Google Ads vs Facebook Ads: Which One to Choose?

TLTR

“Google Ads or Facebook Ads?” is a question frequently asked when discussing online advertising strategies.

Often, these two platforms have been viewed as rivals and competitors, creating a perfect dichotomy that confuses newcomers to the digital marketing world. But it’s not that simple.

And as often happens in this field, the answer to the question we posed at the beginning is “it depends.”

Why? Before delving into the wide array that this expression encompasses, it’s important to understand the differences between Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

Differences between Google Ads and Facebook Ads

Google Ads is the largest PPC advertising platform, so much so that these two terms are often used interchangeably.
As we’ve mentioned before, Google Ads offers various campaign types (Search, Display, Shopping, App, Smart, and Discovery) with the common goal of reaching users in various ways throughout their purchasing journey.

Facebook also boasts an extremely vast global audience. With different campaign types and features (think A/B testing or lookalike functions, for example), it’s capable of advertising products and services to people based on their interests and behavior on the platform.

Often, the main difference highlighted between these two giants is how they target users: Google Ads delivers relevant results to users while they are actively searching (the “pull” mechanism), while Facebook Ads are based on a “push” mechanism, as users encounter advertising formats while leisurely scrolling through their feed.

However, this isn’t exactly accurate. Even Google Ads Display campaigns perfectly fit the “push” mechanism due to the various targeting options (contextual and audience-based) that allow reaching the audience while they’re visiting a website or using an app.

There are other differences often overlooked:

• With Google Ads, users are reached while performing searches on Google or partner sites, while watching a video on YouTube, or using mobile apps. With Facebook, users are reached while using the platform and Instagram.
• Google Ads necessarily requires a functional website or optimized landing page to redirect users to, whereas certain objectives within Facebook campaigns don’t require a reference website.
• Facebook isn’t precisely a pay-per-click tool; you work on a per-click basis for some objectives, while more often using cost-per-impression charging.
• Another small difference lies in the fact that Social Ads can generate conversation and provide social proof. A highly followed page with numerous interactions on posts is visible to everyone, whereas to see the performance of a Google Ads campaign, you need to delve into the control dashboard (or the “Pandora’s box”!).

Google Ads or Facebook Ads: Which One to Choose?

Refraining from providing the evasive “it depends” response once again, we prefer to opt for the question “why choose?“

Every good marketer knows that the customer journey, the conversion path of the user, has become increasingly complex and layered over the years, with interactions taking place across various channels.

Rarely does a user follow the so-called “purchase funnel,” the pipeline through which a person goes through phases of attention to a product or service, interest, attraction, and conversion before becoming a customer.

With the ubiquity of smartphones, boundaries no longer exist. We make purchases while waiting for the bus, because we accidentally opened Amazon and there’s a lawnmower on sale: “Wow, I really needed a lawnmower!”. Forget the orderly funnel; the different stages blend together.

With such a complex and unpredictable journey, it’s crucial to integrate various advertising systems. Google and Facebook can be used synergistically to achieve tangible results, but first, we need to make strategic assessments about target audience, products and/or services, and return on investment.

For the reasons listed above, viewing these two tools as competitors within our strategy is shortsighted. What we need to ask ourselves is not so much which one to choose, but rather to evaluate:

• What is the best solution for my budget in the medium and long term?
• What are the characteristics of my product?
• Which stage of the buyer’s journey am I targeting?

Target audience, budget, ROI, and Offer Analysis

In terms of budget, it’s important to know that generally, Google Ads has higher costs compared to Facebook Ads.

It’s essential to evaluate the return on investment based on your products and services, as well as against business objectives. For example, if the campaign’s goal is conversions, you should assess the Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and the conversion rate. On the other hand, if a sufficient monthly budget isn’t available, it’s better to consider Facebook Ads. Not that Zuckerberg is more generous, but you can promote your activity with a smaller investment.

For both Facebook Ads and Google Ads, the spending amount is a necessary component to achieve good campaign results, but it’s not sufficient.

Content quality is indispensable for both platforms. In Google Ads, the ad’s Quality Score determines its position on the page: relevant keywords and ads can provide visibility at a lower cost per click. Similarly, for Facebook Ads, user experience is crucial. Unattractive and uninteresting content doesn’t attract user interactions and is penalized, even with substantial budgets.

It’s important to understand if we’re dealing with a latent need that users haven’t yet realized. If a company is considering launching a new product or service, it’s challenging to identify keywords with a certain search volume. Think about a service like BlaBlaCar. The term “carpooling” didn’t exist until a few years ago and therefore wasn’t being searched for.

In such cases, it’s not advisable to rely on Google Ads’ Search network: it’s better to leverage the potential of visual advertising (Facebook Ads and Google Ads with display campaigns) to arouse interest and create familiarity with the brand and product. Costs per interaction won’t be too high, as our objective will be brand awareness.

On the other hand, it’s difficult to obtain contacts and conversions with this type of campaign. From this perspective, it’s important to understand where our target audience searches for information. Experience and feedback from sales and customer service departments can provide useful data about our user personas.

If our industry is mainly B2B, Facebook probably isn’t the most suitable channel for obtaining conversions (though remember, “it depends” always applies!) unlike other channels that align better with our objectives (like Google Ads or LinkedIn).

Remember that for Facebook Ads, ad quality is crucial: if you sell screws and bolts, it will be very challenging to make your posts appealing. The risk is spending a lot and achieving poor results.

In Conclusion

To conclude, the question we should be asking ourselves isn’t the Shakespearean “Facebook or Google” but a series of marketing reflections on our product, target audience, and budget, always keeping the customer journey in mind.

Given the multifaceted nature of this journey, it’s easy to deduce that the best solution lies in the combination of both channels. If we don’t make these two platforms work together, we risk overlooking important touchpoints and, consequently, missed opportunities for engagement.

For the same reason, every good digital strategist knows that it’s important to find communication channels such as SEO activities and newsletters to integrate with advertising channels. By exposing consumers to our brand through various media according to different stages of the user’s journey, the possibilities for interaction increase.

In other words, an integrated communication strategy is the way!