Digital advertising is more accessible than ever, with low costs and easy set up. It means that almost any business can take advantage of online advertising, regardless of size or experience.
Google Ads and Meta Ads (Facebook, Instagram, and more) are two of the biggest Pay Per Click (PPC) ad platforms currently available. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and each one will reach a different kind of audience, target different parts of the customer journey, and incite varying responses.
In an ideal world, many businesses may want to run both, but with budget and time constraints, which is the better option for your business right now?
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Cost and Return on Investment (ROI)
When compared to traditional advertising media such as print and TV adverts, all digital advertising is cheap. Instead of paying hundreds – or even thousands – of pounds for one advert in a newspaper that may be hidden amongst dozens of others, you can instead spend a few hundred pounds reaching highly targeted audiences.
But is Meta or Google the better option when it comes to cost and ROI?
It really depends on what you’re measuring, your industry, and the kinds of ads you’re running.
In general, Meta is considered to be the cheaper option, especially when you look at Cost Per Click. However, you also need to consider what those users are doing once they’ve interacted with your ad. Do they need to be served adverts more times before they buy? Do they convert once they land on your site?
You should also consider the cost of creating an ad. Because Meta’s platforms (like Facebook and Instagram) are generally more visual, and you’re often targeting a cold audience, you’ll need to invest more in creating your adverts to ensure they hit the mark.
In general, users who click on a Google advert are further along the customer journey than those who click on a Meta advert. So even though the CPC may be higher, those from Google might require less encouragement (i.e. fewer ads and a smaller portion of your budget) to buy from you. But if your goal is to raise awareness, then Meta’s ads may represent better value.
Also consider the industry you’re in, as cost will vary depending on this. In a 2023 study, the Food & Beverages industry had the lowest CPC on Facebook (Meta). In 2024, a similar study for Google found that ecommerce was cheapest.
Ultimately, there is no right answer to this one, but you can be more-or-less sure of good value when adverts are well set up on either platform.
Winner: Draw
Ease of use
If you’re a beginner or a basic user of online advertising platforms, then ease of use is important. No one – even the experts – wants a complex set-up in order to run the most simple of ads.
To get the best out of either platform, you will always need to know the basics, so there will be a learning curve either way. Both also offer simplified set-ups that allow you to quickly run ads without too much effort.
However, if you want to gain more from your ads set-up, most will find Google’s interface easier to work through, especially as it continues to introduce more AI-generated ads options. Meta’s range of options can be a huge advantage for experts, but for beginners it can be detrimental to its ease of use.
Winner: Google Ads
Customer journey
Customer journey will be one of the big factors that affects which platform is better for your business. So, before setting up your ads, make sure you’re clear on who you want to target and why. Are you raising brand awareness? Do you want to capture an audience that is almost ready to buy?
On Meta, users aren’t generally actively looking to buy, which means that the wrong kind of advert can be jarring. You may even put potential customers off if you present them with an advert designed for warm leads (someone who has already interacted with your brand). However, Meta is an excellent platform for making a cold audience (those who don’t know anything about you) aware of your brand.
Over on Google, however, you’re generally targeting users who are already searching for something specific. Users on this platform could be almost anywhere on the buyer’s journey, but the use of certain words and phrases indicates how likely they are to purchase. You can specifically target those phrases, or Google’s machine learning can do the work for you. Either way, you can often convert these warm leads into paying customers more quickly.
Winner: Meta for brand awareness, Google for high purchase intent
Audience targeting
If you’re looking for the biggest possible audience, then Google undoubtedly has it with over 5.9 million searches every minute and more than a billion users across its products. Comparatively, Meta claims to have over 3 billion monthly active users worldwide across its platforms, though how it calculates this is questionable. Nonetheless, it’s no small fry either.
Ultimately, for volume and activity, Google has the edge but, again, things aren’t so black and white. Meta’s targeting options are more comprehensive and you can really drill down into your ideal client, targeting by interests, location, behaviour, connections, and demographics. You can choose to target those who like your business page or who like your competitor’s page, those who visit your website, contacts from your mailing list, lookalike audiences, and much more.
Google, while it has audience targeting options including interests, demographics, in-market behaviour, similar audiences and locations, doesn’t go quite as deep. It focuses on machine learning, which has its advantages and disadvantages.
Both platforms allow you to make use of remarketing and retargeting so you can follow up on potential leads.
Winner: Meta
Ad placement
Where you place a digital ad will affect how (and if) your target audience will interact with it. With Google, you can place ads on the search engine itself, or on one of its partner sites. Ads can show up above organic search results, in the sidebar, on YouTube videos, in Gmail, and across any number of other sites.
Meta has numerous places it serves ads within its platforms, depending which social site you’re using. Placement options include within Facebook and Instagram feeds, on the Facebook sidebar, in Facebook Messenger, and in Instagram reels. You can also advertise on Meta’s expanded Audience Network, a number of mobile apps where your adverts can be served to a wider audience.
So, although both have plenty of placement options, Google’s reach is much wider.
Winner: Google
Ad format
The way your ad looks is important and will vary based on your customer base and your service or products. While visual ads are generally more appealing and eye-catching, Google’s most popular type of ad – the Search Ad – is text only.
Both Meta and Google have a range of ad formats to choose from, ranging from text-only to image and text, to video. But it’s Meta that allows for more creativity and variance in the visual elements of their ads.
Winner: Meta
Conclusion
Meta’s in-depth audience targeting is a definite advantage, especially if you have a clear idea of who you want to target. Yet Google makes it easier to catch leads that are already warm and have some intent to purchase.
If you can afford to advertise on both platforms, then that is ultimately going to be your best option. That way, you can take advantage of the benefits of both, and plug the gaps where each falls short.
However, chances are that you’re reading this guide because you only have the time and/or budget to focus on one or the other. And I’m afraid the answer is: it depends. It depends on your advertising goal (brand awareness or conversions), your industry, and your understanding of the platforms.
In general, Google Ads will see the best results for the widest range of businesses, so I’d recommend, in most cases, starting there. You can run tests with Google Ads for a few months, then transfer your budget to Meta and compare your results on each platform to find which works best for you.
If you’re ready to dive into Google Ads, don’t forget to read my beginners guides to Google Ads to get started and make the most of your budget.
