Google AdWords and Facebook Ads are
both powerful tools and can both be quite beneficial for companies to use. It is important to understand the differences
in use and functionality between the two before choosing the platform that best
fits your company, or making the determination to use both simultaneously.
Google
AdWords
Google AdWords allows advertisers to
create ads that will run on the Google search page. The set up process is simple and rather
quick. Advertisements are not only
displayed on the Google search page, but also on the Display Network. “The Google Display Network lets you place
ads on a variety of news sites, blogs and other niche sites across the internet
to reach more potential customers (Display Network, n.d.).” The network includes aol.com, ask.com,
earthlink.com and nytimes.com (AdWords, n.d.).
Google AdWords also targets your advertisement to relevant searches. “Using
your keywords, Google's contextual targeting technology can automatically match
your ads to webpages in our Display Network that are most relevant to your
business (AdWords, n.d.).”
Facebook
Ads
According to the Facebook page, the
key benefits to using Facebook Advertising are:
Pages – “Build your Facebook
presence, share content with people who like your Page, and reach new customers
(Facebook, n.d.).”
Ads and Sponsored Stories – “Reach
the people who like your Page and their friends with ads and sponsored stories
on Facebook (Facebook, n.d.).”
Transform – “Transform your website
into a social experience with plug-ins and custom apps (Facebook, n.d.).”
Facebook advertising also allows for
highly customizable placement for advertisements. It is possible to drill down into the demographic
details so that you are able to choose, very specifically, which demographics will
drive who will see your ad. Using
demographics such as age, gender, religion, language, education, connection,
interests is going to result in exactly the desired people seeing your ad.
Great…I
still don’t know which one is right for me!
Like I said in the beginning of this
post, both Google AdWords and Facebook Advertising are powerful tools. How do you choose which one is right for
you? You have to consider your
advertising goals and determine which platform will help you reach them.
Google Adwords is more popular, and
is likely to be the page that a prospective customer turns to when they need a
produc or a service. In short, “Google
AdWords allow you to advertise to people who are already looking for your
product or service (Lewis, 2011).” On
the other hand, Facebook advertising is the clear winner when it comes to
slicing and dicing the audience in order to show the most relevant content to
users. One key differentiator between
the two platforms is the average clickthrough rate of each organization. AdWords averages a click through rate of 2%
and Facebook Ads averages a CTR of about 0.051% (Lewis, 2011). While these numbers are important, they also
fail to show the entire story.
Determining which platform is right for you still depends on what your
advertising goals are and who you are trying to reach. If your target audience doesn’t go onto
Facebook frequently, the it probably doesn’t make sense for you to advertise there.
References
AdWords. (n.d.)
Retrieved June 11, 2012, from https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=adwords&hl=en_US<mpl=jfk&passive=false&ifr=false&alwf=true&continue=https://adwords.google.com/um/gaiaauth?apt%3DNone%26ltmpl%3Djfk%26ltmpl%3Djfk&error=newacct&sacu=1&sarp=1
Display Network. (n.d.)
Retrieved June 11, 2012, from http://www.google.com/ads/displaynetwork/
Lewis, M. (2011, December 28). Google AdWords vs. Facebook advertising. Netwirks. Retrieved June 11, 2012, from http://www.netwirks.com/google-adwords-vs-facebook-advertising/
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