Okay, so you’re ready to put down some money to advertise your product or service on the internet. Modern online advertising on most platforms allows you to advertise immediately to whoever you want, without having to wait for the printer or the publisher. But now that you’ve made the decision to advertise, what platform to use? Today we look at the two biggest platforms out there in terms of sheer reach, Facebook and Google AdWords, and try to answer the question of which is right for your advertising purposes.

Facebook Ads: Selling to the Masses

Facebook is the biggest social media platform in the world. As of the third quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2.07 billion monthly active users worldwide according to Statistica. That’s a big market to advertise to, and Facebook has collected a lot of information from each user (from the info they filled out on their profiles, to their interests from browsing and writing on Facebook.

• Best When You’re Selling: Something to a consumer. Facebook is focused on persons, not places or things (like companies or organizations).
• Its Biggest Strength: The metrics. They have very detailed information on not only people (include, but not limited to age, race, nationality, gender, marital status, if they have kids), but also their employment, interests, hobbies, and affiliations.
• Its Biggest Weakness: B2B selling. Facebook’s massive user base is using their accounts for primarily personal uses. Therefore, you’ll see a lot less mileage trying to pitch to businesses.
• How Often to Advertise: Facebook has enormous flexibility with the kind of ads you can run, from monthly ad sets of multiple text and images to boosted posts that can run for a handful of days.
• How Much to Spend: Another strong point of Facebook, it’s a low CPC (cost per click/impression), which can range from a handful of cents to a few dollars. Your daily budget can be as low as 5 dollars and still advertise to a significant group.

Google AdWords: The Crown atop the King

Google Search stands head and shoulders above the competition when it comes to internet searches, and is a gateway as well as an answer machine for over 5 billion searches each day (here’s a live counter). Google AdWords provides sponsored search results (ads) to show at the top when people type in keywords you select (need to know what a keyword is? We got you: SEO Basics: What is a Keyword?).

• Best When You’re Selling: Something that “answers” a question. While many searches don’t ask full questions (or even have proper grammar), they are all “needs.” Because of this question/answer setup, it can work for most things but does shine when it comes to services (though the Google Store Ads work well for products).
• Its Biggest Strength: Based on Keywords. Instead of Advertising where you’re blindly showing it to people, AdWords ads only trigger when people type in certain keywords. This helps immensely because they are already searching for the product/service you provide.
• Its Biggest Weakness: If you want to be advertising in a popular field, especially ones with higher returns, you’ll be looking at steep competition, especially if you’re competing with national brands, and that means very high CPC.
• How Often to Advertise: AdWords run by default 24/7 with a daily budget. When it hits that cap, ads stop showing until the following days budget kicks in. It’s recommended to have a monthly budget dedicated to AdWords.
• How Much to Spend: At the basics, you’ll want at least a budget of $10 per day. You can drop lower if you are willing to use low-traffic keywords, but popular keywords costs easily 1 dollar and can go up to over 10 dollars. So, a budget of $300 is a good place to start, but you may need to go up.

Picking the Right Advertising Method

Hopefully, the above information is enough to start thinking about which business is right for you. If you’re looking for a consultation or assistance on getting your online advertising off the ground, check-in with us at Vision Advertising. We’re a full-service internet marketing company with both social media and Google AdWords marketing programs. Contact us today to get started.