Google Adwords or Facebook Ad Campaigns? Or Both?

Pay per click advertising is one of the most popular forms of online marketing. A well designed pay per click advertising campaign can help improve your business visibility, attract more traffic to your website, and generate sales. If you are considering implementing a pay per click advertising campaign for your business, you will need to decide which platforms will work best for you, one of two options being – Google Adwords or Facebook Ad campaigns, or both?

There are a number of differences between Adwords and Facebook campaigns. One of these is the way the ads are targeted to potential customers. A popular method of targeting with Google Adwords is the use of keywords that are specified by you to target advertisements, whereas Facebook uses information from users’ profiles to target ads to those they think will be most interested.

With both platforms, you are able to target your audience by demographic information, such as age, gender and geographical location, which is gathered by the sites.

If you are trying to decide whether you want to use Google Adwords or Facebook to promote your business, there are a few factors to consider:

What am I hoping to achieve?

What do you want your campaign to achieve? Do you have a specific product that you want to promote, or is it more about increasing your exposure and building up awareness of your business as a whole?

Google Adwords can be a highly effective means of promoting individual products and services, as it targets people who are actively looking for the specific search terms you choose. This means there is a good chance that when someone sees your Adwords advertisement, they are already looking for the product you are trying to sell and are ready to buy it. This can lead to quicker short-term gains for well-targeted individual campaigns, but potentially may benefit your business less in the long-term, when it comes to building your overall brand and following.

Facebook generally takes a broader approach. As it is so widely used as a social media platform, using Facebook advertising may be more effective when it comes to building your brand and increasing customer engagement with your business.

When the majority of people visit Facebook, they are using it to catch up with their friends and family, and they may not necessarily be looking to purchase something then and there.

This means there will probably be less of an instant payoff for a Facebook campaign, but as people generally spend more time on Facebook than they do on Google, there is more opportunity to expand their awareness of your brand.

The benefits of using both

If you are still unsure which to use, you can always try both. Using both Facebook and Adwords can help you enjoy the benefits of each, and find out first hand which is best for your business and the specific product you are trying to sell. Many businesses use Google for targeted more specific campaigns, and Facebook as a means of raising their brand awareness and engaging with potential customers.

The right pay per click advertising platform for your small business depends on what you want to use it to achieve, as well as where your potential customers spend time. If you aren’t sure what will work best for you, seeking professional advice may be a good option, to ensure you get the most value out of your pay per click budget.