If you have a limited digital advertising budget, which channels should you invest in?
For most eCommerce businesses, the decision comes down to Social Media advertising (ie. Instagram/Facebook Ads) vs. Google Ads (Shopping & Search).
But, here’s the deal: It’s not an “either/or” situation, to generate real growth for your online store, you should instead be asking which one to scale more than the other.
There’s no “one size fits all” answer. Instead, your path will depend on your business details and goals.
In this post, we’ll help you choose the strategy that works best for you by explaining:
- How to best deploy simultaneous Google Ads and Facebook Ads
- Which eCommerce products tend to work best on each channel
- And how you should budget these ad formats for the most profitable campaigns
Google AdWords and Social Media Ads are two popular mediums of PPC advertising. Both are very effective and can play a significant role in maximizing your reach. But, since time and budget are limited, especially for start-ups, going with the one is a better option. Now the question arose, which one are better, Google Adwords or Social Media Ads?
Both these ad platforms have some common factors while some different factors that will help you to find which is the best fit for your brand.
When do you need to use Social media ads?
In short, advertising on social media is especially helpful when you need to grow your brand awareness. It helps you build your community and engage with your potential customers. The main focus of social media ads is the upper funnel – awareness and consideration stages.
Social media ads are especially great for:
1. Improving your brand recognition and building awareness
Even though, in this case, users are not yet ready to buy your product, they will become familiar with your brand. In other words, it’s your chance to show the audience what you stand for and why they need to consider choosing your brand.
2. Getting insights about your target audience
Advertising on social media helps you to learn more about your audience. Based on the data gathered, you can improve your next campaign and optimize your performance and have a better reach of your target audience.
3. Growing engagement rate
In addition to increased reach, advertising on social media is a good way to increase your audience engagement rate. Showing relevant content can help you to attract your audience’s attention and bring users to the next stage of the funnel which is loyalty.
4. Increasing inbound traffic
Thanks to social media ads, you can significantly increase your inbound traffic. Here we are talking primarily about the users from the upper funnel. There is a high chance they are not yet ready to buy your product, but by clicking on your ads, they can find out more information about your company and your products, and sign up for a newsletter.
5. Generating and improving brand loyalty
Above all, social media ads can help you strengthen your brand loyalty. In addition to growing awareness, advertising on social media is a great way to nurture and develop relationships with potential and existing customers.
6. Building a brand community
Social media platforms are a great place for the development of your brand community. Depending on your company’s industry, it might be helpful for your brand to build a community with your audience. Communities can play a significant role in the development of your brand and your company’s growth.
Generally speaking, social media ads are a great way to build up your upper funnel, increase your reach, improve brand recognition, and develop trust in your brand.
7. Trends in social media advertising
Even though Facebook and LinkedIn are probably the first platforms that come to your mind when you think about social media advertising, it is about to change. Although these two platforms are currently most used for advertising, you should not overlook such platforms as TikTok, Twitter, and Snapchat.
That’s right. Those platforms are continuously working on developing new features and functions that could be of use for modern digital marketers.
Hard to believe? Let’s have a look at some statistics!
8. When do you need to use Google Ads?
In short, Google Ads are used mainly by brands for flourishing their lower funnel, in other words, increasing hard conversions.
Keep in mind that the company often needs to invest in both awareness and conversion stages to ensure sustainable growth.
According to statistics, people are more likely to click on the ad of the company they have heard about. Therefore, investing solely in Google Ads might not be sufficient.
Key advantages and reasons behind running Google Ads
Without a doubt, running Google Ads takes a big part of a marketing budget, but the massive reach of Google Ads remains attractive to many businesses that want to scale their leads rapidly.
1. Google Ads are a fast way to gain leads
It takes time to build up your SEO strategy and gain organic visibility across social channels. Google Ads allow you to target warm leads and significantly increase your inbound traffic.
2. Transparency and competition
Thanks to Google ads, you can easily compete with your competition on SERPs by automatically optimizing set bids.
3. Reach more potential customers
With Google Ads, you can set up your ad campaigns on platforms such as Youtube, Gmail, and Display Networks. These platforms have enormous potential reach.
4. Understand your target audience better
Google ads give you many insights into your target audience: for example, most-used keywords, demographics, locations, and other relevant information that can help you build a more specific image of your target segment.
Key takeaways
It is crucial to understand that Social media and Google Ads are rather complementary and should be used in combination since they serve different purposes.
Social media ads are great for building brand recognition. However, they are less likely to help you gain many conversions.
On the other hand, your users have a higher chance to click on your Google ad if they already saw or heard about your brand.
Hence, when it comes to smart advertising, social media ads and Google Ads often go hand in hand.
