on demographics, life events, shopping behaviours, educational background and even job titles.This is ideal, for example, if your product or service is B2B focused, as you are able to target users based on their industry and job title.

Often positioned as competitors, both Google Ads and Facebook Ads are incredibly powerful advertising platforms that cater to almost every type of business. While Google Ads reaches a broader audience, with more sophisticated tools in terms of automation and attribution, combined with a wider range of formats and platforms such as Display, Video, Gmail and Shopping, Facebook Ads offers better audience granularity at a typically lower cost.

Many businesses are leveraging the strengths of both platforms in tandem to achieve maximum visibility, increase conversions and find new customers, adopting different strategies that align with the functionality of each platform and seeing outstanding return on their advertising spend. The two platforms should therefore be viewed in a complementary, rather than adversarial, way.

Want to find out how a Google or Facebook Ads campaign can help boost your business? Get in touch with us today!