Facebook, Google or Bing PPC Ads?

When we are talking about PPC (Pay Per Click) ads, we are often talking about Google only – Google Adwords. But PPC is much more than Google Adwords. When should you use Bing or Facebook PPC ads?

In the end we have to figure out where we get the highest ROI. You will have to check out the positive and negative things about each media. So let me show you some pros and cons of each channel.

 

Google PPC Ads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advantages of Google Adwords PPC ads:

• Reach. You will reach about 80% of the internet users. So do you have to reach as many people as possible Google Adwords might be a great idea. The audience is much larger compared to Bing. Google Adwords are also shown on other major and strategic search engines and websites that collaborate with Google. So you can use Google as a multiple channels with search, display and banner etc. You can target PC, tablets, mobile, video etc.
• Cost. You have full control over your costs. Google makes it easy for companies to control their cost. Companies will only pay when users get to their website. There is no minimum cost for the usage and you decide how much you want to spend. You will pay between 1 cent and 100 dollars per click.Google has a built/in conversion and revenue tracking code – awesome. A lot of great statistics where you can check location, site links, mobile click to call to improve your click through rate.
• Timing. Timing is everything. When a customer is looking for something special on Google – like “big blue cars” – your ad will only show up if you what it to.
• Flexible. You can get started right away within 15 minutes. And you can change the ad whenever you want to. You can also target the ad to a specific geographical location and languages. But you can also target device or time of day you want the ad to be shown.

 

Disadvantages of using Google Adwords ads

• Every click counts. You will have to pay every click on your website – even though you don’t make a sale. Google Adwords becomes increasingly competitive as more and more advertisers join it. Depending on the competition the PPC and be very expensive. The CTR is low on the display network.
• Payment. If you don’t pay on time Google will remove your ad (well fair enough right?).
• Statistic. How high is your click rates compared to your competitors? You don’t know the competitors CTR and Google will not tell you.
• Copy space. You will only have 25 characters in the headline and 70 characters for the rest. So choose your words wisely.

 

Facebook PPC ads

You can pay for your Facebook ads in 2 ways. PPC with a minimum bid of 1 cent for every click you will receive. Another method is CPM (Cost Per Mille) with a minimum bid of 2 cents for every 1,000 clicks you will receive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advantages of Facebook PPC ads:

• Generally lower cost per click (CPC) than Google Adwords
• Great for creating brand awareness – branding
• Large audience – there are now 845 million accounts on Facebook (that’s 12 percent of all people in the world!).
• Targeting. One of the biggest advances is the targeting possibilities. You can target by gender, marital status, location, age, interests/hobbies, likes etc. Awesome.
• Locale targeting (I haven’t seen this in other countries – give me a comment if you have, thx) – you can use Facebook as a local marketing. Only show the ad for people living in a specific postcode.
• Expose time. Users are more likely to stay on Facebook for a longer time than on Bing or Google. So the user will be exposed to your ad for a longer time.
• Images. You can use imagines which can make it more likely that users are paying attention to your ad.
• Characters. You have 135 characters – much more than Google Adwords.

 

Disadvantages of using Facebook ads:

• Space. Not much space on Facebook to show ads.
• Niche markets. The PPC cost for very specific niche markets can be very high.
• Low click-through-rate (CTR) for eCommenrce compared to Google Adwords – People are using Facebook to talk and socialize with their friends and are not thinking of buying anything.
• Weird, irrelevant ads – many irrelevant ads, free giveaways, reward programs etc. which give the ads less relevance when the consumer is viewer the ads.

 

Bing PPC ads

Bing was formerly MSN – but Yahoo and MSN joined their forces and made Bing. So when you are using Bing you are using the combined technologies and resources of Yahoo and MSN.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advantages of Bing PPC ads:

• Easy to sign up. Just got to http://advertising.microsoft.com.
  
• Import your Yahoo or Google ads. This is really awesome. You can import your ads using the ad center. So you don’t have to duplicate efforts. So you should make a test using Bing and compare it to Google.
• Targeting. You can target your ads to specific demographics. So if you are selling “used cars”. One of your ads can be made for singles. Another ad can be made for a local dealer. A third can reach pregnant women (hmm I don’t know if they need a specific used car?)
• Ad center. Like Google Adwords the ad center is very easy to use. You have access to performance statistics.
• Keyword bidding is often less expensive than Google Adwords or Facebook.
• CTR and conversion tends to be higher on Bing

 

Disadvantages of using Bing ads:

• In many ways Bing looks like Google Adwords
• Volume. The biggest disadvantage is volume. Bing has a much smaller audience than Google or Facebook.
• No built-in revenue tracking feature

 

Conclusion
You will have to know everything about your product/brand and your buyers – when you are choosing the right channel. And you should also consider a combination of the channels.

Maybe Facebook PPC Ads could be considered as an accompaniment to the Google Adwords instead of a replacement.

But like in Social Media you sometimes have to use several channels. So you own it to yourself to test other media than just Google Adwords. Make a pre-campaign and check out your ROI.

You will have to know and understand your customers and your market. Good luck with it.

 

Free Marketing Giveaway

Sign up and get over 180 pages with tips and tricks about SEO, PPC, Social Media Traffic and Link Building. Join here.

Best regards,
Henrik