Facebook Ads vs. Google AdWords: What’s More Beneficial?

Digital Marketing

June 19, 2017

Facebook and Google both have their monopoly raced down to everybody’s throats when it comes down to marketing. According to a research, these giants hold a staggering percentage of 85% of every penny spent on ads, but, their domain and targeted audiences tend to differ.

At one hand, Facebook has become the hot-shot of marketing just because of the unparalleled audience it provides, whereas, on the other, Google is the native source of our searches and it provides ads according to what the user is looking for on the internet i.e. keywords oriented search.

Obviously, if Google is providing me relevant leads and showing my ads to the future potential customers, we all just need to shut up, and Google can take my money. Not so fast, honey bunny!

See for yourself, since Google doesn’t filter your audience based on their interests and psychic, there are chances that everybody who’s looking for something that matches your provided set of keywords is seeing your ad, and, what are the odds of millions looking for the same thing on the internet unless there’s some terrorist attack or an India-Pakistan match? Whereas, Facebook does it all for you and, it also helps you cut down your CPC (cost per click) and PPC (pay per click) campaign.

E.g. I’m not looking for a t-shirt right now, but when I see some crazy written on a nice colored fabric, I just cannot keep myself from clicking on that ad!

power of Facebook

That’s the power of Facebook; it helps you start early when it comes to selling, and also your business gets promoted like never seen before in the history. Each time someone scrolls to his Facebook feed, he is bound to have a look at the sponsored category of Facebook. Though misplaced and having less connectivity with the other content can make them a bit annoying but, who cares for being labeled as annoying as long as you are getting the likes, clicks and shares, and hey, that’s why you opted Facebook at the first place, right?

Most of the marketers believe Facebook ads to be an evil way to get somebody’s attention, but, in the mad-driven world, it’s not an offence to get every user that you can, while making the use of either organic or inorganic policies.

Facebook says, “Pay 180$ to reach 35000 people, and over time, people will probably have to suck through the nipple that you have provided at their face.”

So, Facebook has kept on making changes in its policy, and with that it’s getting difficult day by day to get any organic traffic out of it, but, there are millions out there who are betting their money on Facebook and probably billions out there who are looking at their ads while we just sit here and talk about it.

So, I suppose you wouldn’t want to sit in your office and wait for someone to search for your product on the internet, so, that Google can show him your offerings, right?

But, before jumping to any conclusion, let’s try to get a deeper understanding of the matter at hand and its implication on the future of your business.

In this quick tutorial, we are going to walk through the basic needs of your business and which one of the above two can help you more effectively according to your business. The following questions and your honest answers to them will help you decide better.

So, let’s get on with it already, shall we?

1). Your Product

Your Product

Well, if you come from the no man’s land i.e. purely unique product then I would suggest you go with Facebook ads. The reason being, your product is new, and it is highly unlikely that people might have heard about some similar products of your niche. And, less awareness equals fewer searches and eventually lesser number of keywords linked. This can build up to a disastrous marketing campaign on Google AdWords, but, on Facebook people always wants to see new Gifs, new Memes and maybe new products as well.
All of this feels appealing to them, and once you have passed the screen-test of their hunger for excitement, your product will start bringing you a lot of money.

(Read about effective marketing tips for Startups)

Also, according to an article on Adweek, Facebook ads are less affected by the popularity of certain ad blockers, and their inefficiency against Facebook ads is not very far away from calling it a game for you.

2.) The Difference Between

Facebook Ads vs. Google AdWords

Google Ad words have been used as a synonym for paid search or PPC advertising lately, and I’m telling you no one but Bing is deeply saddened by this turn of events.

Both Google AdWords and Bing ads do the same thing, but Google is far more superior in terms of popularity and that is the reason why most advertisers have their money on Google AdWords.

The PPC campaign is a lukewarm process where people bet their money on certain keywords and wait for Google to show their ads whenever a similar search happens, and when they click on your ad which happens only God knows when (Hey, Google knows about it and it charge you money on the basis of this, so Google = God).

