What
They Have in Common
With either platform there is no minimum budget. You
can spend as little or as much as you like. Both offer cost-per-click (CPC) and
cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) ad structures. You can also easily target
audiences geographically, focusing on local consumers, people across the US or
audiences across the globe. Both allow you to create your own ads and both give
you analytics to measure your campaign results quickly. And either option makes
it easy to stop and start any advertisement.
How
They Are Different
What is more interesting is how these two ad
platforms vary. It is their differences which will help the marketer decide
when to use each platform.
The biggest distinction between the two is how each
delivers the audience. Google Ad Words allows advertisers to target their ads
according to specific key words that they choose. Anyone who performs a search
for that keyword will see their advertisement. (Note, this is the wide theory.
In practice, this is dependent upon how much you have bid for that keyword, how
much others have bid, etc.) In Facebook, ads are selectively shown to audiences
with the specific demographic and psychographic parameters chosen by the
advertiser.
In the former, the consumer is actively seeking
specific information related to a product or service, but this can be any
consumer within the advertiser’s delineated geographic parameters. In the
latter, the only consumers who will see the ad have already been determined to
have the right demographic and psychographic distinctions, but they are most
likely not actively searching for information about a product or service.
This is a notable distinction because in the Google
environment the ads create options for which the consumer is looking. In the
Facebook platform, the consumer is more often looking to engage with friends,
not advertisers.
Which
is more effective?
Well, that depends. Facebook allows advertisers to
message an audience over time and build mailing lists (Mielach, 2012).
Facebook also tells a consumer who of their friends is already a fan of an
advertiser (ibid., 2012). If the marketer is looking to build a relationship,
Facebook is a better choice than Google Adwords. When the advertiser is looking
to compete directly with other providers and be included in the consideration
phase of the sales funnel, Google Ad Words, is more suitable. It is no wonder Google and Facebook are neck and neck in revenues in the ad biz. They function from two theories of advertising. Google’s success is built upon offering the right solution at the right time. Facebook’s success is based on influence and long term relationships. Both theories of advertising have proven to be valuable. There is a time and a place for both.
References
Kim,
L. (2012, January 23) What [sic] industries contributed to Google's $37.9 billion
in 2011 revenues? Wordstream.com. Retrieved from http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/01/23/google-revenues
Mielach,
D. (2012, June 29) Should your small business advertise on Facebook? Business News Daily Retrieved from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2771-facebook-ads-effectiveness.html
Tsukayama,
H. (2012, February 1) Facebook IPO: How does Facebook make its money? The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/facebook-ipo-how-does-facebook-make-its-money/2012/02/01/gIQAL03yiQ_story.html
