Deciding where to spend your marketing dollars as a small business can be a major decision. When every dollar matters, you don’t want to make the wrong decision and waste even a penny.
The most common decision that needs to be made is which is better for your business: Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads. When it comes to digital marketing, these are the two heavyweight advertising platforms. Obviously, using both would be the ideal thing to do, but if you must choose one, here is what you need to consider.
Google Ads:
Google Ads is a tricky little marketing tool. For many years, Ads was the gold standard when it came to digital advertising. If you weren’t using Google Ads, you probably shouldn’t be doing anything at all. Nowadays, many businesses are abandoning Ads for other platforms, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be using it.
The reason why Google Ads is so tricky is that it’s an auction-style system. Since you are bidding on words instead of giving a flat amount in advertising cost, Ads can take a lot of time to run correctly and, if not attended to, could result in you spending a lot of money very quickly. It also can take a bit of time to find the right words to bid on and constantly adjust your strategy.
Google Ads is also a bit of a bummer because it is passive in nature. What I mean by that is once you set your bids and your keywords, you have to just sit and wait for people to come to you. If no one searches your terms, or your bids are too low for what your term is, no one will see your ad, let alone click on it.
However, that passiveness is actually positive as well. Since the people are coming to you instead of you going to them, they are more likely to buy and can result in higher conversions. For example. If you make an ad for “Chiropractor Milwaukee” the person who is searching for that will likely be looking for a chiropractor to make an appointment, not just for information.
All that being said, if you have the time and knowledge to develop your Google Ads strategy, it is still Google. Billions of searches are done every single day and you’re likely to get a lot of website visits and, if the experience is good, a lot of conversions and sales.
Facebook Ads:
Facebook Ads have become extremely popular over the last few years and for good reason. Once people saw the successes that companies were having, many people started putting more dollars into their Facebook advertising.
Facebook Ads can be much more complex than Google Ads. With Facebook Ads, you have to pick your audience, design your ad with graphics or video, pick the right conversion type, select your channels, set the right budget based on different factors and decide on about 100 other little nuances. They try to make this easier with the “boost post” feature, but even that can be done incorrectly without the right knowledge.
In addition to all of this, Facebook’s bidding system is also very weird and complex. Not only does Facebook take into account how much your bids are for your ad audience, but they also factor in the performance of your ad, how long it has been running, and how much your audience likes it when it decides how much face time your ads get. This can result in much lower conversion rates and can cause your ads to “stall out”.
Despite all this, this is, in my opinion, the better option for most small businesses. For one, you will definitely be spending less money with Facebook Ads. It is nice that you also get to select your own specific audience and can put a very creative and very fun ad right in front of your potential customers face for pennies compared to other methods.
The last reason I enjoy Facebook ads is the experimentation. Getting to play around with different ad types and styles makes marketing extremely fun.
In Summary:
There is a common theme among both of these channels, and that is if you do not have the time or knowledge, your marketing could fall flat. Neither of these marketing channels is just “set it and forget it”. They need constant upkeep, analysis, and adjustments to make marketing as effective as possible.
That’s where a company like us or many others come in.
We have the knowledge and the time to make your marketing as effective as possible. We will be monitoring results and making changes every step of the way, while you focus on what matters most, your business.
