We all know that the Facebook/Instagram platform is the largest platform for advertising for small business owners. Anyone can run advertisements on these platforms provided you have the budget to do so. But, as a small business owner and a beginner in these advertising platforms, there are a lot of limitations and challenges you face when you are starting out. Here are some of the challenges;

1. Limited budget
2. Target audience identification
3. Which advertising channels to choose?
4. Creating contents
5. Measuring the Return on Investments
6. Lack of marketing expertise and so on…

To overcome these challenges, it is always a best practice to approach me, as a digital marketing specialist in Saudi Arabia for professional guidance.

To overcome the above challenges, choosing the right platform is always a crucial step as both the platforms Google and Facebook/Instagram have their own pros and cons and can differ from business to business and the audience types.

Why choose Google ads?

1. INTENT-BASED PLATFORM: Google is a search platform and the people approach Google search for immediate and quick results or answers. So, the type of audiences are warm or hot audiences i.e. they are highly reliable to convert at a faster rate. But again, it depends on what kind of business you run and what kind of audience you have. To make it clearer, here’s an eg, consider a weight loss supplement product, People search for these products on Google for top best products and also make decisions by the reviews on Google. So, it’s a better option to choose Google as an advertising platform whereas, if you run a fashion brand, your primary focus is to build brand and customer loyalty and trust, so Facebook/Instagram is a better platform for brand building.
2. KEYWORD TARGETING: With the help of Google ads we can bid on specific keywords that are relevant to our business. This ensures that our ads appear when the user searches for the relevant keyword on Google.
3. BUDGET FRIENDLY: As a small business owner, budget allocation is one of the major challenges and with Google ads, we can allocate budgets daily or monthly based on our spending limits.
4. MEASUARBALE ROI: Google ads provide detailed analytics and conversion tracking reports that help small business owners analyze ad campaigns and make decisions based on the graph. It gives a deep-level understanding of the type of audience, location, gender, interests, and so on.
5. ADVERTISEMENT EXTENSIONS: The amazing feature that separates Google ads from Facebook ads is the usage of ad extensions, call extensions, location extensions, etc. that directs the customer to immediately take action.
6. BROADER AUDIENCE REACH: With the display ad feature on Google, we can run ads on the display networks within the location in addition to search ads.

WHY CHOOSE FACEBOOK/INSTAGRAM ADS?

1. DETAILED TARGETING OPTIONS: With over 6 billion active users on Facebook, it offers a wider audience reach, and it’s the best platform to build your brand.
2. VISUAL PLATFORM: Since video content works well on Instagram/Facebook, it’s the best platform for showcasing your products or services. Customers can get the exact look and feel of the product and hence increase the brand trust factor.
3. RETARGETING CUSTOMERS: Facebook has this special feature called retargeting with the help of pixels which is a piece of code installed on the backend of your WordPress website, where you can retarget the same type of customers once you have the data of customers who actually purchased from you. This improves the conversion rates
4. EXTENSIVE AD FORMATS: With the wide range of video content being consumed by the users, it provides a variety of ads like image ads, carousel ads, story ads, reel ads, etc.

WHICH IS BEST?

Both platform works best based on the type of products or services. If you are looking to target audiences that are actively searching for your products/services, then Google is the best option to go for.

Facebook/Instagram can be beneficial for users who want to purchase products on the look and feel e.g. lifestyle brands. Brand loyalty is ensured since it works for businesses not having so much high search volume also as it’s not search search-based platform.

Both platforms can be used to check about your competitors. As a small business owner, competitor research is crucial and If your competitor is using only one platform, we can get to know which platform works best and also take it as an opportunity to run ads for the other platform as well.

Both platforms give us a clear understanding of how the users interact with your business if they are searching for a query related to your business or a particular keyword.

I hope you have an overall idea of which platform works best and which kind of industry. Also, note that some businesses with larger budgets make use of both platforms to maximize their profits and ROI. Get a clear understanding of your business type, and goals, and align marketing strategies according to your goals and needs. Once your business thrives in the online market then you can scale your business to new heights. I hope this blog finds you well and in my next blog, I am going to through some light on the best marketing platform as a small business owner to begin with, which is always underestimated as only a conversation medium, i.e. Whatsapp. stay tuned for it !!.