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Google AdWords vs. Facebook Ads
As the battle of Facebook vs Google rages on, it can often be difficult for advertisers to decide where they should focus their attention.
Advertising and creating a brand presence on Facebook has different advantages and requires a different approach than advertising on Google AdWords.
Google AdWords vs. Facebook Ads: Which is Better for your Business?
Ideally, you’ll want to implement both Facebook advertising and Google advertising. While there are a number of similarities between advertising on Facebook and advertising on Google, there are some major differences as well.
Facebook vs. Google Advertising: Similarities
Both Google and Facebook have a massive potential audience, and they both are primarily PPC advertising channels.
Facebook and Google each offer paid advertising models in addition to free online marketing tools like Facebook Fan Pages and Google+ Business Pages. These pages don’t require the marketer to pay, but are still great venues for promoting your brand and products.
The key difference for advertisers to understand between Facebook and Google lies in your purpose—are you trying to promote knowledge of your brand, or sell a specific product?
Facebook vs. Google Advertising: Differences
Facebook sessions usually tend to last much longer than a normal Google search session, which would make Facebook preferred for building brand awareness or sending a specific message.
Facebook also allows advertisers some unique targeting options such as creating a message specifically crafted for fans of Arrested Development, or for college alumni groups.
Research shows that Google is the better choice for display advertising because it has superior CPC performance, improved ad targeting options, and an enormous array of ad formats that Facebook lacks. Ideally, it’s best to try both and discover which fits best with your brand.
Facebook vs. Google Plus: Why Google+ Grows in Value
While Facebook still has the advantage in terms of intimate data concerning favorite movies, books, TV shows, etc for advertisers to use, Google plans on giving Facebook a run for its money with Google+. Google+ allows Google to also collect more personal user data, and with users staying logged in to their Google account as they check email, use Google+, and surf the web, it can be expected that Google’s user data will soon surmount Facebook in terms of value.
Google also has the advantage when it comes to web searches, which the search engine giant is known for. Google AdWords is the ideal venue for business looking to drive clicks and conversions for specific products; Google searchers often have a specific intent in mind, while users often go to Facebook simply to hang out and chat with friends.
Facebook gives businesses a way to connect with users on a social, personal level in and intimate and friendly space, whereas Google is what people use when they are looking for something specific, and often looking to make a purchase.
Facebook’s click-through-rates can be as much as 1,000 times lower than Google campaigns with the same intent.
While Facebook offers traditional ad displays, Google ads offer a number of different advertising options such as the Google Display Network. Google AdWords offers geo-targeting and other additional features and functions.
One powerful advertising option that Google offers that Facebook does not is remarketing. Google remarketing, also known as retargeting, involves showing ads to users based on their past web activity on your site. Remarketing allows advertisers to follow users and show ads to them across Google’s large network of partner sites on the Google Display Network. This pales in comparison to Facebook, whose ads only show up on its own site.
Bottom line: While businesses will definitely want to take advantage of Facebook for developing brand awareness and developing messages for specific niche interests, Google is the venue to focus on for advertising because of its wide array of advertising features and numerous options.
Google+ integration has also enabled Google to begin collecting the same kind of personal data that Facebook has long been coveted for.
WordStream Makes Advertising on Google Easy
The only problem with advertising on Google is that small businesses are often overwhelmed by the sheer number of options available to Google advertisers. WordStream was created to fulfill that need; specifically, to help small businesses manage their Google AdWords account in an efficient and easy manner.
Discover how the WordStream Advisor software can help optimize your PPC campaigns and boost your business—try it free today!
Facebook vs. Google Traffic
While Facebook tends to get more traffic than Google+, Google plus is the site to focus on when it comes to driving traffic to your business.
WordStream conducted a Facebook vs. Google Plus research project in which we measured which social media site drove the most traffic to our site. We then illustrated our results in the Social Media Showdown: Facebook vs. Google+ Infographic.
The results of the Social Media Showdown are as follows:
1st Place: Facebook with 47.26% of visitors
2nd Place: Twitter with 27.51% of visitors
3rd Place: Google+ with 15.42% of visitors
4th Place: LinkedIn with 9.81% of visitors
While Facebook took 1st place for driving traffic to our site, this study was conducted when Google+ was only one month old. With Google+ at this point driving more traffic than LinkedIn, it was clear even then that Google plus was an important social media network to focus on. This was happening when we did not even have a WordStream Google+ page or Google+ buttons on our site!
Facebook vs. Google+ Privacy
Privacy online continues to be a growing issue for internet users. How do Facebook and Google compared in terms of privacy? Check out our Internet Privacy Infographic, which compares Facebook vs. Google Plus privacy policies and settings.
Facebook has long been demonized for altering users’ default privacy setting, resulting in users sharing more private information than they initially realized. Google hasn’t fared much better, receiving heavy criticism for combining the separate privacy policies for each of Google’s services into one, all encompassing new Google privacy policy.
While Google’s new privacy policy doesn’t allow Google to collect more information about users than before, Google is now allowed to do more with that private information collected across different Google services. While many users are less than thrilled with these developments, the new uses of data are exciting for advertisers, who will be able to use this personal data to create more targeted ads for specific user audiences.
