Facebook garners over 2.23 billion MAUs (monthly active users). There’s no denying it: Facebook remains a powerful social ad space.

But what about Google AdWords?

If you’re feeling torn between Facebook ads vs Google ads, the debate ends here. We’ve put together this guide to help you decide which you need to implement to boost your brand’s success online.

In the sections below, we’ll cover what each ad service is, and then help you decide which to focus on. Keep reading to make the most out of your online advertising budget and efforts.

Facebook Ads: Paid Social

Is Facebook the right ad space for your brand? Sometimes called Facebook Adwords or Facebook pay per click, paid social can help new customers find your brand.

It does so by allowing you to target ads toward consumers’ interests and behaviors. These hyper-targeted and layer-targeted ads pack a lot of punch with vibrant visuals.

These ads fit seamlessly in with users’ timelines because they focus on videos, images, and other visual content like the Carousel. Visual ads carry the ability to convey messages that are aspirational.

These ads are displayed to a vast audience that stretches around the globe, but with granularity unparalleled by other online advertising opportunities.

Take the “lookalike audience” for example. Facebook allows you to upload your own customer data.

Then, the social network matches your data with data gathered by third-party brokers to double your potential reach without diluting your targeting.

Paid social is also affordable. When your budget can vary widely based on your messaging, scope, and the objectives of your campaign, affordability is a great boon, especially for small businesses and startups.

But wait–before you try to side with Facebook in the great Google vs Facebook advertising debate, make sure you get the other side of the argument. Keep reading to learn about how Google AdWords can help your business.

Google AdWords: Paid Search

Every second of every day, Google processes an average of more than 40,000 search queries. Why would you want to use paid search?

Whereas paid social helps customers find you, a paid search like Google Adwords helps you find customers. Google does this by allowing brands to bid on keywords in order to display their ads.

If you’re new to keywords, they’re specific phrases (long-tail keywords are best these days) that users include in their search queries. The hope users have is these keywords will lead them to a solution to their problem.

The hope brands have is these keywords will help identify them as the providers of that solution. When that happens, Google displays a brand’s ad in the search engine results page (SERP) along with the organic (unpaid and harder to rank) results.

The greatest thing about Google Ads is that not only is it the largest PPC (pay-per-click) platform, but it offers a level field. Ad placement isn’t based solely on a budget, but rather on ad relevance and quality.

Certain keywords may still cost more than others, usually depending on industry, but brands won’t be charged more for a keyword than other brands based on their size. One of the main indicators of quality is CTR (click-through rate).

The reason Google cares so much about CTR is when a user clicks on an ad, Google gets paid whatever the displayed brand bid for that click. There are two networks within Google AdWords.

The search network displays text-based ads in SERPs across the entirety of Google. The display network offers a more visual experience, usually in the form of banners.

Google’s vast audience size with both audience size and search accuracy on the increase thanks to developments like their RankBrain algorithm, along with its wide range of ad formats make paid search with Google AdWords a versatile and powerful digital advertising opportunity.

Which one is right for you? If you’re still not sure, keep reading and we’ll help you decide.

Decision Time: Facebook Ads Vs Google Ads

Now you know the differences and benefits of both types of digital advertising: paid social and paid search. But between Google vs Facebook, which will you choose?

The best news is you don’t have to choose. You can use both of them in concert.

By using them both, you can maximize your online visibility. Find customers and help customers find you simultaneously.

This can lead to increased leads and sales coming from both search and social. You can even test out differing strategies for each platform to realize a maximized return on investment or ROI.

But, if you really want to decide one over the other, Facebook vs Google ads, for monetary or time budgeting reasons–or any other reason–we can still help.

One quick aside before we determine your best course of action. Are you an online business looking for revolutionary ways to improve the SEO of your website? One solution that everyone is talking about is competitor analysis in seo. Just click the linked article to find out how to get started. By researching your competitor’s websites you can gather useful information such as keywords and links that you can then apply to strengthen your own digital output.

You Should Use Google AdWords…

If you have specific keywords that users would search to find your product or service – which is most companies. Being able to sort an audience by the right keywords may be critical to your targeting. Google can find new customers based on their search intent, rather than guessing what behavior, interests, and demographics your target audience might have.

You Should Use Facebook Ads…

If you can easily target your audience based on demographics, interests and behaviors, Facebook ads can work for your business. Whether it is lead generation, ecommerce, building an email list, gaining brand awareness, or other business goals. For example, if you sell baseball fan t-shirts, targeting baseball fans on Facebook can work well. However if you sell a very specific type of shirt that is custom ordered and only in a few specific sizes and colors, targeting this by keyword searched on Google Ads may be better than trying to target the right audience through Facebook ad targeting.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know what both paid social and paid search have to offer, maybe you’ve decided to go with Facebook ads vs Google ads or vice versa. Perhaps you’ve decided you’re going to explore both opportunities. Most advertisers use both.

Either way, it’s natural to still have questions about how these platforms work and how to create ads that deliver a positive ROI. If you have questions, we welcome you to contact us.

We’d love to help you find customers…or help customers find you.

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