Facebook Ads or Google Ads – Which One is Better For Your Business?

If you’re wanting to get more leads and sales in your business, should you spend more on Facebook ads or Google Ads?

The answer depends on the nature of your business, your product or service, and your target market. I like to use a useful traditional advertising analogy to explain the difference between Google Ads and Facebook ads.

Cast your mind back 20 years.  If you needed a plumber, electrician or dentist, where did you look?  The Yellow Pages of course. It was the go-to place for high intent-based searching for products and services.

For some businesses being in the Yellow Pages was their biggest source of leads.  But that wasn’t the case for all businesses. If a retail store had a promotion, or a company was launching a new product, or a business just wanted to get in front of people who weren’t picking up the Yellow Pages, businesses used newspaper ads, radio ads or TV ads. All of these types of advertising were designed to reach people who weren’t actively searching for a product or service in the Yellow Pages.

This analogy parallels well with the comparison between Google Ads and Facebook ads.

Google Ads has replaced Yellow Pages.  Where people used to “let their fingers do the walking” they now let their fingers do the typing and turn to Google. If your customers are regularly searching for your products or services online, then Google Ads are ideal.

With Google Ads you can have your ad show above the search results when people search for specific phrases related to what you offer.  As an advertiser you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, and because we can put the ads in front of people right when they’re searching for the products or services you provide, there is high buyer intent.

Facebook, on the other hand, is like newspaper ads, radio ads and TV ads. People don’t read a newspaper for the ads, they read it for the content. So the businesses that advertise here in newspapers and magazines need to grab your attention as you flick through the paper. You didn’t pick up the paper to read ads, but you’ll see the ads alongside the content, and if it’s an attention-grabbing ad you’ll stop and read it.

It’s the same with Facebook ads (which serves ads on both Facebook and Instagram).  You don’t go on Facebook or Instagram for the ads, but ads are interspersed throughout your news feed, looking just like other posts.  If an ad looks interesting you might click it, and then end up reading about a company, buying a product or enquiring – even though you weren’t actively searching for what they were offering.

So which is better – Facebook ads or Google Ads? Learn More

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