When it comes to performance marketing, “Meta Ads vs. Google Ads – Which is better?” is a question that confuses most of the businesses. The reason is simple – Google and Meta are two giant platforms boasting the most number of users and traffic, in almost all parts of the world. Figuring out which platform and ad strategy works the best for your business is a skill in itself, often paving the way for your brand’s overall growth. In this blogpost, we at Neelu & Co., a top performance marketing agency in Kochi, Kerala, with clients from India and the Middle East, intend to simplify the basics of performance marketing for you by making a comparison between the two: Meta Ads vs. Google Ads – Which is better?
So, you may be wondering as a beginner on whether to choose Meta Ads or Google Ads first to reach out and grab new customers? Well, this comparison may help you decide for yourself.
What is performance marketing?
First of all, performance marketing is all about using paid ads to reach out to a target audience, collect data from the user, as well as generate sales. In Google Ads, you can make use of the text-based search, Display Network for image ads, or YouTube for video ad campaigns. On the other hand, Meta Ads, or Facebook ads formerly, help you reach your target audience from the billions of users in Facebook and Instagram, two most popular social networks owned by Meta.
Audience Targeting
Google Ads is mostly intended at targeting people who actively search for products and services. For example, someone wants to buy a bouquet of flowers in a particular city. He or she may search in google : ”Flower bouquets Kochi”. Here, if you are a flower seller in Kochi, your aim is to reach the top of the search results so that the user may click your link and contact you. But, reaching on top of google search results is not easy, and requires months of SEO work. Above that, Google changes its algorithms often too, like the recent update in March 2024. Here, you can use paid ads to show your pages on top, which will be denoted as “Sponsored”.
On the other hand, Meta ads aim at passive audience scrolling through their social media apps, viz. Facebook and Instagram. They may not be actively looking for any particular product or services, but merely consuming content for mindless entertainment. Here, ads are placed in between contents, in the forms of images, posters, carousels, videos, etc., with the right content to capture the fleeting attention of the user. A CTA is integrated to the ad content, where the user shall submit his or her details for the advertiser to contact them.
Remember, many people share their details absent-mindedly, or with the hope of making some profits out of nowhere depending upon whether the content is misleading or not. But with the right filtering and followup, a certain percentage of these ‘leads’ could be converted to actual sales.
Budget Considerations
Ideally, Google ads may cost you more as there are competitive biddings for keywords as well as placements. If your marketing budget is lower, then it is better to try Meta Ads instead, where you can reach more people with a lesser budget. Remember, just because you reach more people doesn’t guarantee high conversion rates. Using the right content and ad placement strategy, targeting the right demographics, and using strategies such as remarketing are all crucial in your Meta ad campaign’s success. That’s why you will require the support of a performance marketing agency with experience in the field.
Costs, Monitoring, & Optimisation
In google ads, CPC (cost per clicks) and CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) matter the most. This helps you to restructure and realign your campaigns based on the performance metrics. You can also use A/B testing to compare similar ads and analyse which one is performing better. Google ads require frequent monitoring, keyword adjustments to better reach the search, and constant A/B testing to decide which works better.
On the other hand, regular adjusting of target audience and analysing performance metrics is the key in Meta Ads. Performance metrics matter a lot in meta ads. With the Meta Ads Manager, you could get a detailed view on metrics and your cost depends on several factors such as the quality and type of your ad, target audience, objectives, etc.
Real Life Example – “Running Shoes”
Suppose you have a shop in Dubai selling all brands of running shoes. Your google ads should be based on the keywords “Running shoes”, “Running shoes Dubai”, etc., so that when someone searches the same, your shop’s ad shows at the top of the first page of google search results. You may also place image ads of the catalogue of best shoe brands you have in your shop, on the right side of the page. This attracts the attention of the user, who may click your links, either to check out more details or to buy online, if you provide the option.
On the other hand, in social media, you place ads targeting the age group of, say, 18 to 30, and run carousel ads, for example. Each image of the carousel could be a different shoe brand, or of the same brand showing different models. Someone may stop scrolling upon seeing your ad, click the link which may lead to your website or some other action.
A CTA (call to action) is very important in Meta ads, which decides what action someone should ideally take while seeing your ad. It could be as simple as following your brand’s Instagram page to submitting their contact details to redirecting them to your website to make them actually buy the product or something else. You can also use remarketing strategy to continually display your ads to someone who already visited your website.
Conclusion
The number one objective of performance marketing is to generate high ROI (return on investment), whether it is through Meta Ads or Google Ads. When it comes to the question “Meta Ads vs. Google Ads – Which is better for you?”, it could be figured out only based on various factors such as your business goals, audience preferences, budget, etc., preferably after consulting with Neelu & Co., the best performance marketing agency in India. With our help, you may successfully choose the right type of platforms and ads to increase your reach, sales, and ROI, based on the aforementioned factors. If you are a brand or SME based in Kerala, rest of India, or the Middle east, with Facebook, Instagram, or Google Ads requirements, reach out to Neelu & Co. today and get a free audit on how to improve your brand’s reach, visibility, and overall sales.