The short answer
Usually both. On Google, you meet people who are already looking for what you sell. On Facebook and Instagram, you meet people who haven’t searched yet but could get curious. With an expensive product, where the pool of buyers is small to begin with, it pays to be in both places, with a different message for each.
How is a Google searcher different from a Facebook scroller?
Someone typing into Google already knows what they need. They’re focused, and the ad has to be short, on point, and offer exactly what they searched for. Even there, most searchers are still in research mode, as I wrote in the post on search campaigns that bring clicks but no leads. But they started the search on their own.
Someone scrolling on Facebook or Instagram isn’t looking for anything. They’re in feed mode: checking what friends are up to, watching a funny video, looking for something to capture their interest. There, the ad isn’t answering a question. It has to spark curiosity. I wrote about this in the post on quality leads.
Same product, two people in different mind sets. An ad that works on Google will usually flop on Facebook, and vice versa.
What about YouTube and website banners?
On YouTube, you reach people who haven’t thought about the service yet or haven’t heard of the product. It’s the place to introduce the business and explain, not to ask for a lead. For a product people need to see to understand, like a stretch ceiling or a lighting project, a short video does the job better than any text.
Banners on websites (the Google Display Network) get a split second of attention. The visitor came to read an article, not to look at ads. The message there has to be very short, and its main job is to remind people of a business they’ve already come across.
Why do I advertise on both?
Because with an expensive product, every potential customer is worth a lot, and it’s a shame to reach only some of them. If you only advertise on Google, you’re waiting for the customer to start searching. If you only advertise on Facebook, you miss the people searching right now. On top of that, Google Ads has retargeting advantages (the ads that follow you around) that Meta doesn’t, like reaching a huge number of impressions while paying per click instead of per impression, at a price that can drop to just a few agorot per click.
And the two probably work together. Someone who saw an ad on Instagram might search on Google later or might see a retargeting ad in some app. But there’s no way to see this directly, because you only get a person’s details after they submit them.
A good sign of this is when Meta and Google together report more conversions than the business actually has in its own data. It means both platforms are taking credit for the same lead, even though the last click came from only one of them. Most likely, that a consumert came across the business on both.
Keep in mind that each platform registers results differently. By default, Meta takes credit for a conversion up to 7 days after an ad click, and Google Ads up to 30 days. That mismatch can make the reports hard to compare, but the overall picture is clear enough.
It’s also why I work with a minimum budget: for both platforms to get enough money to learn and deliver results, each one needs at least about $50 a day. I wrote about this in the post on ad budgets.
When is one platform enough?
Sometimes the customer simply isn’t on one of the platforms. Someone who needs an emergency service searches on Google, or even asks ChatGPT, but doesn’t wait for an ad in their feed. And a product nobody knows exists yet barely gets searched on Google, so social media does most of the work.
The most common example is emergency services like locksmiths or sewer cleaning. If you’re locked out of your house, or your sewer just backed up, you’re not scrolling Instagram. You’re searching. For those, I mostly go with Google Search.
And even when you start with just one, the question that you should ask before making a decision is the same: where does more money come in from deals relative to what goes out? That’s the revenue KPI test, and it works exactly the same on Google and on Facebook.
FAQ
Can I use the same ad on Google and Facebook?
Almost never. On Google, the ad answers what the person searched for. On Facebook, it has to stop someone who wasn’t looking for anything. Same message, two languages.
Where will my business get cheaper leads?
It varies from business to business, and there’s no single answer. It’s also not the right question to ask. The question is where leads are more likely to turn into deals, and you only find that out after advertising on both and measuring.
What about TikTok and LinkedIn?
Same idea: ask where your customer is, and what mindset they’re in. A product sold to business managers might fit LinkedIn. A service a younger audience is searching for might fit TikTok. The platform is the tool, not the goal.
