Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads: Is One Better Than the Other?

While Google ads have dominated online advertising, Facebook ads have increased in popularity.

Google ads or Facebook ads—which is better to use for promoting your products? That’s a question many companies ask, but the answer is a bit more complex than that. Things are not so cut and dry in the advertising world; you must always be on the lookout for the newest emerging trends in how customers react to advertisements and what they find to be most interesting. You must also keep pace with your competitors to see why they are succeeding or failing. Google has been the leading form of digital advertising for a long time, but has it been dethroned by the Facebook social media machine?

To be as objective as possible when determining the answer to the above question, it’s important to know the important parallels that both Google ads and Facebook ads draw together:

Google Ads

Google ads are shown to customers based on their actual search results to provide the most relevant advertisements to the keywords used. If you type “flower shops near me” into the Google search box, the ads you will see on top or elsewhere on the page will be for florists that are within a certain mile radius of your device’s current location. However, you will not necessarily receive general information on flowers since that would be less relevant to the actual search.
Google typically uses a cost-per-click (CPC) model for ads shown, only charging companies each time the advertisement is clicked on to take the customer to a landing page or website.
Google engages in re-marketing via AdSense, it’s third-party advertising program. Participating websites receive a percentage of the advertisement revenue when the ad is clicked on.
Google ads that perform poorly (little to no click-through-rate) are considered “less relevant” even for keywords they were meant for and will be shown less by Google for better performing or higher-paying advertisements. If an ad doesn’t get clicked on, Google doesn’t get paid, so it is also in self-interest to display ads with higher CTR.

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are shown to targeted audiences rather than by keyword searches, based on variables such as age, gender, location, interests, Pages liked, etc. A user may be interested in your ad considering these variables, but it’s no guarantee, much in the same way for TV commercials—it’s an educated guess.
Facebook charges for its ads based on a few various factors:
- Cost Per Click (CPC) – Traditional method that Google ads use—you bid to pay Facebook every time the ad is clicked on and takes the customer to a landing page or website
- Cost Per Mille (CPM) – You bid to pay a certain amount per 1000 impressions on individual ads no matter their performance. Facebook shows your ad to people that may be interested in your ad based on certain variables. The value of this option can depend on whether your ad has a high CTR or not; high performing ads will yield a better value for the price.
- Cost Per Action (CPA) – The total amount you spend to get the customer to take action after viewing and clicking on your ad, whether it is making a sale, downloading an eBook, or signing up for an account. This cost is figured from using data from the other methods on this list.
- Cost Per Like (CPL) – The amount you pay to get customers to “Like” your Facebook page after clicking on your ad.
Facebook engages in remarketing strategies that use cookies placed on user devices after visiting a website out of interest and displays Facebook ads for that website on the user’s Facebook page when they log in. This method of remarketing is highly effective since many customers have Facebook accounts.

While Google ads and Facebook ads may behave in diverse ways, the answer to which is better comes down to what you are trying to accomplish with your ads. Are you trying to drive traffic to your website? Maybe you are trying to capture emails from a wider demographic? Or maybe you are just trying to capture emails to begin a sales funnel.

In all reality, you are better off using Google ads and Facebook ads in tandem with one another to maximize your efforts. Google can drive traffic to your website, and Facebook follows up with leads when they are no longer actively searching. In this case, A/B testing your different campaigns for both Google and Facebook is a best practice for figuring out what works best for your brand, or if the two-pronged approach (Google and Facebook together) is the best way to close sales.

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