Facebook Ads vs. Google Ads
When to Advertise on Facebook or Google
Both Facebook Ads and Google Ads can have a significant impact when marketing your motorcycle website. However, Revolution’s consultants often gets the question, “When is it best to advertise on Facebook vs. Google?”
First, Facebook ads help users find your biker business. This happens because Facebook’s algorithm knows what people are interested in and how people behave online. Subsequently, when you select your ad’s rider demographics, Facebook knows where to find these potential biker customers.
Facebook has six different types of advertising objectives:
- Awareness
- Traffic
- Engagement
- Leads
- App promotions
- Sales
Then, Google ads help your motorcycle company find new customers. And Google does this partly because of the keywords you target in your Ads with them.
You’ve probably heard of the marketing Rule of 7. Notably, this rule states that you must see a product or service message seven times before you buy. This rule is very significant for any marketing. It applies to basic motorcycle marketing, social media marketing, and paid ads.
The exact number of views before someone buys depends on many variables. But the importance of this rule isn’t the precise number of times. Instead, it takes seeing a message/ad/content many times before a rider buys.
Buyer’s Journey and Advertising
Let me define a couple of terms before I discuss when to use the different ad platforms. The first is the buyer’s journey, which describes a buyer’s path to purchasing your motorcycle product or service. The second is the marketing funnel.
Here are the stages of the buyer’s journey:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
A person must know a product exists to consider buying, let alone to buy. Next, here are the levels of the marketing funnel, which requires a prospect to go through it before they buy.
As you know, the top of a funnel is much larger than the bottom. This difference in size represents something significant: It takes a lot of potential customers to make one sale.
Facebook Advertising Benefits
Next, Facebook ads are great for many of your biker ’s website marketing goals. However, they are more effective than Google ads in the early stages, including raising awareness of your products or services. Awareness is critical to building your company’s brand and selling expensive products.
You can investigate Facebook ads after your company’s page looks good and your marketing research is complete. In general, and because of the Rule of 7, the conversion rate of visitors to sales will start low.
However, if your online company sells inexpensive products, there will be more immediate sales, especially if the products are unique and bring a lot of value. This is because of impulse buys.
Conversely, these aren’t impulse buys if a company sells $500 plus products. But don’t get discouraged. Again, it takes riders seeing your product multiple times before they buy.
That being said, a biker world and marketing expert can help. First, they can gain awareness and traffic to your website and social media. Plus, they can accomplish this goal while spending less time. Finally, they will close sales in fewer steps.
Cost of Facebook vs. Google Ads
Another common question is, “Why should I advertise on Facebook if I don’t get lots of sales?” One important reason to build awareness of your product or service and brand is to close sales.
Significantly, Facebook ads work great to fill the top of your company’s sales funnel. Plus, it can be accomplished with Facebook Ads for less money than Google Ads. Additionally, on Facebook, you get detailed targeting options for your ideal rider audience. Also, your target audience can be reached inexpensively on Facebook.
Facebook Advertising Opportunities
Next, hundreds of millions of ads are served to people on Facebook daily. An estimate is that 80% of riders (about 20 million between riders and passengers) spend an average of 30 minutes daily on Facebook. Notably, this gives Facebook marketers many opportunities to advertise. On Facebook, you can set up lookalike audiences, which have the highest engagement and convert Facebook users.
Google Advertising Opportunities
However, with Google, there are fewer advertising opportunities. And this is because there are fewer Google searches for products and services. Plus, there are fewer high-value ad spots on Google vs. Facebook.
Why are Google ads more expensive when advertising your company? It is in part due to supply and demand. Facebook has more pages viewed each day.
Also, Google ads work best for people with “intent” to buy. By “intent,” I mean someone who will buy soon or now. Notably, people entering searches for a particular product or service have some intent to purchase.
And yes, Facebook’s and Google’s knowledge of users is invasive. But it is beneficial for search engine & internet marketers.
Where & When to Advertise
When filling the top of the sales funnel and if you are looking for prospects, Facebook is the best place to advertise. First, the cost per thousand (CPM) impressions are lower on Facebook. Second, Facebook’s cost per engagement (CPE) is also lower.
Eventually, some prospects move down the sales funnel and are interested in buying. At that point, Facebook and some Google ads will create sales. Sometimes, site owners expect to get a lot of sales when starting to advertise. But again, prospects must see the ad multiple times and have a current need or want. Until they do, sales will be slow.
Setting this expectation with your company’s executives and owner(s) is essential. And it isn’t just for budgeting. They must know how and why this marketing and advertising process works. If they don’t understand, they will be disappointed unnecessarily. And often, without them understanding this, they will say no to ads.
Hopefully, the above helps. Also, check out our Marketing Academy’s articles geared primarily toward the motorcycle world.
