Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads: Which Is the Better Option for Your Business?

In 2020, advertisers spent $147 billion on Google Ads and $2.26 billion on Facebook Ads.

The two ad platforms dominate the online advertising industry.

But which is the best option for promoting your business?

In this post, we’ll compare the platforms and reveal which is best for your marketing strategy.

Let’s dive in.

What are Google Ads?

Google Ads allows you to promote your products and services to users on the world’s largest search engine.

For example, if a user searches for “Miami air conditioning,” you can pay to have your business featured at the top of the search engine results page (SERP).

This can be a great way to reach potential customers when they are actively searching for your products and services.

Alongside text ads, you can use a range of ad formats across Google web properties and the Google Display Network, including:

Responsive Search Ads
Display Ads
Video Ads
Google Shopping Ads
Call-Only Ads
Gmail Ads

Google Ads works on a pay-per-click (PPC) system. You only pay when a user clicks your ad.

What are Facebook Ads?

Facebook Ads are the paid ads displayed across the Facebook network. You can advertise to the people most likely to be interested in your products and services based on their interests, user behavior, and demographic data.

Facebook Ads appear like a normal post in users’ newsfeeds with the “Sponsored” tag:

Like Google Ads, there is a range of different ad formats that you can use, including:

Facebook Story Ads
Instagram Story Ads
Facebook Newsfeed
Instagram Newsfeed
Right-Hand Column Ads
Messenger Inbox Ads

You can also choose how much you want to spend per click and set a daily, weekly, or monthly budget.

Alongside paid advertising, you can use organic reach on social media platforms like Facebook to expand your reach and drive traffic to your website.

Check out our social media marketing guide to find out how.

Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads: Head-to-Head

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s look at how the two platforms compare.

Audience Size

Both Google and Facebook have huge audiences.

Google processes over 3.5 billion searches every day and accounts for over 90% of the global search engine market.

Facebook is the largest social media network in the world, with over 1.73 billion active daily users.

Advertising Costs

Cost is a key consideration for comparing Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads.

Generally, Facebook Ads are cheaper.

The average Google Ads CPC is $3.43. But costs can vary dramatically depending on the industry. For example, the average CPC for the travel industry is $1.40 and for legal services is $8.67.

The average Facebook Ads CPC is $0.97. But the cost can vary depending on the industry, time of day, and other factors.

Buyer Intent

While Facebook Ads are generally cheaper, buyer intent is where Google Ads comes out on top. Because people aren’t usually on Facebook to shop.

When somebody searches for a product or service on Google, they are usually close to making a purchase.

For example, if someone needs a mechanic, they head straight to Google and search for an auto repair shop. Using Google Ads, you can get your business in front of potential customers at the precise moment they need your services.

On the other hand, when it comes to Facebook Ads, not many people will remember an ad for an auto repair shop they saw in their newsfeed two weeks ago.

Audience Targeting Options

You can narrow your targeting on both platforms to make sure your ads are only displayed to the people most likely to be interested in your products and services.

With Google Ads, you can use negative keywords, remarketing lists, life events, in-market audiences, and other options to increase targeting.

Facebook Ads also offers a bunch of targeting options, including Lookalike Audiences. This is one of the most powerful options as it uses your Facebook Pixel conversion data or customer list to find the people that are similar to your existing customers.

However, recently, Facebook has restricted the ability of advertisers to control targeting manually. As a result, Facebook advertising is becoming more expensive – especially at the beginning of a campaign.

Campaign Setup

It’s easier to get started with Google Ads.

The campaign setup is much faster. You can use Dynamic Search Ads to create variations of your ad copy automatically. If you want to sell products through Google Shopping Ads, simply add your product feed to the Merchant Center, and Google will generate Shopping Ads for you.

You can also see more detailed campaign analytics when you’re up and running. This makes it easier to optimize your campaign.

With Facebook Ads, you’ll need to spend more time setting up and managing your campaigns. It’s more hands-on, and the rules and dashboard keep changing. Learning basic controls is increasingly complex and difficult.

You’ll need to keep on top of every update and adjust your campaigns to maximize ROI.

Censorship

There’s also the issue of censorship when it comes to Facebook. It’s not just controversial groups or pages that have been censored or de-platformed by the social media giant. It’s becoming a problem for just about anyone.

Looking at Google Trends, there’s been a significant increase in the number of people searching for “Facebook Ad account disabled” over the last few years:

Image Source

Facebook has made censorship central to the platform and shown that it’s unwilling to change unless forced to. But advertisers have the power to make the current system of censorship unprofitable – by taking their advertising dollars elsewhere.