Advertising for leads vs brand awareness? What are your options?

Just imagine your business had an unlimited budget for advertising, wouldn’t that be sweet? In that case, you don’t have to consider a media plan, just simply spend it across media channels. 

Unfortunately, it’s not the reality, as business owners/ marketing team, we always have to consider which media channels are more effective and the right choice to achieve our business goals. More often than not, Google Search Ads and Social Media Ads (aka Facebook/ Instagram/ LinkedIn) happen to be in the mix, and there comes the question: which one is right for your business?

Google Search Ads:

An advertising platform that allows advertisers to display ads on Google search result pages. When users search for the products or services your business offers, Google will base on the keywords users use to display your ads. The most common type of Google Search Ads is a text ad, which appears on the search results page. Google also offers display ads, shopping ads, video (YouTube) and in app ads on various Google properties.

Social Media Ads:

When scrolling through feeds on Facebook, do you see those posts with the “Sponsored” tag? Those are Facebook Ads, same practice for Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn.These ads can be targeted to specific audiences based on demographic data, interests, and behaviors.

Social Media Ads and Google Search Ads are both popular and have their own strengths. We just need to make sure to use them to achieve the right objectives. 

Generally speaking, social media ads are good for building brand awareness, reaching a vast audience at the same time. If your marketing objective is to connect with customers, tell a brand story, or build awareness, social media ads will help you do the job. 

Google Search Ads on the other hand tends to be more effective in generating leads. When users search for a product or service, they are likely to be in the consideration phase and will soon make a purchase. Besides that, Google Search Ads have advanced machine learning algorithms, rich historical data, and concise engagement with related ads, which helps your ads target users who are more likely to convert.

With regards to media cost, Facebook Ads are usually easier on the pocket book than Google Search Ads. As of February 2024, Facebook Ads typically have a lower average cost per click (77 cent) than Google Ads ($4.22) (Source: Shopify – https://www.shopify.com/ca/blog/google-ads-vs-facebook-ads)

While Google Search Ads offer a variety of ad formats, text-based ads are still the most popular. We can include images in display ads but they are not as effective as text-only ads. Social media ads are different, they use images or videos to increase the visual appeal of the ads, and tell the story in a more attractive way. If your team has different ad formats and creatives, social media is the right platform for you.

So to answer the question “Google Search Ads or Social Media Ads”, it all comes down to what your business goals are, who you want to target and how much media budget you have. Or maybe a media plan that combines both social media advertising and Google Search Ads is the answer?