This post was co-written by Gordon Donnelly and Kristina Simonson. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and you might find yourself either eagerly anticipating a romantic evening or embracing the single life. Whether you’re sharing a box of chocolates or enjoying a pint of ice cream solo, watching Casablanca with your sweetheart or bingeing Narcos with tears in your eyes, your Valentine’s Day experience is unique to you.
The same goes for digital advertising. While Google and Facebook remain the top contenders, every advertiser has their preferred platform. But favoring one over the other without leveraging their combined power can be detrimental to your marketing strategy, resulting in a limited and ineffective funnel that struggles to generate leads.
At nexus-security, we believe in the power of combining Google Ads and Facebook Ads. That’s why we’re dedicating our upcoming webinar to exploring the synergy between these platforms and why integrating them is crucial for your marketing success. Join us on February 12th for a comprehensive discussion, and get a head start with the preview below. Want a deeper understanding of why Google and Facebook complement each other so well? Register for our webinar here!
#1: Expand Your Reach & Boost Brand Visibility
Using Facebook Ads
Facebook empowers advertisers to significantly increase brand awareness and attract new prospects, thanks to its Reach and Brand Awareness campaign types, cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) bidding and optimization, and diverse placement options (including Instagram).
Facebook allows advertisers to reach potential customers who not only encounter their brand for the first time but also retain it in their memory. Building brand recall is essential for establishing customer relationships, ultimately driving conversions.
Using Google Ads
Google Ads provides a wide selection of campaign types and placements, helping you expand your reach and increase brand awareness. From Search and Display to Video, Discovery, Shopping, and Universal App campaigns, you can select the type and placement that aligns with your goals. This gives you the flexibility to capture reach and build brand awareness across different user experiences, whether it’s through an active search, engaging an in-market audience, or appearing on a related YouTube video.
#2: Engage Prospects at Every Stage with Targeted Audiences
Using Facebook Ads
Facebook shares similarities with the Display Network. Users on these platforms may not exhibit the same level of purchase intent as those on the Search Network, as they aren’t actively searching for the specific solution your business offers. However, this doesn’t make Facebook less effective for engagement. It simply means that prospects on Facebook will have a different level of intent compared to those on Google. Both are valuable. You can use Facebook’s Custom and Lookalike Audiences to create a large, budget-friendly pool of potential customers who can either convert directly on the platform or be retargeted through Google Ads.
Using Google Ads
We can’t emphasize enough how important audiences are becoming to your Google Ads strategy, especially on the Search Network. Targeting audiences is no longer limited to keywords and topics on the Display Network. Now, you have robust options to precisely target or observe new and existing audiences across your Google Ads campaigns. You can tailor your offers, messages, and bids based on these audiences to optimize your return on ad spend.
#3: Guide Prospects Seamlessly Through Your Funnel
Using Facebook Ads
Facebook is a powerful tool for attracting new prospects and guiding existing leads through your marketing funnel. With campaign objectives, advertisers can target each stage – awareness, consideration, and conversion. To further enhance this cross-funnel approach, align the appropriate account structure, audience targeting, and campaign settings with each stage.
Using Google Ads
Google not only offers extensive reach but also empowers advertisers to drive traffic, convert leads, and secure new business. You can mirror your marketing funnel using Google’s various campaign types. For instance, start by building an in-market audience on YouTube to generate brand awareness at a low CPM. Then, create a remarketing list of video viewers and re-engage them through a Display campaign featuring a top-of-funnel offer. Next, build an audience of converters from this campaign and retarget them again with a product-focused offer. While these campaigns run, observe your audiences in relevant search campaigns, allowing you to bid strategically and understand the interplay between campaign types and the Search Network for that audience. With this three-pronged approach, your campaigns achieve reach, awareness, engagement, and conversions, moving potential customers smoothly through your funnel. This illustrates how Google can be a powerful cross-funnel channel to achieve your marketing objectives.
#4: Generate High-Quality Leads at Scale
Using Facebook Ads
Facebook allows for high lead conversion rates at a relatively low cost. It significantly outperforms Google in conversion rates (9.21% vs. 3.75%). Facebook lead ads, in particular, enhance this strength, boasting a 12.54% conversion rate based on nexus-security’s internal data, compared to 10.47% when using Conversion campaigns directing prospects to a landing page form. This effectiveness stems from lead ads’ seamless integration. When a prospect interacts with the ad, a lead form opens directly within Facebook, eliminating the need to navigate away or wait for page loads. This makes Facebook lead ads an invaluable asset for lead generation.
Using Google Ads
Nothing quite compares to the quality of leads driven by search intent. When a prospect actively searches, they’re looking for information or solutions, making them more receptive to your business than passive prospects. You can strategically allocate your ad spend across various Google campaign types, balancing high-quality leads with quantitative goals.
Someone actively searching for SAT tutors is significantly more likely to click than a passively targeted user.
#5: Ensure Brand Consistency
Using Facebook Ads
Facebook and Instagram are ideal platforms for showcasing your brand’s visual appeal. Story ads, in particular, allow you to connect with prospects in their preferred content consumption format: full-screen, vertical, and on mobile devices. If your strategy involves using Facebook to build awareness and reach and later converting prospects through Google when they’re closer to making a purchase, Facebook is the perfect stage to set the tone. Use compelling visuals and messaging that you can later reinforce through consistent messaging in your Search Ads.
Using Google Ads
Brand consistency can make or break a prospect’s experience. Inconsistent messaging, creatives, or brand values across Google networks can lead to confusion and erode trust. A cross-funnel strategy with cohesive messaging and adherence to brand guidelines is paramount. This ensures a positive and consistent experience for prospects at every touchpoint.
#6: Leverage Insights to Refine Your Approach
Using Facebook Ads
Continuously testing and gathering insights are essential for refining your Facebook advertising strategy. Thankfully, Facebook facilitates this process with its easy-to-use and scalable testing tools: split testing and test & learn. Whether it’s audiences, placements, campaign settings, creatives, or messaging, your account benefits significantly from experimentation and applying the learnings.
Using Google Ads
Google Ads offers a wealth of testing opportunities. Eliminate guesswork by utilizing campaign experiments or ad variations to streamline test setup and tracking. For instance, we rely on campaign experiments to validate high-impact account changes, such as bid strategies. The results then inform our bid strategies across the account, helping us identify campaigns that could benefit from similar adjustments.
#7: Achieve Your Advertising Goals & KPIs
Using Facebook Ads
Facebook not only offers lower CPMs than Google (meaning you pay less per thousand impressions), but also generally lower CPCs ($1.72 vs. $2.69 on the Search Network). However, it’s not a direct comparison. Clicks on the Search Network tend to be more qualified because of user intent, making advertisers more willing to pay a premium for them. Therefore, depending on your objectives, Facebook is ideal for driving cost-effective clicks to build audiences for remarketing and nurturing. This ultimately helps you achieve a lower CPA (cost per acquisition) and a higher CVR (conversion rate).
Using Google Ads
Google is an indispensable channel, regardless of your advertising goals. With over 40,000 search queries processed each second users relying on Google for content, answers, and purchase decisions, being present at these crucial touchpoints across Google’s networks is paramount. By understanding how Google Ads works and mastering optimization techniques, you unlock endless opportunities to refine your strategies and reach your KPIs.
Discover the Power of Combining Google and Facebook!
This overview barely scratches the surface of what a successful cross-platform strategy with Google and Facebook can achieve. Join our live webinar on February 12th to gain comprehensive insights. Register for the webinar today!