How do you choose the best ad strategy for your brand? With so many effective options, deciding what platform to advertise on can be a real conundrum — especially if you haven't done it before.
On the one hand, you could go with the most popular digital platform out there — Google, which attracted 96% of American and 98% of European marketers. But the truth is, these ads may not provide the best outcomes for your business. And, chances are, they will cost you considerably more than social media ads.
On the other hand, Facebook ads could be an effective (and budget-friendly) option if your audience populates the platform.
So, the question remains: which is right for your ecommerce business — Google Ads or Facebook Ads? Let's go through the most important questions you need to ask yourself before pouring your valuable advertising budget into either option.
Can ads help you reach your business goals in 2025 and beyond?
Choosing the right advertising strategy will have a tremendous impact on the results you acquire. And not just in terms of contributing to your conversion goals. Much more importantly, your advertising tactics will directly impact your prospects' perception of your brand and their willingness to engage with your ecommerce business.
Naturally, there's plenty of science-backed data to support the benefits of investing in paid ads. But the findings don't always make absolute sense.
For instance, one 2009 study discovered that advertising had a significant positive effect on brand awareness — but not on perceived quality. Then again, a research paper published in 2022 found that a higher advertising expenditure could affect perceived quality.
Nevertheless, the advantages of investing in paid ads are clear.
A 2015 study revealed that Facebook advertising, in particular, directly impacted brand equity and consumers' willingness to interact with brands. And in 2019, researchers found that social media advertising positively impacted brand familiarity and purchase intention.
While these findings may not give you an absolute yes or no answer to the question above, they emphasize the tremendous potential value of developing and investing in a paid advertising strategy.
But they also uncover another crucial consideration: it's essential that you know what you wish to achieve, understand your audience, and plan accordingly.
After all, most consumers actively avoid ads (with 59% being ready to pay for a streaming service if it means completely bypassing ads).
So, to break through the noise, grab your target audience's attention, and inspire them to convert, you need to create a relevant and personalized advertising experience. And knowing when to advertise on Google vs. Facebook could hold the key to helping you reach your goals.
How to know if Google Ads are right for your ecommerce business
To answer the question of which advertising platform you should choose to reach your business goals, let's start with the more popular one — Google.
Reach
Let's start with the biggest (and most obvious) benefits of advertising your ecommerce brand on Google — a tremendous reach potential.
Data shows that Google reigns supreme over all other search engines. It held 91.47% of the global market share in 2024 (that means 4.97 billion people use Google over any other option). Google is where people go when they have a question, pain point, or need shopping inspiration.
Naturally, this means it's an exceptional platform for grabbing your target audience's attention — regardless of whether you opt for Search or Display Ads.
The only thing you need to get right is your ad copy/visuals. Fortunately, going in a simple and accessible direction — as StudyX did below — is usually a solid choice, allowing you to build product and brand awareness where there was none before, all with a single sentence.
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Alignment with the buyer's journey
Another exceptional benefit of investing in Google Ads — particularly Search Ads — is that it can help present your audience with the level of personalization they've come to expect from brands.
A 2024 consumer privacy research survey conducted by IAB found that 90% of consumers prefer personalized ads, and 87% would be more likely to click on ads for products they're interested in or shopping for.
What's fantastic about Google's advertising tools is that you can target highly specific keywords, depending on the stage of the buyer's journey your prospects populate.
For instance, when trying to engage consumers in the upper stages of the sales cycle — those who are not yet aware of your solution and have just started researching their pain points — you can do something similar to K18 Hair. This brand targets hyper-relevant search terms that directly address its target audience's primary pain point and uses search ads to offer them a potential solution.
Alternatively, Google Ads can serve you just as well when aiming to convert bottom-of-the-funnel consumers — particularly if you do something similar to EXT Cabinets and choose Google Shopping as your primary display platform.
Finally, don't forget about the benefit of flexibility. Google Search Ads are highly customizable, which allows you to tailor your ads to your target audience's needs without having to change your targeting strategy.
By doing something similar to Classical Guitar Shed, you can ensure your copy and landing pages reflect your prospects' desired outcome while maximizing reach potential by targeting high-volume keywords.
B2C vc. B2B audiences
Finally, if you're pondering whether to invest in Google vs. Facebook Ads, remember that the former will make the better choice if you need to engage professional users.
Technically, B2B buyers (and purchase decision-makers) may be browsing Facebook. But they're most likely to be doing so in their spare time.
So if you want to generate leads and sales — especially among prospects who haven't yet discovered your solutions — Google Ads may offer a slight leg up over advertising on social media.
Additionally, what you need to keep in mind when trying to engage B2B buyers is that their priorities may differ slightly from end consumers.
Instead of focusing primarily on price and convenience, they may need extra convincing regarding your brand's trustworthiness.
