Google Ads gives you the opportunity to reach your target audience on search engine results pages (SERPs), YouTube and other partner sites via a pay-per-click (PPC) model. The concept of PPC marketing is when advertisers bid on relevant keywords (search terms)in order to get ads in front of users searching for related terms.
Google Ads are a great way to drive search traffic to your website or specific product and service pages. It’s no secret that Google is the most popular search engine in the world, so this is undoubtedly the best platform for achieving PPC marketing goals. You can build comprehensive Google Ads campaigns with a data-driven approach that allows you to assess, track, analyse and adapt your campaigns for continuous improvement.
Powering your Google Ads search campaigns with advanced targeting options like location-based targeting and audience segmentation allows your business to reach the ideal customers, which in turn improves critical metrics like conversion rates.
Marketers also have the ability to diversify through different formats like Google search ads, display ads, video ads and Google Shopping ads; tweaking their strategy to suit business goals, target audiences, etc. The performance tracking metrics also enable constant evolution through strategies like A/B testing to uncover the best results and ROI.
Being able to target users who are actively seeking for specific products, services or information is perhaps the greatest benefit of Google Ads. Marketers’ biggest challenge is often getting the marketing content in front of the right people, but Google Ads ensure that pre-engaged consumers are seeing the content thanks to targeted keywords.
This significantly increases the likelihood of conversion and is arguably the biggest tick in the “pro” column for Google Ads when asking the question of “Google Ads vs Facebook Ads”.
The range of search networks, with partner sites and different platforms, gives marketers the chance to reach a broader audience, including reaching their target audience at different stages of the marketing funnel (awareness, engagement and purchase intent).
A multi-channel approach is also a fantastic strategy for increasing brand awareness and brand presence.
Meta’s online advertising platform is known as Facebook Ads, although this incorporates social media platforms Facebook, Messenger and Instagram. The sheer volume of users (billions of monthly users for each mobile app) creates a vast reach for brand awareness, lead generation and sales conversions.
For best practice, marketers would use a combination of Facebook Advertising campaigns, including engaging image and video content as well as taking advantage of features like stories and carousels. Facebook Ads use cost-per-click and cost-per-impression models, with the choice giving marketers a more flexible budgeting option when comparing Google Ads vs Facebook Ads.
Facebooks Ads also advanced targeting options to help achieve your Meta marketing goals, including demographics, interests, location and custom audiences. The Lookalike Audiences feature is a particularly advanced option whereby marketers can target potential customers who are similar to their existing customers, streamlining their advertising strategy.
Similarly to Google Ads, Facebook Ads provide campaign performance metrics for A/B testing and real-time analytics so that marketers can profesor and optimise their campaigns.
This is where the question of Google Ads vs Facebook Ads leans more in favour of Google, with Meta Marketing relying primarily on factors like demographics and behaviour to target users. On the other hand, Google targets users based on immediate Google search intent.
For example, social media advertising like Meta marketing might target people aged 18-30 who like soccer with ads for football shirts. However, marketers using Google Ads will actually target potential customers with the Google search query “cheap football shirt”. That usually means Google Ads are better for conversion rates.
We’ve all been there: browsing social networks and feeling a bit sick of seeing so many ads – particularly when it feels like you’re seeing the same ones over and over again. Unsurprisingly, this can lead to lower engagement and overall ad performance over time.
Marketers can combat this by constantly creating fresh content and avoiding user frustration with repeated ads (leading to wasted resources), but there is a risk of damaging relationships with users and prospective customers.
If you’re looking to improve your marketing across the board, improving every facet of your marketing funnel, a combination of both Google Ads and Facebook Ads is your best strategy. Google Ads enable you to increase those direct conversions, but you can turn that sales-driven approach into an all-encompassing strategy by boosting brand awareness and brand engagement through Facebook Ads simultaneously.