The only corporation that sells more online advertising space than Facebook, is Google. According to eMarketer[1], Google is expected to generate $72,690,000,000 in revenue in 2017.
Google Adwords is most useful when you want to place your message in front of people already looking for what you sell. If people are already shopping for what you sell, and there is enough available traffic in Google Adwords, and you can obtain clicks at a low enough price, then go for Google Adwords.
Those criteria can be difficult to meet:
- There may not be a lot of people searching for what you sell.
- If there is a lot of competition, your clicks are expensive.
In the event that you do have an opportunity to profit with Adwords, that does not mean that you should ignore Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads can be a powerful alternative channel for your business.
If you want to create demand for what you sell, use Facebook Ads. That means if there aren’t enough people actively looking for your product (or products similar to your product), then you need Facebook Ads. That’s because Facebook is the most effective platform for advertising to people based on their demographics, personalities, habits, and general behaviors. It makes demand generation easy.
Contrast that with Google Adwords. People performing searches in Google Adwords (especially product or service related services) are in research mode. On the one hand, Google searchers are much more likely to be ready to buy something than people using Facebook. On the other hand, shoppers on Google may cross shop you with your competitors before buying, whereas Facebook users may be more likely to make an impulse buying decision without researching your competitors.
Here are some questions to ask when deciding between Facebook Ads and Google Adwords:
- Do people know about the kind of product or service that I sell already? (If yes, use Google)
- Are lots of people searching for what I sell? (If yes, use Google)
- Is there an ample inventory of monthly searches in Google for relevant keywords? (If yes, use Google)
- Do I need a large volume of affordable yet high-quality leads? (If yes, use Facebook)
- Do I have a customer list that I can upload to Facebook so that it will find other Facebook users just like them and let me advertise to them? (If yes, use Facebook)
- Does my offer work best when people are looking for a diversion? (If yes, use Facebook)
- Am I looking for impulse buyers? (If yes, use Facebook)
- Is there a large, passionate group of people interested in what I offer? (If yes, use Facebook)
- Have I already exhausted all the existing opportunities I have to advertise profitably in Adwords? (if yes, use Facebook)
- Do I have, or plan to create, engaging video content for my advertising? (If yes, use Facebook)
- Do I have the budget and patience to refine my Google Adwords campaign over the course of a couple of months, or do I need results faster to prove the viability of my advertising before I invest more? (If you need results faster, use Facebook)
Many companies can benefit from using both Facebook Ads and Google Adwords.
[1] http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/21/facebook-and-google-ad-youtube-make-advertising-in-2017.html
