Pay-Per-Click vs Social Media Advertising — UNBXD

It has been one of the most discussed topics within the digital marketing arena in recent years; the question of which one is more effective – PPC or Social Media Marketing?

With social media advertising beginning to change the way we do social media marketing, it is a good idea to understand the difference between Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and social media advertising. PPC refers to paid advertising from “click ads” online. What this means is, you the business will pay for any click you get. In comparison social media ads like on Facebook, have you pay for ad space; any impressions or clicks you get do not change how much you spend on the ad.

In this article, we’re going to examine how the two ad platforms work so that you can consider where using one, or both, will be part of your wider digital marketing strategy.

What are the Differences?

First things first, before we look into the various strengths and features of Google AdWords & Facebook Ads, it’s crucial to understand the primary differences between the two platforms.

The Basics of PPC

The PPC advertising model places a companies advertising in search results or on another website in order to generate more traffic back to the advertiser’s site. The ads constructed into separate campaigns tied to a selection of keywords within the search engine or placed on a website with similar content surrounding the products or services being offered on the ad.

Rather than pay a set fee for an ad, you pay per clicks - meaning, you pay each time someone clicks on the ad and get sent to the URL you have set as the click-through. PPC can be an effective marketing tool because it can quickly and easily find potential new customers who are interested in the products or services that your company offers. This form of advertising provides a direct connection with relevant potential customers without the hassle of finding them on your own.

Taking this into account - executing, managing, and maintaining PPC can differ depending upon the type of advertising you are doing, these are primarily broken into two areas - Search Ads & Display Ads:

Search Ads

Google AdWords is the world’s largest and most popular PPC advertising platform. AdWords is so widely used, it has become synonymous with the term “paid search.” The two terms are used interchangeably, even though other platforms such as Bing Ads work similarly. With the ubiquity of Google, Bing, and Yahoo, it’s little wonder that search ads have become the most common form of paid advertising. Search ads are linked to certain keywords, and they appear along with your search results when a certain keyword or phrase is entered into the search engine. This particular form of advertising is especially smart because it places your ad in front of people who are already interested in your industry, service, or product. PPC bidding and bid optimisation is a complex topic, but essentially, users are paying for the potential to find new customers based on the keywords and search terms they enter into Google.

With this approach, search ads are able to provide strong, high-quality leads for new customers. And because these individuals are already searching for a related item, there is a much higher likelihood that you’ll be able to convert these leads into actual sales. These types of ads are also very simple and straightforward in their design — usually just a set amount of text — making it easier to use as a marketing strategy. This simplicity can also be considered in some ways a drawback, as the lack of visuals and images in the ad itself can make it harder for your ad to stand out among others and engage new customers. Despite the simplicity, from a price point search ads can also be fairly expensive, as there is usually a great deal of competition surrounding them. Pricing points vary, and since you’re paying for each individual click, those clicks can add up — especially if you’re not able to convert the majority of click leads into sales.

Display Ads

Display ads are another popular form of paid advertising that many companies use. These types of ads appear at the top, on the side, and in the middle of web content on almost every website. Display ads are known for their effectiveness — they reach more than 90% of people who surf the internet.

(Google AdWords User Interface)

In fact, this high visibility gives them a wide reach among users to generate new traffic to the target site. Since these types of ads are fairly common, they face less competition and are less expensive than search ads. They’re also much more dynamic than search ads — allowing you to use a mix of images and text to create an ad that can really engage your audience. With fewer limitations, your ads can be personalised to fit your brand.
While the wide presence of display ads means that they can get you a lot of exposure, their prevalence can also be their downfall. Because they have inundated people’s screens for so long —what feels like since the beginning of the internet to some — many people don’t notice them or ignore them altogether. This translates to a very small number of actual clicks on the ad.
The prevalence and over saturation of display ads has also made many people associate them with spam, making internet users less likely to click on them. Many people go so far as to install ad blocking plugins on their internet browser to limit the amount of ads that filter through to their screen. If your targeted audience uses an ad blocking plugin, you could be wasting your marketing budget on ads that might not even be seen.

Facebook Ads: Paid Social

Many social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, are programmed to be able to target specific audiences based on their network, their hobbies and interests, and their professions, among other factors. As a result, social ads are tremendously effective at getting your message to your intended audience quickly and effectively.

Facebook Ads is a prime example of what is known as “paid social,” or the practice of advertising on social networks. With the highest number of monthly active users (or MAUs) of any social network in the world, Facebook has become a highly competitive and potentially lucrative element of many business’ digital advertising strategies.

Social ads are also easy to use — making them accessible to nearly any size company or business. They’re also very effective at reaching your targeted audience and have a high click rate. The ads themselves also have a certain degree of flexibility in terms of design and content — allowing you to really show your brand through your ad.

Although advertising on Facebook can be thought of as similar to AdWords, in that advertisers using both platforms are essentially promoting their business via the Internet, this is where the similarities end. Unlike paid search, which helps businesses find new customers via keywords, paid social helps users find businesses based on the things they’re interested in and the ways in which they behave online.

When it comes to the primary difference between Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, you can think of it this way:

AdWords helps you find new customers, while Facebook helps new customers find you.

Since social media is a relatively new media and considered to be more popular among certain age groups, its use as a marketing tool might be met with some resistance by your company’s leadership or stakeholders. In addition, many people are hesitant to adopt social media marketing because of its very different platforms and unique approaches to content. Thus, it might take more to convince your marketing managers or executives to invest in this particular form of paid advertising.

Social ads can also be more time-consuming to create. Because new content is always being posted on social media at a very high rate and consumed extremely quickly — with different keywords and topics trending at a given moment — it’s important to stay current with the latest content being posted. Additionally, social media networks are notorious for introducing new ad products, removing old ones, and changing specs, so you’ll need to keep up at all times.

Both Google AdWords and Facebook Ads are incredibly powerful advertising platforms that cater to virtually every type of business. When evaluating each solution’s strengths and potential applications, it’s also apparent that the two platforms should be viewed in a complementary, rather than adversarial ways. Some people insist on comparing Facebook Ads to the Google Display Network, and while the two platforms share some similarities, the ways in which the two platforms have evolved independently of one another shows that AdWords and Facebook should be used in conjunction with one another, not in opposition.

Harnessing the power of both paid search and paid social is a remarkably effective advertising strategy. However, it necessitates a dual advertising strategy that aligns with the strengths of each respective platform. Although marketing messaging can – and arguably should – remain consistent across both Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, it’s vital to understand how best to use each platform for maximum ROI and greater business growth.

To learn more about how to maximise the impact of your Google AdWords and Facebook Ads campaigns, get in touch with a member of our team today.