Google Ads Vs Facebook Ads: Which Is Better For Your Business

Helping you to get a better understanding of these advertising platforms

With many businesses leveraging the advantages of paid advertising it’s important to consider whether you should be using these marketing techniques for your own business. When it comes to paid advertising, businesses can choose from a range of options, with two of the major choices being Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

Helping you to get a better understanding of these advertising platforms

These two different forms of paid advertising can offer a range of outcomes, therefore it’s important to understand exactly what they are, the benefits they offer and whether they’re a natural fit for your business.

We have put together a guide on Google Ads vs Facebook Ads to help you to get a better understanding of these advertising platforms, and to help you to make an informed decision when it comes to investing your marketing budget in paid advertising.

What are Google Ads?

Google offers businesses the option to pay for advertisements that appear in search results in the form of Google Ads. This can also include ads that appear on other websites through the Google Display Network and Google’s AdSense program.

Google Ads appear at the top of search engine result pages, above any organic (unpaid) content. This means that your content will be seen first by users, increasing your chances of attracting new website visitors and ultimately, selling your products or services.

Any Google Ads that appear in the search result pages will be clearly labelled with a green “Ad” label. These will also always be text-based ads. However, Google Display Advertising appears on third-party websites and can be displayed as text, image, or video formats.

You can also have the following campaign types:

What are Facebook Ads?

Facebook Ads refers to any adverts that appear in either the News Feed (on mobile and desktop) and in the right column of Facebook (on desktop only). These ads are paid messages that come from businesses that appear to the key audiences that they are trying to reach.

These ads will be written in the businesses’ voice and can be created to achieve specific goals. This can range from generating brand awareness to encouraging their target audience to visit their website and complete a certain action.

Facebook ads can appear in multiple different formats, such as link click ads, video ads, boosted page ads and carousel adds, to name just a few. This means that businesses can make their ads more text-based or image-based, depending on their message and what they’re trying to sell.

Another great advantage of Facebook Ads is that you can also advertise on Instagram. To do this, all you need to do is connect your Instagram account to your Facebook Ads Manager. When creating your Facebook Ads in Ads Manager, you can select “manual placements” and choose Instagram as your preferred platform.

Benefits of Google Ads

Google Ads come with a variety of benefits for businesses in varying sectors. One of the biggest to point out is that Google is the most popular search engine in the world, with 3.5 billion search queries being made every single day.

Some of the other advantages of Google Ads include:

An impressive audience – as mentioned above, there are millions of searches on Google every day, and this number is only set to increase making for over a trillion of searches every year. This means that businesses can increase their reach further than ever before and advertise to more new customers.

A wide range of ad formats – when businesses use Google Ads, they can take advantage of a huge variety of ad formats. This means businesses can create and customise ads in a way that directly appeals to their target audience and better communicates their messages.

Benefits of Facebook Ads

Today, Facebook Ads have become a central part of many businesses advertising strategies, and they come with an impressive range of benefits. Here are some of the key advantages of Facebook Ads:

A large yet customisable audience – just like Google Ads, Facebook has a vast global audience. With 45 billion active users every month, Facebook has an unrivalled audience. However, a major benefit is that you can customise who you are advertising to, refining the advertising process.

A visually appealing platform – Facebook Ads can be powerfully visual. Some of the best-performing ads on Facebook include image and video-based ads. If you’re looking to appeal to your audiences with rich and engaging visual content, Facebook allows you to do exactly that.

It offers an incredible ROI – Facebook Ads offer businesses fantastic potential Return on Investment. By giving advertisers the option to stretch a limited budget over multiple campaigns, the chances of increasing your ROI every month are far higher than ever before.

What are the Major Differences Between the Two?

With this in mind, you may be wondering what the main differences are between these otherwise quite similar advertising platforms. Essentially, Google Ads come under the “paid search” umbrella. This means advertisers focus on the targeting of core keywords and primarily use text-based advertisements.

Facebook Ads come under the “paid social” umbrella, which refers to the practice of advertising on social media networks. Instead of focusing on targeting keywords, Facebook Ads work by targeting users’ interests and the way they behave online.

Google Ads can specifically target people with purchase intent by adding keywords such as “buy makeup” or “makeup for sale”. However, with Facebook advertising, you do not have access to your audience’s intent.

Which One Should you be Using?

Both of these advertising tools provide businesses with the tools they need in order to thrive, and with both lending themselves to virtually every type of business, it can be tricky to decide which one you want to utilise.

To help you decide, you need to review your business objectives and compare these to the different benefits these advertising options can offer you with. Also, you should consider which platform best complements your business and what you’re trying to sell. For example, if you’re an ecommerce business looking to sell stunning products, you may be more inclined to use both Google Shopping and Facebook Ads. If you’re selling legal services, Google Ads may be a better option for you.

However, we recommend using a combination of both Google Ads and Facebook Ads where possible in your businesses marketing strategies to help you to achieve the best results.

If you’re looking for further help and information on Google Ads vs Facebook Ads, please feel free to get in touch with our team of paid advertising experts today.