Is Facebook or Google Ads Better?
It’s a pretty common question most clients ask when they’re just starting out exploring paid ads.
The truth is that both marketing platforms differ vastly in function and strategies. Let’s dive into the differences to see which might be more applicable for your business.
Google Search Has Higher Buyer Intent
Many business tend to favour starting out ads on Google first. The reason is because Google search traffic is highly targeted and people clicking on ads already have a much higher conversion intent.
Conversion Intent typically refers to an intention to purchase your product or service. For instance, if someone is searching for “cool black t-shirts in singapore”, there’s a high chance that he is willing to buy it if he sees one to his liking on your website.
On the other side, traffic from Facebook is more interest-based and requires a fair bit of research & testing to get right.
Traffic Volume
If your target audience is small, or the niche is very competitive, you might find it hard to get traction on Google ads.
This is especially so if you’re targeting smaller countries like Singapore where the population size is smaller compared to the rest of the world.
Cost of Advertising
As more competition enters each platform, advertising costs are on the rise.
The graph above shows Facebook CPMs in 2021 rising at a steady pace. Google on the other hand is much more dependent on keyword bids. Both platforms operate with an auction model mean there isn’t a fixed cost to each click.
How much you pay as an advertiser is dependent on many factors like your bid price, audience, ad performance & relevance (Facebook and Google tends to reward ads that perform well with their audience with cheaper clicks since it helps with overall user satisfaction).
This is why split-testing and constant optimization is so important to maintain good profitability on both platforms.
Targeting
With Facebook ads, the main form of targeting is mainly using interests in the beginning. For example if you’re selling sneakers in Singapore you may want to just target the interest “Sneakers” with an audience size of roughly 400k.
You won’t know for sure if an interest works so it requires some testing and fine-tuning of ad creatives.
For Google, you’ll want to do some research via the Google keyword tool to identify keywords the search volume for the keywords you wish to target. If you’re just starting out, it might be good to try and identify keywords with relatively high traffic volume and lower competition.
Facebook & Google Ads Comparison
| Facebook Ads | Google Ads | |
|---|---|---|
| Type of Targeting | By Interests | By Keywords |
| Cost Model | By Impressions (you pay when people view your ads) | By Click (you pay every time someone clicks on ads) |
| Traffic Volume | Broader Targeting (can narrow down with interests) | Limited by Search Traffic (if nobody searches for the keywords you use, you likely wont get clicks) |
| Buyer Intent | Cold Traffic (landing page needs to be able to “convince” people to buy your offer | Higher Buyer Intent (people searching for your product keywords are more likely to buy) |
Both platforms require different strategies and systems of testing. Ultimately both platforms are amazing sources of traffic if you make a sound plan of testing & optimization.
You’ll need to see if the platform you’re considering is suitable for your business as well. If you don’t have any good creative image or videos to run on Facebook, perhaps you may want to start with a small budget on Google ads first.
Whichever you decide to go with at the start, note that the process isn’t just a “one-time set up and keep making money” kind of thing! You’ll need to be constantly testing new creatives and marketing angles to improve performance as time goes on.
