Google Adwords or Facebook Ads, which is better?
A question I often get asked by clients and fellow marketers is if I think they should use their advertising budget on Google ads or Facebook ads. Which will produce better results? The simple fact is that both these platforms can produce fantastic results when paired with the correct goal.
The first and most important question to ask is what do we want to achieve, what is our goal with the campaign?
If budget wasn’t an issue, you would want to run both Google Adwords and Facebook ads. Each has a very relevant place in your leads funnel. Below is a basic guide to help you determine how to allocate your budget according to your goal:
Goal -> Traffic to your website
Facebook can offer a far lower cost on “clicks to website” campaigns and the bonus is you get good brand exposure (impressions/views) at the same time. You should get a lot more clicks for your Facebook budget than what you would on your Google budget.
The down side to Facebook PPC is that when it sends traffic to your website, the web page can often take longer than usual to load. This may result in a high number of clicks aborting before getting to your content.
Google can send traffic to your website but because the clicks are generally more expensive for most industries, you may not get as many clicks for your budget as what you would with Facebook. However, the clicks coming from Google would be more qualified leads as the user has specifically searched for your services or product.
Result:
Facebook = more brand exposure and high amount of clicks for less
Google = more expensive for clicks but higher conversion rate
Goal -> Generate leads and increase sales
The benefits of Facebook PPC for lead generation or product sales is that you can create rich media ads utilizing creative images, video, lead forms, carousel as well as Instant Experiences. You really have a great variety of types of ads to get your message across in a creative way. You are able to hyper target your ads to your demographic, making sure your budget is spent on marketing to a relevant audience. Depending on who is creating your ad content, if done effectively, Facebook ads can be extremely effective.
It is important to note that this works well for a “business to consumer” product or service. If you are B2B, you need to be quite experienced with the Facebook ads platform to make sure you reach the right audience. It is important to know how to read the data and use this information to your advantage.
Google Search is arguably the best way to generate leads and gain new business. The consumer searches for a product or service they require using a search “keyword” which allows Google to connect them to relevant search results of businesses who can provide that service. Again, your exposure depends on your daily budget and cost per click for some industries can be incredibly high. It is important to track your goals on Google to monitor how much you are spending on a conversion.
Once you know how much money it costs you for a converted click, you are able to determine how much more you can spend, or much less you need to spend, on getting in good solid leads. As you can see above, both Facebook and Google have their pros and cons, and each depends heavily on what you are trying to achieve with your marketing. It is always advised to A/B test your marketing and see what is more effective for your industry.
Results for different types of industry or products can differ vastly so never compare your results to a different classification. The best answer is always what the data says!
If you need assistance with reaching your customers and goals in a cost effective way, contact us.
Article by Jason Rinquest