Whereas, Facebook ads don’t wait for the users to start typing some stupid keywords and make a fool out of themselves by churning some Facebook pages up and down to look for the same (instead, why not Google it Bro?)

Facebook list its ads according to user’s interests and the country he lives in, which it has been keeping record of ever since from the beginning (And you thought Facebook is love and doesn’t charge a thing)

Facebook Ads

For Facebook, Instagram and other similar websites, users are their “real money” and they would sell you even to the dark lord if he gets his personal account opened under the Pradhanmantri Jan Dhan Yojna campaign in some stupid bank like PNB.

An article on Wordstream had narrowed it down perfectly when they said that Google brings you customers, whereas, Facebook brings your product to the potential customers’ eyesight.

3.) Your Budget

Your Budget

Well, isn’t it obvious that the companies who have big names and a lot of bucks to swamp around will end up with a huge stash of most searched keywords of their domain?

Unfortunately Big Brother, Google hate such people and their amateur marketing campaigns. Facebook might love you for your money, but Google isn’t your regular hoe who would sell her dignity for some cheap money, although Google is a tough competitor for the place of a rich hoe as it sells the keywords to such people on extremely high rates.

So, Google is basically your girlfriend who would say, “I love you not just for your money”, but at the end of the day would cut a mouthful from the bread you bought on your “salary day”. Whereas, Facebook is honest with its opinion and would ask you straight up if you happen to have some money on you or just planning for a look around?

Google can sell you the keyword for pennies if it feels that you are a nice guy (Ad) with a good physique (Keyword) and to top them all a staggering percentage of common interests (relevance), whereas, Facebook just want a muscular man arriving in an Audi and not having an account of typical Jan Dhan Yojna types.

The reason behind Google’s graceful nature goes deeper down to its policies (calm your nerves guys, not much deeper), as Google cares about its user experience, any irrelevant ad will not be much of a boost for its goal. So what we thought a loyal and faithful nature of Google turned out to be just a far-sighted and selfish money making dream of the search engine giant.

Ad Quality Score

What can you expect from girls these days anyway? Heartbreaking really!

According to a blog on a site named crazy egg, an average CPC (Cost per Click) falls somewhere around 2.5 $ with Google AdWords whereas the same can cost you around 0.8$ with Facebook ads. So, Facebook ads are very cost effective against Google AdWords.

Adwords Vs Facebook

4.) Building Brand and Making Stories

Building Brand

This point goes to Facebook as it allows you the leverage of word of mouth and media enriched ad capabilities, this makes branding a hell lot of easier.

(Also read our quick guide on branding)

Facebook displays ads on the basis of your demography and your interests; one more major factor plays here that even Google has no idea about! This factor is termed as word of mouth, and right from the beginning, it has proven to be a very deciding factor in publicity of a product.

Facebook & Google ADs

Facebook shows what you like, besides, it also shows what your friend likes on the internet. It can make you feel a little more attached emotionally to the ad and you might click on it as well. Better than that, Facebook allows the graphical promotions as well, where you can make an awesome image or video to appease the viewer, and with the high-speed connectivity in India booming day by day, Facebook videos have already been running on the auto play mode. So, even if the user is not clicking on anything still, your product is making its way into the market of brands.

See for Yourself –

pay per click google ad

Whereas, on Google even after searching for the relevant keyword, your brand’s ad can turn out to mediocrely boring and dull. I mean do you even click on the ads on the page of Google search results, I don’t! I would just look for the result that I have been looking for and would immediately just close the tab. Even when I have clicked on one specific ad saying 50% off on Hotel booking, I would just navigate away coz I do not feel like giving a hype to such things, who knows on the next page of their website they have a spinning wheel saying, “Congratulations, you’re our lucky winner for today, Tell us your email id and address so that we can send you your brand new iPhone 7”, but, wait you need to first send this to 10 of your WhatsApp conversations, we don’t really have a software to detect your activity but what’s harm in pretending, you wouldn’t know it anyway! So check this page again after 10 shares to find the link and code to order your iPhone. (Seriously, are those people mad who sell their kidneys to buy an iPhone?) Oh God! Thank you for the enlightenment, from now on whenever someone makes an attempt on selling his kidney, I would just send him the link to your site, thank you people, you’re making people’s’ dream come true!

