Which Marketing Medium Be It Social Media Or Advertising Platform Do You Prefer – Is It Facebook Ads or Google Adwords?
Yes…it’s a timely and good question, one which is commonly asked by a lot of people looking to start advertising on the web…
Keep reading because the answer just might surprise you.
Which one is better?
The truth is these are two different marketing mediums…
Both work for different businesses under different circumstances.
What we’ll do in this article is to simply go toe to toe…
There are different points and scenarios wherein Facebook ads and Adwords which may or may not work for your business.
You’ll reach your own conclusion for which marketing medium is actually better suited to your business.
Let’s get right to it…
We’ll start with the buying cycle.
Adwords target “ready to buy” people…
Imagine the buying cycle as a funnel…
You have people on top of the funnel right?
They might be aware of your business…
But just are not ready to buy anything just yet.
The people at the bottom of the funnel…
These people are ready to put money into your bank account…
Because they’ve immediate need for your products or services.
Google Adwords lets you target the people who are right at the bottom of the buying cycle.
People already have their credit card out…
They are simply looking for someone to give their money to.
Facebook Ads targets people in the full buying cycle.
There’s no way to specifically target people who are bottom of funnel and ready to purchase.
That said…
Targeting people who are top of funnel is definitely worth looking into with Facebook ads…
You have potential to effectively do just that…
And generally better results than with Adwords.
What about the marketing reach of Adwords?
Adwords, as a marketing medium has a much broader reach compared to Facebook ads.
You can target people on Google itself…
Google owns web properties including Youtube…
All thanks to their vast network Google has in place.
Facebook is only limited to the social media platform.
What about brand awareness on Facebook?
Facebook is limited in terms of search reach, it’s still the dominant social network on the web, right?
And a great place to promote local brand awareness.
Nearly everyone has an active presence on this social network.
And with good content marketing, you can effectively position yourself as a brand authority in your niche market.
Let’s explore tracking in Adwords…
Adwords has a more effective means of tracking purchases.
And inquiries which is a great results for businesses which rely heavily on lead generation.
You can even track phone calls…
And best of all…
These are all free services and come with use of Adwords platform.
This type of tracking feature is not currently available on the Facebook marketing platform…
Social proof is powerful in Facebook!
Facebook may not offer much in the way of tracking…
But hang onto your hat because most web marketers would agree it makes up for it by way of social proof.
Come up with a good ad and people are bound to like, comment or share your ad…
This builds trust so people are more likely to purchase products or services you’re offering.
Remember there is dynamic insertion Ads on Adwords…
It’s a significant advantage of Adwords over Facebook ads.
And to better explain this powerful feature, it would be best to refer to a quick example…
What if somebody goes to Google and does a search for “Red Hats”.
Okay with Adwords, you can easily insert that exact search term.
Yes, its called dynamic which means dynamically inserts into ad.
The result is an opportunity to create ads which are relevant…
And convinces people it’s exactly what they are looking for online.
Targeting your audience on Facebook…
Facebook offers 3 ways of targeting audiences for marketing ads…
Interest…
Geography…
Demography…
Of course, Adwords offers something similar.
What makes Facebook marketing truly powerful is you can easily overlay the above three to create highly targeted audiences…
And more profitable list of audience to market to.
Facebook offers a means to split test your ads.
Yes, making it so much easier to identify what’s working for you.
Then you have Youtube which is owned by Google.
Google owns Youtube right?
And that’s yet another significant advantage.
Yes, when it comes to marketing with Adwords.
This means you can run your Adwords on Youtube.
Which is actually the second biggest search engine on the Internet.
There are millions of searches done on Youtube everyday…
And Adwords lets you tap into yet another rich pool of audiences.
More sweet choices that you can market to.
Let’s look at the rich media in Facebook Ads…
Facebook lets you create ads which contain rich media.
In either text, images or videos.
You can always combine any of those to create your ads.
So there you have it…
All the specific advantages of each platform.
