What is The Difference Between Google Ads & Facebook Ads

The strategy of how we approach advertising on Google &Facebook is totally different on each platform, and our recommendation can vary from industry to industry.

The truth is, one will work better than the other. But if you have the opportunity and the resources, its great to do advertising on both simultaneously, so that you can give your customers the impression that you are literally everywhere, essentially we can manufacture fame in your local market using a combination of multilevel targeting. Coke and Pepsi do this as well, they have ads literally everywhere, but as a small business, you want to prioritize your ad placements and start from somewhere. First, let’s talk about how each of them are different.

I’m going to use a wedding photography business as an example.

Google Marketing Strategy Route

On Google, the way we advertise businesses is fairly simple. We put ourselves in our customer's shoes and start thinking about what terms they would use to find our clients services. During our consultations with our new clients, we take a lot of notes and really dive deep, so that we can understand the various terminology used to describe our client's products and services. So if our client is a wedding photographer, we are going to ignore keywords like “real estate photographer” or “baby photographer” we may even avoid the term“ photographer + client’s city name” because its not specific enough and can waste the clients marketing budget while giving them leads that they are not interested in servicing. So to be as accurate as possible, we are only going to target the terms that include the word “wedding” in the search phrase.

For example, if anyone searches on Google for the terms “wedding photographers Toronto” we’ll create Google ad campaigns that help our client’s website show up at the top of the Google search results page. After we select relevant keywords, the next step, is, to create the most amazing page inexistence so that when people click on our clients Google ad, they end up on a page that is specifically designed to convert them from a browser into a customer, via phone call or email. This is what we call a landing page.

A landing page is a page specifically designed for a specific marketing campaign. The benefit of Google ads is that people are further down the buying cycle on their journey. If someone is Googling the term wedding photographers Toronto, we can assume that they are between the ages of 27-40, male & female, with a relationship status of “engaged.” What people Google and how they Google can tell us a lot about what stage they are at in their life. As marketers, we can use this info to connect the right customers with the right businesses, providing a win-win situation for all parties involved. The main focus of Google marketing is “keywords” and location. With Google ads, we can choose which cities we want to target and what specific keywords we want to show up for. We can even customize the ad copy in a way that filters out the people we want to avoid.

For example, if you are a wedding photographer that is targeting couples who are more affluent, we could add prices in your ads so that the people that don’t want to pay that specific amount, don’t click on your ads. The downside of Google ads is that some niches are getting very competitive which in turn, drives up the average cost per click. However Its still one of the best advertising methods but you have to understand that it’s going to cost money to acquire clients, you better make sure your sales skills and presentation skills are at the highest level possible so that you are better positioned to close all these leads. Otherwise, you are going to burn through a lot of cash. Customers that find you on Google, they are almost ready to make a buying decision, after all, that’s what they searched for. All you have to do is be an intelligent salesperson and present your offerings in a way that makes them feel like you are the best choice out of everyone else in the marketplace.

To go one step above, once people visit your website after finding you on Google, you could show them more ads from your brand once they leave your website and go back on Facebook. These days, people do like to shop around and do more in-depth research before they call or send that email to a business. As they are going about their day and shopping around, we could have ads on Facebook “follow them” with engaging content about the products or services they searched for, so that we can stay in their minds while they are making their final decision. You will see that travel agency companies do this best, you’ll visit their website, and after you leave, you will start seeing their ads follow you everywhere you go on the internet. You as a small business have the opportunity to do this same type of multi-channel marketing that synergistically works in your favour to deliver you results.

Facebook Marketing Strategy Route

Social media has a lot of ups and downs when it comes to advertising, one of the main benefits of social media advertising is the low cost per click, almost pennies per click. The bad news is that people are mainly on social media to hang out and be entertained. So the way we advertise on Social media is a lot more different. We want to come up with ways that creatively interrupt their day and turn their attention and focus to our ad, we only have a few precious seconds before they scroll past the ad, so every bit counts.

One of the main differences with Facebook ads is that we can’t target keyword searches like on Google. Maybe in the future, they might add their own search engine, but for now, we can only target the ideal “audience” of people that are most likely to need your product or service.

Let’s use the wedding photographer example. If we were to create Facebook ads to generate leads, these are the targeting methods we would use on Facebook. We would log in to our FB ad manager account and start choosing our perfect audience of who we want to show our ads to. Here is what some of those settings would look like.

Target Audience

Male & Female

Ages: 28-40

Relationship status Engaged

Location: 40km radius from clients store

This is going to be as close as we get to our ideal audience for this specific example. As Facebook rolls out new targeting features, we maybe able to provide richer targeting in the coming months, but this is pretty much as good as it gets for this specific niche. We’ve done campaigns for wedding businesses using both Facebook and Google ads; we find that Google has been great, Facebook has been great as well. If you are already dominating on Google, Facebook and Instagram is definitely the next best step.

How We Can Use Google& Facebook Together

Let’s say we advertise our wedding photographer client on Google and people visit the site, but they don’t necessarily convert on the first visit, what can we do about this? Well, we can actually create what I like to call “digital follow up” also known as remarketing campaigns. Basically, if you visit any website that does a lot of online advertising, you will start to notice that their ads follow you on Facebook or Instagram. This Is not an accident and is actually a legitimate advertising method used to re-capture peoples attention and bring them back to our client's website. Often customers will take a while to make an informed decision as to whom to buy from. They may check out lots of competitors, and when the finally decide, they might actually forget the company name they wanted to go with. This is why we have follow up campaigns so that if they do forget your business, we position you so that your brand is always just a click away, regardless of where they are on the internet.

Both Google & Facebook marketing are very powerful tools that can help you reach an endless supply of new customers for your business; it’s important to know how to use them correctly to be profitable in your efforts. The benefit of working with an agency like ours is that we have spent tens of thousands on digital marketing across a wide range of industries and niches for our clients, we have greater insight as to what works for each type of industry. So if you are still on the fence as to which advertising strategy you should use for your specific business, fill out our contact form and let us know what industry you are in, we’ll be happy to give you our recommendation.