Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Choose The Right One For Your Brand

96% of brands spend money on Google Ads (formerly called Google AdWords), while 93% spend it on Facebook ads. In the coming year, 77% of marketers intend to increase their spending on Google Ads, while 64% plan to increase their spending on Facebook Ads. Even though they have similar marketers' interests, the purposes of these platforms are different. Keep in mind that Google Ads serve search and display advertisements, while Facebook Ads are a paid social campaign advertising platform. Now it's time to provide you with answers.

Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Targeting

Facebook Ads can offer more nuanced targeting. As a recent study showed, it is possible to nano target, target a single person. A group of academics and computer scientists from Spain and Austria demonstrated how they targeted individuals by using the personal data of Facebook users. Personal data includes the user's interests and non-PII items. Think about name, social security number, date and place of birth, and biometric records.

Google, on the other hand, has a different approach. Google Search Ads would target people based on keywords. In this case, you are already aware of what the user is searching for.

Key differences: paid search helps businesses find new customers via keywords, paid social helps users find businesses based on their interests and how they behave online.

Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Website traffic

Facebook is the world's third-most visited website. Yet, when it comes to increasing website traffic, it all depends on the content, call-to-action (CTA), and visuals. Because Facebook's audience isn't looking to buy anything, you have to target them with persuasive Facebook campaigns. Meaning, you need to prove to Facebook users that they need to click on your ad because your product or service will be useful for them.

Google is processing every second, 40,000 search queries. In other words, Google processes more than 3.5 billion searches every day. Many people are searching for something, and with the keyword research tool, you can leverage Google Ads & SEO and tap into the massive audience.

Long story short: Google Ads can have higher website traffic. However, Facebook Ads have the advantage of having more engaging CTA's and promoting your product or services.

Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Budget

How much does Facebook advertising cost? It depends on you. Facebook has a feature that allows users to select daily, weekly or monthly budgets. On average, Facebook advertising costs $0.97 per click and $7.19 per 1000 impressions.

Paid search on Google Ads is a little more complicated. To begin, you should know that Google Ads is Google's pay-per-click (PPC) advertising solution. So, each time a user clicks on an ad, the marketer is charged a fee. PPC bidding can help you find new customers by using keywords and search terms. So, how much does it cost exactly?

• The average cost per click in Google Ads is between $1 and $2 on the Search Network.
• The average CPC on the Display Network is less than $1.
• The most expensive keywords in Google Ads and Bing Ads cost $50 or more per click.
• Giant retailers can spend up to $50 million per year on paid search in Google Ads.

Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Brand awareness

Both Google Ads and Paid Social Facebook Ads have the same goal: to sell a product or a service. However, based on previous sections, the ad goal shifts slightly.

Facebook is fantastic at building brand awareness. You're targeting people based on their interests instead of keywords. Rather than making immediate sales, your goal should be to expose your brand as much as possible. Your ad spend doesn't need to be huge to build awareness, and you'll still get a positive outcome.

Google Ads are your gateway to making sales. Because you are targeting specific keywords and implementing the PPC Ads model, you target people who know about you. Even if Google Ads does not significantly contribute to brand awareness, that does not mean it does not contribute at all. It's just not the primary objective.

Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Appearance

65% of people retain information better when it is visualized. It's great that Facebook and Google allow marketers to create visually appealing Ads.

The majority of these ads are interactive and create more engagement. You can seamlessly integrate into your users' Facebook feed and even increase their time spent on the ad. Depending on your business, product and audience, experiment with all of them to find out what your target customer prefers the most.

Unfortunately, Google Ads don't have much variety. When advertising on the Search Network, businesses place text ads in the search engine results. If you think text ads are not 'clickable', know that 49% of people said they click on text ads. That's not enough? Try Google Display Network. It reaches over 90% of Internet users worldwide.

What you could do to increase visibility is to use a Google Brand Account and boost SEO through customer reviews of your business.

The main benefit of the Google Display Network is that it helps to reach people with targeted Display ads. They could be browsing random websites, watching YouTube videos, or checking their Gmail account.

Bottom line

Many heated debates have erupted over Google Ads vs Facebook ad campaigns. But keep in mind that it is not one against the other. It is what works best for your company and product. The most important thing is to gather data from all of these ad campaigns so that you can track their performance and conversion rate. To do so, you can start using Facebook ads analytics, for example. If you're not sure where to begin, here are some free templates to keep on hand:

• Google AdWords dashboard
• Google Ads report
• Analytic report templates
• Facebook Ads dashboard
• Facebook Ads report template