Google Ads and Facebook digital advertising are the power drivers behind digital marketing as it pertains to growing a business online. They are very similar in nature. You select a daily budget for a specific day/month, choose your target audience, and begin to show your ad.
In Google’s case, advertisers bid on keywords to match customers’ online searches to serve their ads. With Facebook, advertisers can serve their ads by targeting a demographic based on their customer’s likes and interests.
By targeting a keyword such as “running shoes” in the keyword list, anytime a person types in “running shoes” in the google search bar advertisers bidding on the keyword “running shoes” will show up for that search.
With Pay Per Click the advertiser only pays when a potential customer clicks on the ad.
Google is by far the most popular and most used pay per click service in the world and it has been very positive for advertisers who advertise on Google. It is also a big part of digital marketing.
How Does Facebook Ads Work
Unlike Google paid search, Facebook can be better understood as paid social. In Facebook, the advertising being done is used to get in front of audiences who are on the Facebook platform. With Google your ad is shown to whoever matches your search term and triggers your ad. On Facebook you select the target audience you want to be in front of without the need of a search. Facebook filters users by their behaviors, likes, and interest so you can customize your audience to match your needs.
The Power Of Google
Google’s reach expands all over the world to whoever has an internet connection, which is billions. What is even more impressive is that there are 63,000 searches on Google per second, that’s a lot. And because Google wants advertisers on their platform your ads can also reach those billions around the world.
The idea of whoever has the most marketing dollars to promote their product or service wins is long over. A platform like Google ads made it to where a small business can now compete with a big corporation with online advertising.
Advertisers of all size budgets have the same access to the same tools this really evens the playing field. A small business can now compete with the likes of Amazon or a retail giant like Macy’s.
On Google, advertisers can choose to advertise on the search network or the Google display network. On the display network businesses can create banner ads to appear on other websites when customers are browsing the web.
Google is constantly adding new features and improving their algorithms to better serve advertisers and their target audience. Google wants advertisers to have more success and customers to find what they are looking for the fastest way possible.
The Power Of Facebook
With over 1.5 billion users and counting it’s clear to see how big of scope facebook is able to provide for advertisers. The biggest difference between Facebook and Google is Facebook’s database on its users. Their profiles from marriage, graduation, new job promotion and anything else you can possibly think of are there for the advertiser to use. An advertiser can now match a person’s interest in their product or service.
Because of this Facebook is a very powerful advertising tool on which old-time ad agencies could only dream of. The guesswork is cut out because users voluntarily tell facebook their likes and interest as well as age, race, hobbies, favorite movies, etc.
Facebook advertisers can also create high-quality ads on its platform. Whether it’s an image post or video Facebook offers a great variety as to how an advertiser can promote their product or service. With the image carousel options, you can add multiple images in one ad for your user to browse. It’s like looking through a clothing rack or walking down a store aisle but on your computer.
For an e-commerce business, your target audience can shop directly from your ad. If you are a service-based business you can drive traffic straight to your website to get more leads and sales.
Another great advantage of Facebook is the size of a small business budget does not have to be massive in order to get results. Sole proprietors and small businesses have seen a great ROI when running their ads on Facebook, especially in the local market.
So Which One Is Better?
Both Facebook and Google have proven to be profitable for large and small businesses and digital marketing. So there isn’t a clear answer as to which one an advertiser or business owner should use over the other. The best answer to this issue is to do both. Because of the ability to track and measure the effectiveness of a campaign using both in a cohesive manner can bring even better results than working with only one platform.
As mentioned, using each one has its advantages in very similar ways. With Google paid search your ads are triggered when someone types in the keyword and your ad is shown. With Facebook, you target the people you want to reach no need for them to search for your product. You simply get in front of them based on their interest. If done correctly your products and services will align with their behaviors and interest, increasing the chance of them becoming a new customer.
Regardless of which platform you decide to go with, you now know that both of them are of extreme benefit.
And the one thing that will remain true is that neither of these platforms are going away anytime soon. They will continue to get smarter and make the process of online advertising flow with even greater ease for businesses in the future.
If interested in how you can start your digital marketing strategy schedule your free consultation with our marketing team to discuss how we can help your business.
Vendito Online is a business consulting agency proudly serving San Antonio, TX, and its surrounding areas