Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: Which platform is most profitable

Key Takeaways

• Differences
• Google Ads Pros and Cons
• Facebook Ads Pros and Cons
• Summary

Both Google and Facebook Ads offer opportunities to put your businesses products or services in front of more potential customers, driving sales and ultimately profit.

You can pretty much reach anyone via these just two channels as their placements cover most of the internet, from Search, Shopping, to YouTube, Instagram, Marketplace and more.

They are by far the two most effective advertising channels. The abundance of data that each has on our internet usage means that you can target people as they are looking for products or services.

When it comes to being profitable from ads, targeting where there is buying intent is a must.

There are distinct differences between these channels as well as a number of pros and cons.

Most businesses find that a channel mix utilising both yields the best all round performance when it comes to volume of sales or leads and getting a return that’s profitable.

The percentage split across the channels is the thing that will vary heavily from sector to sector and product to service.

Let’s walk through this in more detail, covering topics like Facebook Ads vs. Google Ads, so that you can make the most informed decision for your business.

Differences

Google Ads is a search first ads platform, meaning that the channel is powered by users coming online and actively searching for products and services in order for an ad to show.

Facebook ads is a display first ads platform, meaning that you are interjecting the users organic experience and showing them content to try to get them off of the feed and into your website.

There are benefits and challenges to overcome in both of these scenarios.

It’s something to consider as already you can see the difference in requirements on creative, ability to define your target audience and more.

With Google search ads, the text or shopping ad will show and the user will either click or not.

With Facebook Ads, the user is able to not only click but also engage with the post, comment or visit your page. This can again have advantages and disadvantages.

Google is a pay per click platform. This means that you only pay when an ad is shown and then also clicked.

Facebook is an impression based billing platform which means that whilst you can see reporting on click costs, you are billed for displaying the ad not only when it is clicked.

Let’s explore the particular channel pros and cons further so that we can have the best chance to create profitable ads.

Google Ads Pros and Cons

Google Ads is the primary ad channel that most businesses use to drive new customer acquisition. It has many advantages, these often outweigh the few disadvantages:

Google Ads Pros

• You can capture a user whilst they are actively looking to buy what you sell
• You can forecast and model performance using Keyword Planner
• Once it’s setup and working, performance is usually fairly stable
• You only pay when an ad is clicked not shown (search and shopping)
• The platform has the best campaign tools and features to drive performance
• You can bid not just for clicks but sales/leads and sales/leads at a target cost
• There’s global reach to expand into and replicate the strategy from your core market
• There are integrations and apps to simplify technical areas like conversion tracking
• You can drive brand awareness with channels like YouTube not just profitable sales or leads

Google Ads Cons

• Click costs can get extremely high in competitive sectors (£20-30+)
• As it relies on search for ads to show, you can reach a ceiling in some sectors where there isn’t further you can scale
• With text based ads, it can be harder to differentiate why your offering, when compared to using video or images
• It’s been around for a long time and people know it works so it can be highly competitive and hard to break into
• If you’re a start-up and there isn’t search volume for what you offer you can’t use the channel

There are numerous mistakes to watch out for with Google Ads.

Facebook Ads Pros and Cons

Facebook Ads is a secondary channel for most businesses, which compliments a performing search ads strategy via Google Ads. There are a number of great advantages as well as challenges when using Facebook (Meta) Ads.

Facebook Ads Pros

• Click costs are significantly lower than search auctions in Google Ads
• You can use video and images to showcase your offering more clearly to the user
• The audience formats are much broader so it’s much more scalable as there aren’t any caps on how much ads can show
• You get secondary benefits from campaigns running such as page followers, tags, comments and more
• The placements available are where people actually spend their time such as Instagram and Facebook
• It’s the most effective remarketing platform to re-engage those who have visited your website but are yet to convert

Facebook Ads Cons

• It’s much harder to qualify if someone has intent to enquire or buy what you’re promoting
• As a display format, whilst click costs are lower, conversion rate is also due the more interruptive nature of how an ad is presented
• You’re paying when ads show not when they’re clicked so spend without a return can accumulate much quicker
• You have to fight to win engagement here and then also conversion so quality creative and content is necessary for success
• Creative gets fatigued quicker so more work is required to establish and maintain performance
• Because users can comment and interact with ads like organic content, you can see negative snowball effect, if the ad experience isn’t relevant or engaging for them

Check out the average costs of Facebook ads in this guide from Shopify here

Summary

As we’ve discovered there are opportunities to drive profitable sales and leads from both Google and Facebook Ads.

Most businesses have a paid media strategy that encompasses both channels, utilising the best of each for the highest performance overall.

Our recommendation

Start with Search as you’re capturing the demand that already exists for your products or services. Saturate spend here as it's where you’re most likely to drive profit.

Compliment search ads by having a remarketing campaign active via Facebook Ads. You can remarket via Google Ads but display network websites aren’t where people spend time or engage highly with new content, so this is more aligned to Facebook.

When you reach a cap in search, you can start to look at more demand generative activity via Facebook Ads as an addition to your effective search campaigns. By having run the remarketing activity, you will have at least some insights to what creative and copy resonates on the channel as a starting point.

If there isn't a search volume for what you offer, you will have to start with Facebook Ads. This means you can drive demand and show the user why what you offer solves a pain point or offers an aspiration.

Getting a profitable return in ads most predominantly comes from having a website conversion rate that can support it. If you don’t have this yet, neither channel may yield a return for you. It’s important to get your house in order before you start to run paid traffic.