Thinking about investing in digital ads but not sure if Facebook or Google are more effective? Well the answer is they both can be! The great thing is they can both be super affordable if you use them correctly and support your ads with some other marketing activities too.
Before you advertise…
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just chuck some dollars into the world wide web and make the digital ads do all the heavy lifting! Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Your website is your key to unlock all that converting goodness and to keep your ads cheap. Ads are fantastic at getting the right people to your website but that doesn’t mean they’ll click that final button to make the purchase. The industry benchmark for conversion rates sits at around 2.5%. Before you invest money into ads, make sure your website is optimised to make those purchases as easy as possible and your conversion rate as healthy as possible.
Which should you pick?
This is a great question but depends on a few different factors. If you’re in the infancy stage of your business and just starting to turn those cogs then invest in your foundations first before advertising. Take advantage of all the organic opportunities you can get your hands on. Think email marketing, social media pages, a solid and well built website that is SEO optimised.
If you’re a little further along on your business journey and ready to invest, a great place to start is thinking of your customer. Do people turn to google to find products like yours or businesses that are similar, or perhaps is your core customer hanging out on facebook or are they more interested in TikTok?
Use advertising to meet your customer in those key moments of finding what they’re looking for or discovering the next thing to love.
How much should you pay?
One big difference between the two platforms is how they charge you.
By default, Facebook charges by impressions. This is because facebook ads work on interruption, they interrupt your news feed whilst having a lovely mindless scroll. Buying this ad space works by selective targeting and making sure your ads are seen by the right people. So you are charged by how many times your ads are seen.
Google Search charges by clicks or CPC. You can have your ad seen millions of times and not be charged but again the targeting is key here. As Google search is user driven by their search queries we want the right people to click on your ad and of course convert once on your website.
Understanding how each platform charges you by default can help you understand the media costs and how to budget. Our tips are to start small, put a little money on both and see what results you get. Facebook and Google ads work really well together so if you’re smart about your strategy you can use both to push and pull on each platform and make them work harder for your bucks.
Measuring the revenue your ads generate, whether it’s on Facebook or Google, is very important but your ads can go further in growing your business beyond just revenue. Yes you want to drive revenue from your ads but you will also see secondary impacts follow, such as staying competitive in your niche/industry, reaching new audiences and bringing relevant traffic to your website, growing your overall brand awareness and learning even more about your customers with data. There are many options for digital ads and using them for the right business objectives for you.
Feeling creative and ready to make some social ads? Check out Dane’s blog with some helpful hints on content creation to get you started here.