Facebook and Google are currently two of the best places to spend your business’s advertising dollars. Ideally, you’ll want to advertise on both platforms as the potential audience reach is massive, however depending on your marketing objectives, focusing on one platform may be the most effective way to allocate your budget and meet your goals. When it comes to Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, which one is better for your business?

Both channels focus primarily around Pay-Per-Click advertising and provide users with free online marketing tools, like Google My Business and Facebook Fan Pages. The biggest difference you as a marketer will notice lies in your campaign objective. Are you trying increase brand awareness, or sell a specific product or service?

If your answer is to increase brand awareness, Facebook is your platform. Facebook Ads tend to have a lower click through rate than Google AdWords, but the amount of impressions a Facebook Ad receives tends to be much higher.  Facebook ads contain images and this makes them better for a branding campaign.  Facebook users also see a Facebook Ad more often than they would see an AdWords ad.  They do not have to be actively seeking out your services to see the ad.  This means that even if the user is not looking for your service or product now, they will be much more likely to recall your business because they saw your ads on Facebook.

Facebook Ads also allow advertisers to target a unique audience and create a specific message intended for a specific group.  Facebook has massive amounts of user data and they allow their advertisers to make use of this data.  This means that if you want to target men aged 21-35 that are New York Giants fans in specific towns/cities in New York (perfect for a local sports bar), you can.  If you offer a service, like a plumber, you can target homeowners in local areas that have an annual income above $60,000.  The targeting options are endless and make for hyper-targeted, extremely effective ads.

If your marketing objective is to sell a specific product or increase revenue, a Google AdWords campaign is the way to go. Google Ads will show up in searches when someone is actively searching for your product or service.  This means that they are in the research or decision making stage of the purchase cycle, as opposed to Facebook advertising when the person viewing the ad is probably not thinking about your product or service right now. Additionally, Google offers a wide array of ad formats that cannot be found on Facebook.  This includes text ads with additional information called ad extensions.  These include call extensions (click to call on mobile), location extensions, promotions, etc.  By also including a display advertising campaign, image ads will be shown on websites throughout the Google network that are relevant to the potential clients that are searching for your product or services.

Google AdWords is also very measurable and you can tailor your campaigns based on previous results.  Based on data like cost-per-click, impressions, click through rate, conversions, calls (requires call tracking) and other important metrics you can increase the effectiveness of your campaigns and get more bang for your buck.

Each business is different and should be viewed as such. What works for someone else may not work for you. The best way to get the most out of your digital advertising efforts is to test out both platforms and see what is most effective for your brand.  You might even find that the two advertising platforms complement one another and the effect that they have cumulatively is larger than either one would have when used on its own.

Ferocious Media was recently awarded the highest honor from Google: the Highest Quality Accounts award. This means that Ferocious Media’s accounts had the highest average Quality Score among all of the Google AdWords Premier SMB Partners.  This leads to higher click through rates, lower cost-per-clicks, and more efficient campaigns.  We also have analysts dedicated specifically to building highly effective Facebook Ads campaigns.  Are you interested in a digital advertising service? Visit us at Ferociousmedia.com for more information!