Google Ads vs Facebook Ads
Advertising plays an important role in shaping a brand’s identity. Advertising a product or service has been in the play since ancient times right when people started sharing their products and spreading the news about it through word of mouth. This was the first-ever marketing and advertising tactic used by people. Later on, emerged other means of advertising. Print and voice media marked the beginning of the era of extensive advertising. Every successful social media marketing plan comes with the choice and the options available for the brand to advertise their products. Social media for business by itself means that the platform is being used to spread the word about the product or the service.
It is a common practice of social media managers to analyze and arrive at a conclusion as to what social media platform will help them grow their business. The advertising industry is booming with creativity and innovation and countless options to portray a product such that it lures the customers.
Speaking of the types of platforms used for advertising, we have Facebook Ads and the Google ads. Though there are other effective platforms as well, these two are predominantly used by marketers across the globe. These platforms help achieve visibility, leads and sales. Adopting various strategies involving these platforms can help find new customers.
So before that let’s try and understand the basic difference between the two types of ads platforms. Google AdWords is a paid search platform where it deals with PPC advertising. This paid search focuses on optimizing your content using the AdWords or the keywords. This tool helps you find the apt and trending keywords for your product and each time a viewer clicks on the keyword, the advertiser is charged. These words are taken based on bids for each of them.
On the other hand, Facebook ads are much simpler and are a widely used tool. It is simple to understand how it is different from that of AdWords. Unlike AdWords where businesses find customers, Facebook’s algorithm and the advertising set up is such that users find the businesses. Facebook is one of the biggest people platforms and to advertise there is like reaching millions of people who might be potential customers. Users in Facebook are allowed to access advertisements based on their likings and the activity of their feed.
But before proceeding to which one is better, let us understand why is online advertising important?
- For an effective social media marketing plan
- To create a brand awareness
- To spread the word about the product/ service
- Push potential customers to make a purchase
- To attract new customers.
So let’s dive back to which one is better for your business. One thing to understand before deciding is that every business requirement is different and so are the customers. And so about where those customers come from or which platform are they active on. Both of these platforms have different intents and different advantages.
Using social media for businessis a great option. So which one to choose anyways? Here are a few things you need to answer before you decide what platform to choose for your business.
Define your company goal and objective. Jot down the purpose of your company’s existence and what kind of customers would you like to target. What is your end goal? There are three answers that you might arrive after these:
- If you want sales, leads and other aspects related to that, both the platforms are good to invest in. Both the platforms have a strong customer base and so you can reach out to your existing customers and new prospects easily.
- If you are looking to only create brand awareness and following for your brand, product or service, then Facebook is where you have to concentrate. With an enormous number of users that this platform has got, you will be overwhelmed to see the results out of it.
- If you are someone dealing with say heavy electronics and want to make a direct sale then AdWords is what you should concentrate on. Though even Facebook can help you sell directly, Google helps you have a better experience in terms of dealing with customers for such goods.
Though there are so many reasons as to why you should or should not use a particular platform, the main reason always lies with the company or the brand objective and this helps you form a great social media marketing plan. Define your target audience, find what platform do they use the most and then pick your choice. Whatever is the choice, you will do great with the right tactics and good knowledge to manage the social media handle.
Author Bio:
Sorav Jain is a content marketer and blogger, and the founder of soravjain.com. He helps businesses increase their online presence through optimized and engaging content. Find him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
