Google & Facebook are essentially the world’s largest advertisement platforms. Millions of businesses user their platforms daily to grow their business online. To date, Google Ads, which was established in the 2000s, earns more revenue via the Google Ads platform than its competitor, Facebook Ads.
Even though being similar, the two platforms go about doing things vastly differently. This made it hard for small businesses and large enterprises alike to choose which platform out of the two would they use. Investing hard-earned money in digital advertising is a tricky task as it is, but most business owners typically choose to only use one of them, without truly understanding the pros and cons of each platform.
At the core of it, both of these platforms essentially are used by business owners to maximize the visibility of their ads, generate maximum leads and ultimately, get more customers by adopting and optimizing various strategies that both of these platforms offer.
The question is, are they really competitors or adversaries which they have been portrayed in the Marketing Industry. Why shouldn’t they be considered as rivals? Before comparing them on a head to head basis, let’s talk about what they essentially are.
Google Ads – PPC (Pay per Click)
Google Ads is an intent-based advertisement platform where ads are displayed based on what users search. Now, this model provides businesses the chance to feature directly in front of uses with a high buying intent. Tools such as Google keyword planner and the keyword tool provides information as to what prospecting customers are actually searching on Google.
These pay per click campaigns or PPC campaigns may be text-based and you can almost say they are visually appealing than Facebook ads which stress more on the visual aspect of the advertisement.
Segmenting ads based on ad groups helps businesses and displaying text-based ads which are even more targeted to the user’s query. The phone extension of the collet extension part present in the Google ads gives more chances for conversion. Google Ads how much more in their arsenal due to their display network.
Google covers 98% of all the index websites to display ads on the network. Even though the banner based ads on the network convert very less, they still act as a good source for making people enter into the buyer’s funnel.
Google ads platform is robust enough to provide insights and how effective ad campaigns really are. Audience insights, demographics, age bands, times are some of the tools which you can use to gauge how your ads are performing and then improve upon them by optimizing said ad sets and campaigns.
Manual & even Automated bidding strategies can be used, scripts to automate you are bidding strategies I really sophisticated and advanced and work effectively if you curate your campaigns accordingly.
The negative keyword tool optimizes campaigns so that you don’t waste the impressions which your ads get. All in all, these PPC campaigns provide advertisers the opportunity to find new customers based on what they type into the search box using new and innovative ways and having the control to eventually turn people into repeat customers. Your conversion rates depend on external factors such as landing page design, after all, it is eventually you who will close the customer, not the ad campaigns which you run.
Gone are the days where an advertiser putting in the most budget into the ad campaigns used to rank higher. This is the beauty of Google Ads that it actually takes the relevance of ads, your past performance, and your ad copy into consideration when ranking ads on the search engine results page.
So, you always have room to improve and a good chance to rank higher even if you don’t have a large marketing budget. On average, if you are investing $1 on Google ads you will get $2 in return due to convergence.
Facebook Ads – Paid Social
The world’s largest social media platform uses its News Feed to deliver highly targeted ads to its users based on their past activity, their interests, off-platform online behavior, buying pattern, The data which they have provided to Facebook in the form of Facebook posts, their educational history, work details, family, friends and relationships, the geographical location, places they usually visit their regular commute.
Facebook pixel is present on almost all e-commerce websites and other mediums to track & analyze user behavior.
Artificial learning and machine intelligence have got to be one of the most sophisticated systems ever built worldwide. Facebook ads let you tap into that system and display ads to your relevant audience focusing on increasing brand awareness, selling products or services.
Advertising brand awareness campaigns help you put people to the top of your buyer’s funnel. Once the audience is brought into the funnel, brands can run highly targeted ads based on how much or how often people interact with their brand and then can choose to bid aggressively on the audience, using ad groups and ad copy that brings the most number of engagements and conversions.
Custom audiences and dynamic product ads are the best unique selling points for Facebook ads. Even if you are a first time user who has a list of already existing customers, you can create custom audiences and use the concept of lookalike audience to boost sales and grow your business.
Dynamic product ads are very easy to configure and prove to be very effective because of the high conversions they drive.
Facebook is best for video advertising, using visually appealing mediums such as GIFs and the image & creative dominating ads with minimal text. Video ads have proven to bring the highest number of conversions out of all the types of ads there are on Facebook.
Facebook funnels, if correctly configured, continue to bring customers in the long run. Facebook has proven to be the best platform for brand awareness campaigns & upselling customers. Messenger ads, Facebook stories, Instagram, stories Instagram ads are also available when you are advertising through the Facebook ads platform.
Dual Platform Strategy
Businesses should advertise through both of these platforms in tandem. Utilize the best and most effective strategies for both of these platforms and use these two services to complement each other. According to me personally, which tree I have used both of these platforms together is when I use Facebook dynamic product ads to increase brand awareness and make the user enter into my buyer’s funnel. Targeting them using Google’s display ad network, selling them offers, and finally closing them using Google ads.
Using one platform is cutting one of your good hands.
Another reason being that both of these platforms have an immense audience reach and when an advertiser can target people on such a granular level, running relevant campaigns with a high return on ad spend is easier than ever.
Combing the visually effective Facebook Ads platform with the omnipresent Google Search Ads & the display network, grasping the audience’s attention is like a walk in the park.
Harness the power of both paid search and paid social platforms and use the dual campaign strategies which prove to bring the maximum profit for your business.