Well anyway, I’m not saying that this is bound to happen to you as well, but my experience has been pretty bad and I’m not very adventurous type to take any chances again, and also, According to a site named SEJ, Facebook has shown almost 50% increase in active advertisers and now holds almost 65% percent of total social network ad spend in the year 2017. On the other hand, Google’s revenues from AdWords have increased over 17% from the past year which is great if you ask me, but not as cool as Facebook, so why worry about it?

Google target searches whereas Facebook targets people and their emotions and you all know that when the game of emotions comes into play, all other things start becoming pretty far-fetched!

5.) The Next Step

The Next Step

Well, your business has now become a brand, but now what?

Most sites leave it to that, but the key behind a successful business is always longevity of the things, be it quality content or user engagement. Although Facebook ads can prove to be best for lead generating and brand awareness, but in the long run when people have heard quite a much about your product, they wouldn’t wait for Facebook to notice their interest and show them your ad. Instead, they would just Google about your product and click the first or second link (only 10% times) of their search results, if your product is there than Bingo otherwise you know we all are humans really and humans are bound to make mistakes otherwise wouldn’t we’d become God?

Well, that’s horse crap if you ask me, successful people never say this to themselves, instead, they always try harder for their goals the very next time, but if you can get it right the first time, oh boy! That’s the charm!

As it happens with most of the big names, they spend a logically fair share in both Google adwords and Facebook ads, >but I guess you don’t have that much money on you (otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading a guide to know about which one of them is better, you would’ve just taken advantage of both of their offerings)

So, coming back to the point, you need to assess your needs before following any “calculated myths and figures” about their popularity and the staggering percentage both of them commands over the number of users.

Ad Spend Online

Because, at the end of the day you’ll have to optimize CPC, CPM, CTR, Conversion Rate, etc.

These terms are just technical jargon really, but I’ll tell you their meaning anyway!

CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions) means how many bucks you’re paying for 1000 of users to see your ad?

CPC (Cost per Click), you already know, wouldn’t tell you again!

CTR (Click through Rate) the proportion of people clicking on your link! And, conversion rate tells us about how many of them have passed the lead phase and got inducted into the primary phase of your sales funnel.

According to a site named MOZ, their client NLSC has received better conversion rate using Google ad words instead of Facebook ads, but they had to pay 1.49% per click with Google, whereas Facebook charged them 1.11$ for the same.

So, at the end of the day, it’s only your call about where you want to spend your money! For them it was, “spend higher get more clicks, and spend lower get fewer clicks”, and they chose Google over Facebook, but, as always, it all depends on how much you are willing to pay.

The Conclusion

Allow me to be blunt and tell you some honest pros and cons of both the medium, I would start with the love of my life, i.e. Google.

Google AdWords

Pros

  • Detailed measuring tools to determine traffic and also, a large audience to make some use out of that tool.
  • Instant return on investment (ROI) as you are only targeting those who already have shown some interest with their keywords selection.

Cons

  • Costly and boring interface
  • Doesn’t allow images or videos unless you are on YouTube.

Facebook Ads

Pros

  • An Immediate influx of traffic and also, complete control on your spending. (no. of likes or no. of impressions delivered as per you provided)
  • *Not boring* as you can include a lot of image of videos in your ad.

Cons

  • The targeted audience might turn out to be not the ‘targeted audience’ at all.
  • Buzzing people during their social life is rude and, you can see its result in your conversion rate (might in your bounce rate as well)

So that’s that! Make sure to check out this space regularly as we have lot more cool stuff lined up just for you!

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