Google Ads Vs. Social Media?

Video Podcast Transcript:

Hey. Tyler DeWitt here, President of DeWitt’s Media Inc.

I wanted to make this video called Google Ads Versus Social Media. Which avenue should you explore? This is a question we get a lot. And some people just don’t even know, they just set up a social media account and they exclude Google ads. Or they set up a Google ads and they exclude social media because they don’t think that social media works. For example, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, depending on your industry.

But let’s talk about Facebook. B2C, Facebook can be used B2B too. Usually LinkedIn is B2B, almost all the time. The major differences are Google ads is targeting people that have high intent. Facebook is not targeting people that have high intent. And just to clarify, what I mean by high intent is when somebody is looking for your product or service at that give time. For example, people go to Google when they’re looking for something, right? Usually they are looking to buy, looking to learn, or they are just not too sure at that given time. You kind of have three different behaviors that come into play, I guess you could say, more or less.

When someone goes with Google, their intent is a lot higher. They have taken the time out to go to Google and type in something on Google that they want to obtain more information on. Whereas, when they log in to Facebook, they’re just checking messages, sharing their day, post some pictures about the vacation, whatever it may be. Their mind is not even interested in your product or service at that given time. Even if you are targeting an interest base, that can help your message become more relevant using Facebook targeting options by interest or whatever it may be, however you set your settings up. It will make the message become more relevant to the audience, but you still have to remember they are not on Facebook searching for your products or services. They’re on there for whatever reason. Whereas, in Google, they’re searching, as I mentioned.

Which one should you use? If you plan on starting on Facebook, you better have something that is in high demand or you better have an ad that will come out and “bam”, that will grab their attention. It could be an influencer, someone well known, or your product is just in high demand at that given time. Facebook can be very sporadic in the way they convert too.

Restaurants tend to do pretty well on Facebook, especially when you are showing food. People are like, “Oh, okay.” For a local business, that will make a lot more sense. But usually speaking in e-commerce, lead generation (attorney, accountants, auto car lots, graphics designer, etc.), makes more sense to take to Google. You want to push more content, run Google ads, and target people who are looking for the product or service because your probability of closing them will be a lot higher. The same with e-commerce, the probability is a lot higher of selling a product. The conversion rate is going to be a lot higher.  

Back to social media, it doesn’t make much sense to just run products through Google or advertise attorney services or accounting services through Facebook, regardless of what their interests are. Because 9 out 10 times, it’s not going to convert.

Here is what you do. You run Google ads. Say for example, you are a certified public accountant, or you are an e-commerce store, you run Google shopping ads or Google ads for your CPA business and then you set up a retargeting campaign on Facebook. Therefore, you’ve targeted people that have had previous intent. That is usually the best way to go.

Where a lot of people go wrong in digital marketing today is that they get so pulled into that social media. I call it the social media sickness. People tend to think that social media is going to answer all their questions, going to drive a lot of sales, and they get discouraged when they don’t see those sales coming in.

Now, there are some industries, gyms don’t do bad on social media. You can launch a social media campaign targeting a gym, but you have to give something that makes sense. You can’t just say, “Join our gym.” Why not offer them the first three months free? Or give them a personal trainer their first day of training if they sign up? Things like that would make sense. Because their intent is not that high. But a lot of people out there on average are usually thinking about joining the gym. You just have to be very influential, have something that is going to grab their attention if you plan on advertising through social media. You need to keep that in mind.

As I said before, and I will say many times again, Google ads have people’s intent really high. If somebody goes to Google and type in Los Angeles gyms, their probability and change of converting through a Google ad is going to be a lot higher than Facebook. But on Facebook, if you are able to offer something of value, grab their attention, discounts, promotions, free trainers, whatever it may be, your probability will increase of grabbing their attention and converting them. Keep that in mind when you’re setting up your campaigns for now on. Don’t always exclude Google ads and don’t always exclude Facebook.

If you’re just a little confused on which one to use or how you can use them to your advantage, then hire a consultant, someone that has years of experience in both of those channels.

Once again, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and review my bio in the description of this video. Have a great day. Thank you