Facebook ads and Google ads are two giants of Digital Marketing advertising. There are lots of factor that can help you decide where to put your precious budget.
Let us try to understand these factors.
The first question that arises when a business decides to invest in paid advertising is to advertise on Google or Facebook?
- Which platform will work best for me?
- Where should I spend my ad money?
There is no one answer to this, it may be either of the two based on certain factors or may also be a combination of the two depending on your product or the kind of promotion you are looking for.
There are two methods of Targeting in paid advertising
1. Keyword-based
2. Audience Based
Keyword-based advertising is offered only by Google. In this type of ad, a user types the words related to what he wants on the Google search engine. The search engine quickly scans the entire web to bring the most relevant content.
This type of user has a higher intent of buying because you are presenting your product before him when he is actively searching for it.
The Audience based advertising is used both my Google and Facebook. So does that mean that Google has an edge because it can offer both the type and facebook only one? No, not really.
Facebook has more than 2 billion users. All these users have entered all voluntarily or involuntary data into their accounts. It also encourages them to frequently update their information. This gives facebook greater insights into the profile of the users. Hence, it is a far better tool to target your audience based on their preference, likes, hobbies, and other parameters.
So to summarize the majority of internet users are available on both the platforms and both are proven, performers. So how does one decide which platform is better for them? Let us understand some evaluation criteria.
- Digital Advertising Budget & Acquisition Costs
- Industry and Competition tracking
- Clearly defined Objective
- Customer buying stage
- Brand awareness and volume of Search online
- Customer Demographic and Preferences
Digital Advertising Budget & Acquisition Costs
It is important to be clear about the budget that you are willing to spend on your campaign. This number depends on your product ticket size (avg. good value) and your marketing budget, as well as on your realistic customer acquisition cost.
E.g.: if you want your customer acquisition cost to be Rs.300, but you spend Rs.100 only to get your customer to your site. Then you will need to convert a third of your visitors just to break-even.
Hence, always fix your campaign budget first prioritizing the keywords with higher intent and moving towards keywords higher in the funnel.
This will ensure better ROI and an optimized budget which can be then used in a future campaign.
Industry and Competition tracking
The cost of keywords may change from industry to industry. So it is important to use Google keywords planner and other such keyword tools to analyze the keywords that would be the best fit for you before planning an advertisement.
PPC is the fastest and most effective form of digital marketing in terms of delivering results. But if you are in a competitive industry the cost of a keyword may be too high in terms of cost per click and may balloon you ad-budget.
If your CPC is Rs.200 and per day budget is only Rs.1000. then you will manage only 5 clicks per day. This might not make sense for you because you may want to make thousands; if not lakh impression per day with higher clicks per day to understand what is working for you.
In such a case, Facebook may be a better choice and would make more sense because it has a high targeting feature, where you target people based on their choices, preference, and demographics better at fraction of cost.
There is always a higher chance to convert an audience who have visited your website or engaged earlier with your brand. Therefore, to reduce the cost and increasing the conversion you can also target people visiting your website using RLSA (Remarketing lists for search ads) feature in Google ads which is a retargeting option to target people who have already visited your website.
Clearly defined Objectives
The next logical step once you have finalized on budget and have a gist of industry competition is to define the goal that you hope to achieve from the marketing strategy that you wish to employ.
There is nothing better than Google ads if your goal is to generate leads. This of course comes at a price. Google ads audiences have a higher intent to buy because they are actively searching for your product or service.
Further, in case you are looking to increase brand awareness at a low cost then you might want to consider Facebook. It shows your product to a highly relevant audience, who based on their search history, age, demographics, etc, may be more inclined to buy your product. Also through graphic and video ads, you can generate their interest or at least get their attention.
A well-defined Facebook ad has been known to give low-cost lead to advertisers. However, it very much depends on your brand and at what level in the buying cycle the customers are in terms of your product.
Google may give higher conversion (almost double) but check the CPC to determine if it is feasible. And if it’s higher then, Facebook is an equally powerful medium that can give better results if used well. So ensure you are doing your calculations well before leaning on one of the media for advertisement.
Customer buying stage
Buyer’s Journey tells you where in the buying stage are the users. If the product or brand is well known then there are high chances that the most of the users are searching for your product or service, maybe at the later stage of the buying cycle. If you are starting then you may first need to educate the client regarding your product or service.
The client knows about your brand and product and you are just looking to convert them at the right time in such a scenario Google ads are best for you. It helps you be present when the client is looking for your or similar product or service.
But if you are looking to increase the client’s brand awareness or educate the client or your product is complex to understand then Facebook should be your choice to advertising.
Brand awareness and volume of Search online
Depending on your product or service type, maturity level, awareness amongst people your search volume can vary.
For instance, your company is into a product that you are just introducing or your customer has a need but he is yet not searching for the product or service online then there will be little or low search volume. In this case, Google ads based on keywords is not going to give you any result.
E.g. you are introducing a product like Electric cars, people, in this case, are not enough aware of the product to be searching for it.
You might be better off using display advertisements to make customers persuade about the product and its benefits and feature.
More specifically Facebook ads can help you here because they have a very deep understanding of their user’s preference.
Once you cross the awareness stage and people become interested in your product and start searching for it online. Then you can use Google ads to convert these searchers into paying customers.
So in an early-stage product, it is better to target the audience based on demographic and preference rather than intent.
Customer Demographic and Preferences
If your customers need to have a certain characteristic or in certain phase of their lifecycle to need your product for an example honeymoon trip for the package is specifically targeted to newlywed then in that case Facebook is the better option.
Facebook helps you target based on a specific life event, lifestyle, and product they are already into.
Google is a powerful tool for targeting people when they are need of your product, but they still need to search for your product.
In Facebook, you can identify the prospective buyer based on their demographic and target them even if they are not actively searching for your product
To conclude, you might have understood by now that there is no clear winner here. However, when you are planning for digital marketing consider below steps first:
- Clearly set budget in order to acquire new customer.
- Understand your industry and dependency on search in your industry.
- To know the CPC ranges in Google ads do keyword research.
- Check in different circumstance how will your ads perform in given budget.
- Keep testing, evaluating and updating to find the right mix.
