If you are unsure of which ad formats are best for your business, you’re not alone.
Plenty of business owners, marketing managers and other professionals struggle to get the best out of paid ads, not knowing whether to choose between running Facebook Ads or Google Ads instead.
Well, why not both?
In our experience, an omnichannel approach is the best bet. Read on to learn more as we look at the pros and cons of Google Ads and Facebook Ads. We’ll also explain how an omnichannel approach can revolutionise your digital marketing efforts.
The Case for Using Google Ads
To start, we’ll look at Google Ads and why you should use these tools as part of your ad campaign.
Google Ads: The pros
When choosing the right advertising platform(s), you need to be aware of the pros and cons of each.
Here are some advantages of using Google Ads.
Search Ads Provide Rapid Results for Businesses
Google search ads are great for any business that wants to receive rapid or instant results from their ad campaigns.
This is a highly responsive advertising platform — you make changes to your ad campaign, these changes are reflected in your Google Ad, and you can begin analysing your new ad setup.
Insight Through Experimentation
Google Ad campaigns are well suited to testing and experimentation. Tools such as Google Optimise allow you to leverage split testing or A/B testing, helping you to get more out of your Google search results ads.
Business owners can very quickly work out what is working and what is not.
Easy-to-Measure Results
With Google AdWords, everything is built in. Your Google Ads campaigns are run from a centralised dashboard that you can use to quickly assess your progress and measure your results.
You are never left in the dark with this kind of Google search engine marketing.
Staying on Top of Ad Budgets
You have complete control over your search ad budget when you use the Google platform. This means you can set daily cost targets, and your ad simply won’t run after this target has been reached.
If you need to recalibrate these cost targets, you’ll be able to do this easily from your dashboard.
Returns Can Be High
With the right fine-tuning and analysis — as well as a positive landing page experience — you will be able to run ads with a high rate of return.
Many advertisers find they can achieve returns at double their ad spend, with some even getting as much as four or five times the amount.
Powerful Targeting
Google display ads make it very easy to reach a defined target audience.
With the right keywords and search terms, as well as the right location strategy, you can ensure your ads reach warm leads who are already interested in your products and services.
Reaching Customers from a Range of Locations
You can also target specific audiences in particular geographical locations.
This helps businesses to restrict their ads only to the most relevant markets, reducing wasted costs and boosting returns.
A Range of Ad Placement Options
The Google Display Network helps you reach a vast network of websites, apps and videos. This means Google Ads are about far more than just advertising on search engines — your tailored approach can help you connect with customers on other channels too.
There are also other Google properties to consider, such as YouTube — YouTube ads can provide a real benefit to business owners, augmenting the response they receive from text-based ads.
Google Ads: Some Cons
Of course, it’s not always smooth sailing with Google ads. There are some downsides to using the platform and search network.
Google Ads is Not a Standalone Strategy
You will need to deploy Google Ads alongside other online advertising strategies before you start seeing real results.
It Takes Time to Hone Your Approach
Prepare to spend a lot of time tweaking and fine-tuning your Google Ads in search of optimal revenue.
CPCs Can End Up Being High
While controlling your budget is relatively easy, it is still an active process. If you are not careful, the cost per click (CPC) for your ads can quickly become high.
When Google Ads is Superior to Facebook Ads
For many businesses, local SEO is vital when they approach their search engine strategy. Businesses need to ensure that customers can find their physical locations or connect with services in their region. Google advertising is highly suitable for this purpose.
Google paid ads utilise location data and other pieces of information to build up a rich profile for the business, which may be displayed as part of their ad. This means searchers can quickly click through to Google Maps data, Google Reviews and other Google applications, putting all the information they need at their fingertips and increasing the chance of conversion with relevant keywords.
The Case for Using Facebook Ads
What about Facebook Ads? Let’s turn our attention to the social media giant’s advertising platform.
Facebook Ads: The Pros
There are many advantages to using Facebook Ads in your strategy.
Connecting with a Highly Engaged Audience
Reaching almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook advertising puts your business in touch with a vast and highly engaged audience.
Straightforward Ad Setup
Facebook Ads are designed to be easy to setup and deploy.
Businesses should start seeing swift returns if they are using the right keywords and have the right level of brand recognition.
