For years, Google and Facebook have been positioned as competitors, however, many businesses are leveraging the strengths of their advertising functionalities and adopting different strategies to achieve maximum visibility, increase leads and sales, and discover new customers.
Let’s dive into the benefits of Google Paid Advertising and Facebook Paid Advertising and why you should consider using both in your digital marketing strategy.
Google Paid Advertising:
Google Ads is the world’s largest and most popular PPC advertising platform where advertisers pay to have adverts displayed (whether its service offerings, product listings, video content etc.) within the Google ad network.
Advertisers using Google Ads are able to bid on keywords – specific words and phrases included in search queries entered by Google users – in hopes that their text-based advertisement would be displayed alongside search results. Each time a Google user clicks on an ad, the advertiser is charged a certain amount of money – this is why it’s called PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising.
In a nutshell, advertisers pay for the potential to find new customers based on keywords and search terms searched on Google.
Benefits of Google Paid Search
1. Target your ads
Google Ads allows you to target your ads to reach a very specific audience with specific interests. The platform offers different ways of targeting:
- Keywords: Words or phrases relevant to your products and service, which are used to show your ads when customers search for those terms or visit relevant websites.
- Ad location: Show your ads on Google search results pages and websites that are part of the Google Search and Display Networks.
- Age, location, and language: Choose the age, geographic location, and language of your customers.
- Days, times, and frequency: Show your ads during certain hours or days of the week, and determine how often your ads appear.
- Devices: Your ads can appear on all types of devices, and you can fine-tune which devices your ads appear on and when.
2. Control your costs
There is no minimum; you have full control over how you spend your money and you choose how much you spend per month, per day, and per ad. Advertisers only pay when someone clicks on their ad.
3. Measure your success
Google Ads allows you to track your performance and measure your success. If someone clicks on your ad and purchases your product/downloads your app/phoned in an order – you will be able to track this.
Advertisers can see which ads performed better, quickly offering insight into your campaign to know where to focus, which in turn, can boost the return on your investment.
You gain access to other valuable data, including how much it costs you, on average, for advertising that leads to your customers’ online purchases or phone calls. You can also make use of analytical tools, allowing you to learn more about your customer’s shopping habits — how long they tend to research your product before they buy etc.
4. Manage your campaigns
Google Ads offers you tools will let you easily manage and monitor your accounts. If you manage multiple Google Ads accounts, a My Client Center (MCC) manager account is a powerful tool that allows you to easily view and manage many Google Ads accounts from a single location. This can save you a lot of time.
You can also access and manage your Google Ads account offline with Google Ads Editor, a free and convenient, desktop application that lets you make quick changes to your account.
The benefits of Google Shopping Ads
Google Shopping Ads, which is also known as Product Listing Ads (PLA), are the product ads that you see appear above the organic search in Google, featuring a product image, price and store.
These ads are ideal for eCommerce optimisation as they allow products to stand out in search results and display well on mobile and in image searches.
1. Product Listing ads stand out and grab attention
These ads stand out with simplicity, clear, informative messaging, and visual appeal.
2. Your Google Shopping Ads will perform better than your text-based ads
Studies show that Google Shopping Ads generate 26% higher conversion rates and have a 23% lower cost-per-click than text ads. Google Shopping Ads provide a higher ROI as every rand is focused on targeting the right customers. If a Google user isn’t searching for your product, your ad won’t be shown. In addition, the product images and star ratings displayed makes these ads more attractive to click on.
3. Get better qualified leads from Google Ads
Google Shopping Ads help advertisers increase the quality of their leads by providing relevant product information. Customers can see enough product information within the ad that once they arrive at your website, they’re already familiar with the product.
4. Google Shopping is a lot easier to manage
To set up a text ad, advertisers must select and bid on keywords they want to target. Google Shopping Ads are simpler. Instead of bidding on keywords, Google decides what keywords are relevant based on your product data feed.
5. Benefit from broader reach
Your ads have the potential to appear more than once for a single search query. Since Google selects your keywords, you might find that your product shows up for related keywords you may not have guessed, allowing you to reach more customers regardless of what words they personally type to describe the product they are searching for.
The benefits Youtube Advertising
Youtube is the second largest search engine and works wonders when advertising and marketing your brand online. From easy to access statistics to proven impact on buying activity, here are 5 benefits of YouTube Advertising:
- You can make a connection with the audience
- Opportunity to leverage massive reach
- Can influence buying behaviour
- Easy targeting is available
- Access to the latest Youtube tools
- Analytics help you to evaluate your advertising strategy
- High Return-on-Investment
- Youtube offers amazing Flexibility
Facebook Paid Advertising:
Facebook is home to billions of daily active users, so for brands, posting on Facebook alone is no longer enough. The most prominent way to get the most from your Facebook ad strategy is to create optimised Facebook Ads targeted at the right audience. Optimised ads help you spend your PPC budget carefully, and if done correctly, can influence a positive return on your investment.
The benefits of paid Facebook Advertising
- Facebook advertising is the cheapest form of advertising
- It’s fast, driving immediate results
- Can significantly build brand awareness
- Boosts website traffic
- Increase revenue, sales and leads
- Facebook advertising is measurable
- Increases your customer attribution
- Can lower your cost per acquisition
- More effective than organic reach
- Set your own budget (budget-friendly)
Facebook Dynamic Ads
Facebook Dynamic ads automatically promote your inventory to people who have expressed interest on your website, in your app or elsewhere on the internet. These ads look like single image ads, carousel ads or collection ads. However, instead of individually creating an ad for every item you promote, you can create an ad template that automatically uses images and details from your catalog for items you would like to advertise.
With Dynamic ads, you are able to retarget people who have previously taken action on your site or app, or use broad audience targeting to reach new people who may not have interacted with you before. Your ads will then show the relevant products from your catalog to people when they visit Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network or Messenger. These are called product recommendations.
Benefits of Dynamic Ads:
- You reach more shoppers
- Retargeting allows you to complete a sale
- Discover new shoppers
- Reach people anywhere
- Scale your ad creative
Instagram Shopping
With Instagram Shopping, you are able to tag your products in Instagram posts and Stories. People can click on your tagged products to learn more and make a purchase.
Instagram Shopping offers customers a seamless experience using Instagram ads, namely:
- Stories ads
- Photo ads
- Video ads
- Carousel ads
- Collection ads
- Ads in Explore
You can buy, run and track ads on Instagram in one of three ways:
- Within the app
- Ads Manager
- Instagram Partners
Within the app:
The easiest way to run ads is by promoting them within the app. You can select the post you wish to promote, and then track your performance. You can learn more about this here – https://www.facebook.com/business/m/instagram-promotions/overview
Ads Manager:
Ads manager makes use of the same powerful advertising tools you’ll find on Facebook. Here you can set up, make changes and see results for all your Instagram campaigns, ad sets and ads in one location. To get started – https://www.facebook.com/business/tools/ads-manager
Instagram Partners:
Instagram Partners can help you with everything from buying ads to sourcing and delivering creative. All partners are proven experts in their field and vetted by Instagram. To learn more – https://www.facebook.com/business/marketing-partners