Google Ads is no longer the only serious player in PPC advertising; it has a giant competitor ready to challenge Adwords, and this is no other than Facebook Ads.
Facebook VS Google
Google is responsible for the growth of PPC, and PPC has played a big role in the growth of Google to the size it is today. Google was the first company to look at PPC seriously and took advantage of it by utilizing its huge user base of people either searching on Google or browsing the thousands of websites that have Google Ads enabled (that’s Google Adsense).
On the other hand, Facebook has 3 billion active users per month, so it could not waste this opportunity. With all our demographic information, it has a big advantage over other advertising companies.
Facebook knows what we like and don’t like, what our friends like, the pages we interact with, our relationship status, education, where we live, and many more details.
So, on one side, we have Google, which knows ‘what we want’, and Facebook, on the other, which knows ‘what we do’. What does this mean for advertisers, and where do you put your money?
It will be easier to answer this question by explaining the primary use of each network and the costs associated with Facebook ads and Google advertising.
When to use Google Ads?
Google Ads are essential for business growth. If you avoid mistakes that can drain your budget, they can become a very profitable sales channel for almost any business.
Why is that? Because of Google. Anyone using Google search (or any other products i.e. YouTube), is either looking for information, answers to questions or products and services to buy.
This simply means that users have a ‘clear intent’ and a good idea of what they are looking for, and they use Google to find it on the Internet.
If you sell products, services, or even information people search for, then Google Ads is the right channel for you.
The main advantages of Google Adwords
- You can reach people searching on Google, Partners, and the Google display network (websites using Adsense).
- You can use keywords to control when your ads should appear or Google shopping campaigns to advertise your products without worrying about keywords.
- Its powerful and flexible platform gives you several options to optimize your campaigns and spending.
- Adwords is immediate in the sense that if you have a good product and advertise it to people who want to buy it, you can make sales.
- You can target people based on location, device, country, etc.
- You can now do remarketing with AdWords on Google Search and Display network.
- If you already have good organic rankings, you can use AdWords to strengthen your search presence.
- When people click on your ads, they go directly to your website.
When to use Facebook Ads?
Facebook ads are also a sales channel, but that’s not their strongest area. They are more suitable for brand awareness, spreading the word, winning the social proof game, networking, and connecting with your audience.
When you log in to Facebook, your primary concern is not to find something to buy or to search for information but to see what your friends are doing, read the news, and interact with them.
The fact that Facebook will show a bunch of ads in your timeline does not mean that it is something you want, even though sometimes you may find it interesting and like it.
If you are a startup, small business owner, publisher, event organizer, or non-profit organization and want to spread the word or build an audience quickly, Facebook ads are the place to start.
Main advantages of Facebook Ads
- You can use text, images, and videos for your ads
- You can target people based on their interests and demographic characteristics
- You can retarget and connect with people who visited your website from Facebook or lookalike audiences.
- It’s a great marketing tool, especially for raising awareness.
- You can use Facebook ads to get ‘likes’ for your business page, visits to your website, or sales.
- There are several ways to define how you want to be priced for your campaigns.
- You can do A/B tests by trying different campaigns and creatives for your ad
Facebook Ads VS. Google Ads: Cost
Where do you spend your money? Do you spend it on Google Ads or Facebook? There is no way to know in advance which is the most cost-effective platform to use for your products, and let me explain with an example why.
Let’s assume you sell engagement rings and want to determine which channel to use. By definition, both Facebook ads and AdWords are perfect for your product. Many people use Google to search for engagement rings to buy, and many use Facebook to prepare for their engagement and wedding.
So, both networks have a great audience, and your products are visually appealing, marketable, and suitable for selling online.
Before setting up your campaigns, you do a quick research using the Google keyword tool to determine the average cost per click, which is between $2 - $6. So, on average, you will pay $4 for every click on your ad.
If you setup your campaign on Facebook and optimise it for ‘clicks’ the values are between $0.13 and $0.34 (i.e. the average is $0.24), if you set it up for ‘conversions’ the average goes to $9 per conversion.
As you can see, the results are different and not comparable. The fact that the average cost per click on Facebook is only a fraction of Google Adwords does not mean that the result (i.e., the actual cost per sale) will be less on Facebook.
Why is there such a difference in initial cost?
Google knows that engagement rings are products sold online. They know how many people search for the products, how many ad positions they have, and how many advertisers are available, and this helps them set this price (Adwords pricing is like an auction-based system).
Facebook knows that many people search for ‘interests’ related to engagement rings, but other than the historical data they have and the number of advertisers willing to run ads related to engagement rings, they don’t know how much it really takes to make a sale.
That’s the primary reason why the average cost per click on Facebook is much lower (at the beginning) compared to AdWords. As a Facebook campaign grows, it gathers more performance statistics, and the price will gradually go up.
Conversion handling between Facebook ads and Adwords
There is also a big difference in how the two platforms handle conversions. With Google Adwords, you cannot switch a campaign from ‘pay per click’ to ‘conversion optimizer’ from the beginning. You can only do so after you had some consistent conversions for several days. Google is using this information to calculate the suggested CPA for your campaigns.
With Facebook, you can start with website conversions from the beginning without having any historical information about conversions.
As explained by a Facebook representative I talked with a couple of months ago, the Facebook algorithm calculates the optimum OCPM based on several factors related to the audience and their interactions with the ads.
Their goal is to generate conversions with the minimum possible bid, so even if you set a high bid at the beginning, the campaigns will not use it all at once but gradually.
Going back to the above example, despite the difference in the initial CPC or CPA cost, the only way to find out which platform is best for your products is to compare the actual CPA on both Adwords and Facebook and decide which one is profitable for your business.
As a general rule, any PPC campaigns (on Google, Facebook, or another) that generate profit are good, and more money should be invested. Any campaigns that are not profitable should be paused or changed.
In many cases, I found that the cost of getting a click from Facebook ads is less than in AdWords, but the acquisition cost is less in AdWords. Despite this, Facebook campaigns can still be profitable (this depends on your profit margins), and you should keep them running even if the CPA is more than AdWords.
Should you use both Facebook ads and Google Adwords?
You can use both as part of your digital marketing strategy. They can be used in parallel, and since both platforms have good ways of measuring the return on your investment, you can do pilot runs and find out how much it will cost to convert your business or client.
My approach is to start with Google Adwords using keyword-targeted campaigns on the search network, then with Facebook campaigns to increase ‘Page likes’, followed by campaigns to make sales or gain website visits.
The idea behind this is that with Adwords, results can come faster than Facebook, so you can start to make sales or at least understand your market better. With Facebook's ‘likes campaign,’ you start to create an audience and win the social proof game. Once this is in place, you can use Facebook ads with a different objective (visits to page or sales) to test the waters and compare the results with AdWords.