Easy To Start Selling Online
Facebook shopping Ads are not only easy to set up, their product catalogue integrates seemlessly with platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce saving you from a difficult set up process and allowing you to be able to sell your products and services online almost instantly.
Stay in Control of Budgets
Facebook Ads work on a targeted basis, which means you can narrow your audience to only the most viable prospects. This helps you to stay on top of your budget.
Edit Ad Text for Targeting and Retargeting Campaigns
Ad campaigns will change depending on who you are targeting. The Ad Manager tool provides easy editing, allowing you to shift your strategy for new prospects and existing or previous customers.
Measure Key Metrics with Ease
Facebook Ads Manager makes it easy to stay on top of your campaign, measuring key metrics like direct website visitors and click throughs, as well as conversions.
The Facebook Pixel tool also helps you achieve accurate measurements on key metrics.
Achieve Significant Reach
Social media platforms like Facebook are great for building the reach of your business. Grow your audience quickly and effectively with Facebook Ads.
Facebook Ads: Some Cons
Facebook advertising does have its downsides too.
Facebook Audiences Have Decreased
Facebook still has huge amounts of active users, but it has lost ground in recent years to competitor platforms like Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
Not All Facebook Users Are What They Seem
Spam bots and fake profiles do exist on Facebook. If these profiles interact with your Facebook Ads, you will be paying for a useless click.
When Facebook Ads Is Superior to Google Ads
If you already have a community on Facebook and are already achieving conversions via this community then Facebook Ads are definitely your best approach. If you are trying to sell to a predominantly female market being the ages of 18 and 50, then advertising on Instagram is also likely to be your most powerful platform.
Why You Need to Test Both Platforms for an Omnichannel Approach
The truth is, your digital marketing efforts need to be diverse as you optimise your marketing budget and secure significant successes with online advertising.
This means adopting an omnichannel approach, bringing together Google and Facebook Ads and then drawing upon data from both to inform your campaign.
Assisted Conversions in Google Analytics
Google’s Assisted Conversions metrics are crucial for analysing the role that channels play in converting customers. Basically, if a customer sees a Facebook post and immediately purchases an item as a result, it is the Facebook post that has converted.
However, Assisted Conversions measures the assistance on the way. For example, video-based ads, Google paid search results, or another promotional channel may have influenced the lead to follow the brand on Facebook, or may have inspired their eventual course of action.
The metric analyses the number of conversions a particular channel has assisted, as well as the total revenue provided by these conversions.
This is a game changer for digital marketers. With this measurement, they can see the contributions made by each of their channels, leading to a truly omnichannel approach.
Just because most of your final conversions are coming from Google users and paid search ads does not mean that Facebook Ads are not helping out along the way — this metric helps you understand the contribution of all channels and leverage buyer intent accordingly.
High-Converting Keywords to Help Your SEO Campaign
A Google Ads campaign will quickly give you powerful data on high-converting search terms that you can then use for your SEO campaign and content strategy — optimising existing pages or creating new pages/posts.
Google Ads work in a similar way to organic search. Keywords in the ad’s copy help these promotional materials get found by searchers, as well as encourage these searchers to click and then convert.
With this in mind, keyword research is just as crucial for paid search results as for organic search results. Remember, you’ll be paying for all the clicks you receive — even those that don’t convert — so you need to make sure that the keywords you use are geared towards conversion.
Understanding Your Target Audience
Both Google Ads and Facebook Ads are great tools for conversion, but they also offer other benefits. The platforms provide valuable data about your target audience, helping you to better understand user behaviour. This, in turn, is critical as you create ads and optimise paid advertising strategies in the future.
This is a prime example of why an omnichannel approach is so vital. The data provided by Facebook Ads is no less important than the data provided by Google Ads and vice versa. By using both Facebook data and Google data, you are gaining significant insight that you can use to inform your SEO campaigns and set your business apart from the rest.
Google Ads vs Facebook Ads in 2023: Test both platforms as part of your digital strategy
Both Facebook Ads and Google Ads have an important place in your digital marketing strategy. Leveraging paid Google search results is important, of course, but you can’t rely on the search engine alone.
By deploying Facebook Ads alongside your Google Ads and SEO strategy, you are not only expanding your reach and conversion potential. You are also building a valuable data resource you can use as you hone your marketing efforts in the future.
Why not book a free 30 minute phone consultation or email our team to learn how we can help develop a multi-channel digital marketing strategy that drives revenue.