Of course to really decide which is better for your business, we need to also tackle specific disadvantages of each platform.
Let’s get right to it!
The disadvantages of Facebook Ads and Google Adwords…
Poor overlay targeting in Adwords!
One problem most marketers often have with Google Adwords is while you can specifically target people based via intention…
And what they’re looking for…
There’s currently no way to overlay it all with certain demographics like age, gender or interests.
It means you could waste some of your ad budget tweaking your campaign…
What…no targeting based on keyword searches on Facebook?
This is a significant flaw currently with Facebook ads…
There’s simply no way to target people based on whatever search terms they are using on the social network.
Now, you do need a good website to draw people to in Adwords!
To be truly effective, Adwords requires substantial website to direct your audience to.
You can’t set up basic page to drive traffic and expect good results.
While Adwords may bring you lots of traffic…
It means nothing if your website doesn’t successfully convert that traffic, whether in the form of sales or completing a capture form.
Next up is banner blindness on Facebook…
While Facebook is definitely a popular platform to market your products or services…
Obviously people become bored if they see the same banner and images.
These are limitations which could adversely affect the performance of your marketing campaign over time.
One way to combat this is to always make sure you regularly rotate your ads and switch up your images…
Did you say limited audience with Adwords search?
While you can target people on Adwords based on their intention, there’s only a certain volume of people doing a particular search…
Yes, on any given day regarding a specific topic or keyword phrases.
Scaling up can be a problem as you’re limited to volume or number of people searching for your product or service.
Remember search is based on a certain day which might restrict the effectiveness of your web marketing campaign.
Facebook ads make it difficult to promote boring topics…
Facebook marketing is primarily driven by excitement!
Which makes it a challenge for businesses engaged in selling products or services people don’t find particularly interesting.
Say you’re selling basketballs; enthusiasts are likely to buy your products simply because it interests them.
If you’re a law firm offering legal assistance for a divorce…
Let’s face it, that can be a problem because it’s a subject people generally don’t find exciting or interesting.
Adwords search ads is restricted to only a few lines of text…
This one’s a biggie…
On Facebook, you can write a novel…
Your ad can be a whole article.
Obviously you need good communication and copywriting skills.
You could hire a good writer to come up with content people find interesting and engaging.
It’s a choice and something you simply can’t do in an Adwords ad.
Oops…now look at the content restrictions on Facebook!
As a reputable social network, Facebook uses lots of restrictions on the type of content shared on their network.
This can be a problem for businesses…
What if you want to promote or delve restricted content such as alcohol, weight loss products and adult-related products?
Sorry…if you’re niche belongs to any of these categories Facebook is definitely not for you.
You cannot use Adwords to split out devices by type…
Adwords does force you to run your ads through a wide range of devices which includes laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc…
This could affect profitability of your advertising campaigns.
Facebook ads allows you the option to only show your ads to an audience using a particular device.
Okay…the cost of Facebook Ads can be affected by seasonality!
Ad expenses can spike significantly depending on the season.
What if there are significant increases on the volume of businesses promoting relevant products on the social network?
This drives up your marketing expenditures compared to Adwords where ad spending remains relatively stable.
So there you have it…
Some of the advantages and disadvantages…
Did you make up your mind?
Is it Facebook Ads or Google Adwords?
One marketing medium is not necessarily better than the other.
And as a matter of fact…
It’s a far better marketing strategy to combine and make use of the two if you’re in a highly competitive market.
You can target people on Facebook which share same interests…
Then drive those people to your website for a much lower cost.
You can apply retargeting using Adwords to maximise your chances of getting those people to buy your product or service.
Yes, this drives your total cost down…
While allowing for an extremely competitive business on the web.
You can target “ready to buy” people first using Adwords…
And re target them using Facebook…
This makes it feel like you’re everywhere.
Either way…
Facebook Ads and Adwords are both excellent marketing mediums.
You need only use based on specific strengths and weaknesses.
Google Adwords VS Facebook Ads