Congratulations! You\’ve decided to jump into the realm of paid online marketing. You feel compelled to bring your Hawaii tourism business into the spotlight using on-line ads, but you’re uncertain about the best way to do this. Primarily, you are interested in viewing your options for advertising via Facebook or using Google AdWords. How do you know which platform is going to be the most effective for your business? Should you stick to one platform or should you allocate part of your marketing budget to Google and part to Facebook?
Here is a brief primer on the difference between Facebook ads and Google AdWords. We will review the pros of both so that you can make the best advertising decision for your growing small business.
Facebook Ads
Facebook has over 1.79 billion active users every month. What this means is that a well-designed and visually beautiful ad has the ability to reach an extremely large, specifically targeted audience. Since Facebook is a social media outlet, ads will reach individuals who already show an interest in the product you are looking to advertise. Your target audience is chosen for you by Facebook based on the relevance of how your product relates to the potential customer’s life as determined by the customer’s interactions with other Facebook users and their history of internet usage (favorite pages, videos, searches etc.…).
Facebook ads are remarkably affordable. Advertisers can choose how much they would like to spend, either on a per-day basis or per the overall lifetime budget for the ad (Rates are as low as $5 per the life of the ad). The advertiser is only charged when an ad is clicked on by a potential customer (approximately 27.29 cents per click in the US).
Google AdWords
Google is another platform that has the ability to reach an incredibly large audience. With over 40,000 Google searches every second, your customer base is only limited by the quality of your ad design and your target market. Unlike Facebook which targets ads toward people who already share an interest with your product, Google AdWords allows the advertiser to bid on specific key words that people use during internet searches, or visit certain sites that display ads from the Google Ad Network. The advertiser pays a fee for every click based on the keyword they incorporate into their ad (some words are more expensive than others). When Google users perform a search, those ads that include the key words used within the search will rank higher in the overall search results that Google presents to the potential customer. Therefore, as an advertiser, it is important to choose the most relevant key words possible when advertising your product using Google AdWords.
When advertising using Google AdWords, businesses can choose to create an ad as text only, or a visual component such as images and videos. Google AdWords can cost anywhere from $1 to $50 per click depending on the key words incorporated into the ad, which obviously is more expensive than Facebook ads. However, the success of Google’s Adwords shows why it’s very popular despite the higher pay-per-click costs.
Using Both Google AdWords and Facebook in your Advertising Platform
Most small businesses are likely to find a benefit to incorporating both Google AdWords and Facebook ads into their marketing strategy. Google AdWords will target customers who use searches and key words to find the products they are looking for while Facebook will target customers who already share an interest in your product but may have never known that your company existed.
In short:
Use Google Adwords to:
- Target “transactional” traffic – people who are ready to buy something.
- Display your website on the front page of Google’s search results and other partner websites that are related to your website’s subject matter.
Use Facebook ads to
- Target “affinity” traffic – people that profess an interest in a particular topic.
- Generate future leads by capturing fans for your Facebook fan page
Whichever platform you decide to use, be sure to put a lot of thought into the design of your ad. Be sure you are using relevant key words to describe your product and are choosing images that describe your product accurately. Also, it doesn’t hurt to have a domain name for your website that is relevant to your business and to build a website that is straight forward and easy to use. Once you receive attention from potential customers via on-line advertising, these other elements will be what keep people engaged with your product for years to come.