Facebook Advertising vs. Google AdWords

Google and Facebook together are currently taking 20+ percent of the world's advertising budget across all media. Before we look at the various strengths and features of Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, it’s crucial to understand the primary difference between the two advertising platforms.

Google AdWords - Paid Search

Google AdWords is the world’s largest Pay Per Click advertising platform. Paid search focuses on targeting of keywords. Advertisers bid on their selected keywords in the hope that their ads will be displayed on top or bottom of the organic search results. Each time the user clicks on an ad the advertiser is charged a certain amount of money. Hence the name Pay Per Click Advertising. It's works like an auction or bidding system. The more you are willing to pay for a click the higher on top your ads are going to be placed. And the higher your daily budget the more often your ads are potentially going to be displayed.

By saying that Google also has a quality ad score: Relevance + User Experience= Quality Score.

In simple terms also the more relevant an ad is to the user and the better the experience for the user the higher the ad is going to be placement.

Google offers two primary networks.

The Search Network

The entirety of the Google Search engine where advertisers can place text based ads and bid on millions of keywords. When advertising on the Search Network, text ads show on top and on bottom of the search results when someone searches with terms related to one of your keywords.

The Display Network:

Which offers advertisers more visual ads and also remarketing. This network spans over two million websites that reach over 90% of people on the Internet. It can help you reach people while they’re browsing their favourite websites, showing a friend a YouTube video, checking their Gmail account or using mobile sites and apps.

Google Audience

One of the main advantages of using Google as an advertising platform is its immense reach. Google handles more than 40,000 search queries every second. No other search engine can offer the potential audience that Google can. This vast potential source of prospective customers alone makes Google an excellent addition to your digital marketing strategy, but when combined with Google’s increasingly accurate search results, it’s easy to see why AdWords is the most popular and widely used PPC platform in the world.

Facebook Ads - Paid Social

With the social media network with the highest number of monthly users, Facebook has become one of the largest media owners in the world. Unlike paid search, which helps advertisers find new customers via keyword search, paid social shows ads to the users based on their interests . Similar to Google AdWords the higher your budget the bigger your audience reach or the more often your ad is going to be displayed.

The true strength of Facebook’s lies in the data and knowledge they have about their users and the potential granularity with which advertisers can target.

However, rather than thinking of Facebook as the world’s largest potential billboard, advertisers should consider Facebook as a way to get closer to their ideal customers than they ever thought possible.

Compared to text-based PPC advertising Facebook offers very powerful visual ads. The very best Facebook ads blend in seamlessly with videos, images, and other visual content in users’ News Feeds.

Marketing managers are often impressed with the precise audience targeting options and high return on investment.

Facebook's affordable budgeting = potentially sky-high ROI.

Facebook ads are also very affordable which makes them highly attractive for small and medium business. Especially for those selling online.