S5E7 v2: Google Ads vs Social Ads

Welcome back to Let's Talk Social, the podcast that helps business owners and marketers navigate the wild, wild world of digital marketing. I'm Rich Haik, and today we're diving into one of the biggest ad debates out there, Google ads versus social media ads. Which one actually gives you the best bang for your buck, and more importantly, how do you know which one is right for you?

I get asked this question every week when I talk to prospective clients for my marketing agency, and so today I'm going to break it down for you. So, let's start with Google Ads. Google is where people go when they're actively searching for something, whether it's best running shoes for marathons or plumbers near me.

And that's why Google Ads are often called intent driven advertising. You are capturing users who already have a need and they're looking for a solution. And that's why Google ads tend to have a good conversion rate because they're hitting people at the right moment when they're going to search for something they actually need.

So someone typing in buy organic coffee beans online is probably a lot closer to making a purchase than someone scrolling Instagram and seeing a pretty coffee ad. Unless, of course, they've already had three lattes and they're impulse buying at two in the morning, and no judgment if that's you. But, here's the catch for real, is Google Ads can get pricey, especially if you're in the competitive industry.

Some keywords can cost upwards of 50 per click. And setting up and managing an effective Google ads campaign takes a lot of skill. You need a solid keyword strategy, great ad copy, optimized landing pages, the whole kit and caboodle to make everything work properly. Now let's talk about social media ads, unlike Google, where users are searching for something. Social media ads pop up while someone is just scrolling, whether it's LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever it may be. And they're not actively necessarily looking for your product, but the right ad is able to grab their attention and plant the seed of curiosity.

Something I love about the social media ads is that you can leverage media unlike a traditional Google search ad. And social media is all about the visual storytelling and engagement. So you get to show off your product in action, or you can tell a compelling story, or even use influencer partnerships to try to build credibility with your audience.

And if we're honest with ourselves, sometimes an ad with the cute dog wearing a sweater is going to outperform a perfectly crafted Google ad, again, leveraging that media, but social media ads aren't necessarily perfect since users aren't always in the buying mode. Ad conversions sometimes may take longer.

And there's also ad fatigue, meaning people get sick of seeing the same ad too often. They'll start scrolling right past it, which means you have to update the creative, the media portion of the ad on a frequent basis. So ultimately, which one is better Google ads or social media ads? And I hate giving this answer, but it depends.

It depends on your business's goals. If you want immediate sales and you have a clear searchable product or service. Google ads may be your best bet. If you want to build brand awareness, engage with your audience and drive long term loyalty, play that long game, social media ads are going to be your friend.

The ultimate best thing, especially when the budget supports it, is use both. My typical recommendation is if you're on a low budget, and especially if you're a service based business, Google ads are going to be the route. But I always say, if you have the budget. To do it, we can play the long game with the social media ads, you know, conversions might take a little longer, but your brand is now front of mind for that person while also running the Google ads.

So getting those direct conversions right as somebody searches for it. So yes, the magic is in combining the two of them. Imagine someone clicks on your Google ad, but doesn't buy right away. Later they're scrolling Instagram and then boom, there's your ad again.

Now they recognize you, they trust you, and they're way more likely to buy. Especially when you bring in the retargeting campaigns, so if someone clicks on your Google ad and then goes over to your website and then doesn't convert, we have the option to target them on social media. You can target anyone who's been to your website over the last 15, days, whatever you want to do.

And they can start to see your content there as well. So it's a great, uh, one two punch to make sure that we are performing at the absolute highest level. Social media ads are typically, you know, the big shiny thing that a lot of people want to move in for, but as it still stands, um, for almost 15, 20 years now, the Google ads are just something that have been just a very reliable, unbeatable source, uh, but as I mentioned earlier, if you're in a very competitive market, it's going to be hard to run Google ads and to have them be successful on a smaller budget.

Google is bid based, meaning If it costs 10 bucks a click, but your daily budget is only five, you're going to have to wait for everybody who has at least 10 in their daily budget to spend that money run out. And then finally your ad will have the opportunity to be served. So the big guys win first, unfortunately, and the little guys are always scared to spend more money out of the gate.

And it seems like reverse logic. They want to start small and then grow it up. I actually have the opposite thought, uh, camp where. I say, let's start at a medium to large sized budget. Let's get some good traction there, build up our baseline of sales, and then we can start to make some educated decisions after the fact.

Social media ads are also, they also ride daily budgets, but it's not necessarily bid based. There's so many people inside of a certain market. Uh, you know, if I target just my city, and then I do just females, and then I do just between ages 25 to 34. I might end up with 20, 000 people. Eventually, all 20, 000 of those people are going to see my ad.

You know, it's just going to take a while to get there. Google's different because there's only, let's say, out of those 20, 000 people, maybe only 10 a day searched for one of my keywords that I wanted. So, again, there's, there's two sides of the spectrum here. And if possible, the budget supports it. You want to be playing on both.

And if you're a small business and you're not a retail store, and you don't have e commerce, Um, if you don't have e commerce and you're a retail store, social media might be the way to go. If you do have e com or you're a service based business, I 100 percent would recommend Google Ads if we are spending less than 1, 000 a month.

Um, you know, it's always a good thing when we hear someone say they're willing to spend 6, and then we get to split, you know, 6, 000 to Google Ads and Facebook or whatever that looks like. And so we get to get the play on both sides of the field there and really get the best bang for our buck inside of the entire budget.

And something that's kind of synonymous with Google versus social media is the same thing with, like, Google Ads versus SEO. SEO is kind of synonymous with social media ads. It's the long game. SEO takes a while to build up. It takes 6 to 12 months, you know, to start climbing the ranks on your organic listing when you're updating content and doing SEO work on your website.

However, in the meantime, Google Ads are going to get those conversions coming through the door out of the gate. And this is very similar to that. SEO is a whole different topic and we can get into that at a later time, but I just wanted to go over Google ads versus social media ads. It's a question I get asked all of the time and at the end of the day, digital advertising isn't just a one size fits all game.

You have to test different platforms. Track your results, adjust accordingly. That's why people pay agencies to do this stuff. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of tracking and analytics to run through and to look at and to go through, make sure that you're doing what's best for the business. That's always the end goal, right?

Is to bring dollars through the door. And we need to make sure that we can look back to what we did and attribute success to those things, and then get rid of the things that didn't work and double down on the things that did. But no matter what good marketing is all about connecting with your audience where they are.

So if people. If you have a service based business, um, I don't know, let's say you're in some place that doesn't have internet. I have no idea, uh, but no one's using Google or, um, let's say not a lot of people in the place you're at use social media, or maybe, you know, Facebook is one of your only options and you have a very young demographic, you don't want to be running Facebook ads, you'd be smarter to run Instagram or TikTok ads.

So it's just about choosing the place where your audience actually is. You can have the best ad in the world that's not being served. If it's not being served to the right person or the right, uh, on the right platform, it's not gonna be an effective ad.

So that's it for today's episode. And if you found this helpful, hit the subscribe button, give us a like on whichever podcast platform you're listening to this on, share this with a fellow marketer or business owner. If you got anything out of this, I would love some feedback from you. If it's a DM, email, comment, all of that's great.

And also I'd love to know, what has your experience been with Google ads and social media ads? Did you have success with one and not the other? Do both of them work for you? Let's keep the conversation going on all of our social media channels at Let's Talk Social Pod or at Let's Talk Social podcast and we will see you in the next one.