What is the difference between Facebook ads Vs Google ads? Thoughts & Analogy

Hi, My name is Alok Kumar Singh, I’m the founder of AAJneeti, which I have started from a single room in 2014. And today we are a team of 30 young creative minds, working for more than 100 premium clients across the world. Well, history repeated itself, and again I’m writing this from a single room. 😀

I’m planning to write this article for a week but was stuck with our ads, as Facebook updated their detailed targeting section. In their new update they have removed some targeting options after the 25th of August,2020, and just after that our client’s Facebook/Instagram lead generation campaigns stopped performing. So, we went through the entire campaigns and removed flagged options, made some changes, and reduced the budget to monitor the results. Once we will be assured that quality has been restored, we will increase the campaign budget in order to get the desired number of leads.

In case you want to know more about the changes, please visit this link Updates to Detailed Targeting

This article will give you a brief about the difference between leads generated from Facebook/Instagram Vs Google ads.

I will not get into the technical aspects as we have already published multiple articles about How to run Google, Facebook/Instagram ads, I’m listing all those articles below.

• Facebook Lead Ads: All You Need To Know
• How to run Instagram Ads for Lead Generation
• How to Generate Leads Using Google Adwords?
• How To Run Youtube Ads: A Simple Guide for Beginners.

A wise digital marketer understands the power of tracking because if you will not track you won’t be able to justify ROI (Return of Investment) to your clients, remember one thing Tracking & Reporting and justifying the Positive ROI plays an important role in retaining clients.

How to track your conversion? These few articles will help you understand this:

• Conversion tracking in Facebook ads for Conversion/Lead Generation
• How to Set up Conversion Tracking in Google Ads?

Why online advertising is so important for your business?

Look at the above figure, The average person spends more than 5 years and 4 months of their entire life browsing various social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.

We are also changing our habits since 2012, we have increased our social media usage by 1 hour per day (up to 144 minutes). as technology is evolving there are more apps & platforms which we are using. in the last 5 to 6 years user-generated content has been increased drastically and we have started creating more and more.

We have become more demanding, curious & impatient in search of information, product or services.

Now You know, How to run ads on Facebook/Instagram & Google, and now you understand the conversion tracking is very important.
let’s come to the point, as digital marketing experts, we’ve been asked several times from our clients. “So Google ads or Facebook ads, which is better? and where we can generate better leads?
So, most of the time we say, it depends on various factors!

Both platforms are great, it depends on your audience, campaign objectives, goals. let’s discuss your requirements.

So, now we will discuss each platform on basis of objectives:

It depends on What you are selling.

If you are looking for immediate sales of your products/Services trust me there are no alternatives to Google because it’s intent-based.

In the essence of Facebook you are looking for your customer, trying to reach out to the customer, we could say we are hunting for them, you are putting up your information in front of your target audience which you have created on basis of their interest, behavior, etc., you are telling them about your product/services in a form of text, image, creative or some video, etc.

Whereas on google people are finding you and you can display your ads on basis of keywords, Suppose if someone is looking for “Real estate Lead Generation companies” and you are running Google ads, it would look like this:

These two highlighted brands are running Google ads Search Campaign around this keyword so Google will put you on top of the search engine result page, not all users are aware of the ads and they click most often on the very first result.

So, any lead with high intent will give immediate results, whereas on Facebook intent is low so the conversion cycle is longer. you will have to put in more effort. but this is also not always true, it depends if you are into Real-Estate then the scenario will be different and if you selling accessories, apparels then the scenario will be entirely different.

you must be thinking, why this?
Because buying a home is a big decision, it’s not like hmm this flat is nice, let’s buy it. (Bhaiya kitne ka hai de do.)
but buying a watch can be an immediate decision, This looks nice, let’s order.

Facebook ads For Big Ticket Size Like Real-Estate.

Today, a couple of hours back one of client said: “I have always gotten reviews about bad leads from Facebook even from top universities, let alone colleges.”

If your ticket size is big like a Real estate or anything like that. we suggest our client spend 60 to 70% with Google and the rest 30-40% with Facebook. There are plenty of options on Facebook to target real estate.

I don’t know how Facebook identifies but there is an option on Facebook First Tome Homebuyer you can also target on basis of their income. These options drastically improved the quality of Facebook ads for real estate.

If you have a list of people who purchased properties in the past then you can run a Lookalike Facebook campaign. there is also an option Likely to Move I really don’t know how Facebook identifies? but if there is an option we should definitely use it.

Conclusion: If you are into real estate you should be spending on both Google and Facebook/Instagram.

Why one should spend on Facebook ads for Real Estate?

We can target as per:

1. ZIP-Codes
2. Age-Range
3. by their income
4. By Home ownershipE
5. Lookalike audience
6. People “Likely to move”

Strong Return of Investment on Limited Budgets.

Facebook is famous for its wide audience base. today almost everyone is on Facebook from my 70 years old Dad to my 12 years old cousin. Facebook is also widely known as the most affordable advertising platform available today.

You can start advertising from Rs 80. INR per day in INDIA.

Sample Lead-Gen Campaign for my business.

Let’s check another campaign (Real-Estate, Lead Generation)

Imagine, if you are running a Real-Estate brokerage firm then by spending 12,000 INR, You can expect around 500-600 leads every month. and in the worst-case scenario, you can expect closure of at least (0.5 to 1)% 3 to 5 Bookings every month.

Note: This is not the only amount you will have to pay, you will have to pay the agency cost along with this. Suppose if you are hiring us, we will charge a minimum of 10,000 INR per month. (Up to Rs 50,000 INR Spend)

If you will compare the same with google ads, you are not going to get leads in less than in at least 15X of Facebook leads, not less than 300 INR.

Google Ads vs Facebook Ads: Which one you should use?

There is an analogy coming to my mind, Suppose your destination is Mumbai, you have two options available:

1. Flight. (Google ads are like Flight Journey, Does the Job efficiently but charges more)
2. Train (Facebook is like Train Journey, Takes the time but does the Job).

The train is cheaper than Flights but takes more time but does the Job. As I always say that Facebook leads usually take more time in conversion. because of lesser intent than Google ads.

But there is one more thing, if you are traveling you will have to choose between Train and Flight. but here you can choose both.

So all in all, if you will ask me i’ll suggest spending 50% on Google, 25% with Facebook, and the Rest 25% on Re-Targeting your website visitors on both Facebook/Instagram & Google.

You can leave a comment if you have any queries! or write an email to me at [email protected]