Currently, there is a big competition between the 2 networks, Facebook and Google. We might call it the Facebook vs Google Ads War, with Facebook as the hottest Internet company to hit the stock market since Google went public in 2004. Creating a brand presence on Facebook Advertising has different advantages and requires a different approach than advertising on Google Adwords.

Ideally, you’ll want to implement both Facebook and Google advertising. While there are a number of similarities between advertising on Facebook and advertising on Google, there are various major differences as well.

Facebook’s valuation of $100 billion puts it at half the worth of Google. Since both Google and Facebook generate most of their revenue through advertising (advertising accounts for 96% of Google’s revenue vs. 86% of Facebook’s), we can definitely weigh in on the value question from an advertising perspective.

Below are the results of our comparison between Facebook and Google Display Network (GDN) in these five advertising categories:

• Google Display Network Advertising Reaches: Both companies have astounding reach. The Google Display Network (GDN) has the ability to reach more unique people across the world, but Facebook has more page-views. (Fewer people spending a lot of time on Facebook, meaning it can hit the same people more times with ads. But this might not be useful because those people will not click over and over on the same ad.)
• Google Display Network Advertiser Adoption/ Growth Rates: Facebook’s advertising growth has been strong – but it hasn’t kept pace with growth in its user base, while Google does.
• Google Display Network Ad Performance: Facebook ads have very low click-through rates (CTR) – less than 0.05%, just half the industry average for banner ads. Why? It may be Facebook’s relatively slim offerings in terms of ad formats and targeting options, which are the key for driving ad relevancy and CTR. Google has industry-standard analytics tools, whereas Facebook is very thin in terms of reporting. Another possible explanation is intent – people may be less responsive to banner ads within a social network than when using other types of websites, or while they are doing a search online. Click through Rates on Google Display Network were nearly 10x higher than Facebook Advertising.
• Google Display Network Ad Targeting Options: Facebook doesn’t offer mobile advertising (a huge hole, especially with mobile use growing so fast), re-targeting (or re-marketing), advertising on partner sites, or keyword-based contextual targeting options for display ads. Google Display Network offers all of these.
• Google Display Network Supported Ad Formats: Facebook has just two options: the standard Facebook ad (text plus an image) and a relatively new, sponsored stories. This is paltry compared to Google’s Display Network ad format options: text ads, image ads, flash-based image ads, in-video ads, as well as ads for mobile web and mobile games.

This is the answer of the following question:
Why Does The Google Display Network Have 3X The Revenues As Facebook In Their Q1 Reports, When Facebook Users See More Pages With Ads, and spend more time on Facebook rather than on Google?

While Facebook advertisers have more page views, their CTRs are low and have less of a reach across the internet as a whole since their ads only exist on Facebook. Ads on the Google Display Network have higher CTRs and a broader reach.

On the other hand, Facebook sessions usually tend to last much longer than a normal Google search session, which would make Facebook preferred for building brand awareness or sending a specific message.  Facebook also allows advertisers some unique targeting options such as creating a message specifically crafted for specific group of visitors.

We can help you setup both Facebook and Google Ads, to monetize your website and expand your brand.

We recommend strongly to use both!