Fortunately, by optimizing your ads to address these expectations — like Mannequin Mall did below — you can highlight your brand's strong suits while maintaining a strong conversion-oriented approach to ad copy.
When to choose Facebook Ads
Although Google Ads offer tremendous benefits, they have one considerable drawback — they usually require your prospects to be at least willing to enter the sales funnel if they are to be effective.
Facebook, on the other hand, offers much more subtle advertising opportunities. Primarily because social media is a space that people enter to fill their spare time, find products to purchase, and find inspiration. But also because it allows you slightly more control over how and when your marketing messages appear to the people you're trying to convert.
Advanced demographic targeting
According to Demand Sage, Facebook currently has 3.07 billion monthly active users worldwide. This is a significantly smaller pool of people compared to Google users. But, the fact that the platform is a social network can be a huge plus.
Essentially, Facebook advertising allows you to target an extremely specific demographic.
In addition to being able to choose your potential customer's age, gender, location, and spoken language, you can also choose to display your content to people of a certain education level, relationship status, work status, household income, and home ownership status.
Moreover, you can tailor your ads to show up in the feeds of people who have recently gone through specific life events. Or you could even target those who engage with select brands/products — which is what Asana does below by inviting prospects to replace their outdated spreadsheets with its project management software.
Combating banner blindness
Another great reason to choose Facebook ads over Google ads is that they're a great tool for combating banner blindness.
We already mentioned that consumers actively ignore ads. But the thing about this behavior is that it's not always a conscious choice.
The fact that page layouts tend to resemble each other creates an environment in which internet users learn where not to look if they want to avoid intrusive advertisements. Then, they continue implementing this behavior even when they might benefit from seeing a marketing message.
One of the primary ways Facebook Ads can help overcome this obstacle is by allowing you to promote conversion-oriented content that doesn't resemble traditional marketing messaging.
For instance, knowing that user-generated and influencer posts represent some of the most authentic and trust-building types of content out there, you could easily do something along the lines of Amerisleep.
This business understands the drawbacks of traditional ads and marketing messaging. So, to overcome banner blindness, it actively prioritizes influencer marketing over branded content to reach and engage its target audience.
This allows Amerisleep to communicate the unique features of its king-size mattresses (and all the rest of its products). But more importantly, it prevents the brand's audience from dismissing the content before engaging with it, making Facebook a considerably better option than Google for boosting product awareness and sales.
Content format flexibility
Finally, it's worth noting that your brand's social media presence most likely shouldn't be about sales. Instead, a great strategy needs to focus on reaching new audiences, engaging leads, and supporting existing customers in ways that will foster relationships and move consumers through the sales cycle in an organic way.
However, that doesn't mean you can't (or shouldn't) use paid social ads to enhance your results. On the contrary — assigning even a small budget to social media promotion can be an amazing way to maximize your conversions.
And the best part is that you can do this in versatile ways and with multiple content types.
So, if you're considering the pros of choosing Facebook Ads over their Google counterparts, remember that the former option gives you more flexibility.
In addition to allowing you to easily create ads based on static images, carousels, videos, and product collections, Facebook also makes it possible to boost any of your existing posts — like in the example of Wyde.
In other words, you can easily promote existing, high-performing content instead of creating dedicated ads that may or may not deliver the results you're after.
Additional Considerations When Choosing Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads
As you can see, both Facebook and Google ads offer unique benefits for promoting your brand and solutions.
However, there are a few key considerations you should weigh before opting for one option over the other.
Advertising budget
For starters, the cost of these advertising methods varies hugely.
For Facebook, the highest cost-per-click was in the UK, at $0.38. On the other hand, advertising via Google was considerably more resource-intensive, with CPCs ranging from $0.68 for electronics to a whopping $9.95 in the online education industry.
However, click-through rates varied as well. For Facebook, the benchmark is 0.9%. For Google Search Ads, on the other hand, it's more than double at 1.91%.
So, if you're considering choosing one option over the other, don't just base your decision on cost. Instead, consider which of the two platforms will be most suitable for engaging your audience and inspiring them to convert.
The length of the sales cycle
Another thing you have to understand when choosing what platform to advertise on is the fact that the buyer's journey may differ on Google vs. Facebook.
As a general rule, people searching for solutions on Google are more aware of their pain points and needs. As a result, they are more receptive to advertising messages.
Facebook users, on the other hand, aren't actively searching — they're browsing. Presenting them with ads isn't (traditionally) a method of encouraging them to convert. Rather, it's a way to make them aware of your brand and products.
What this means for your advertising strategy is that you have to understand the type of buyer's journey your prospects tend to go through.
If you offer straightforward solutions that most people understand (and know they need), Google is a marvelous option. After all, it's why Shopping ads — like the one below from Bose — work so well, particularly for consumers who are more prone to impulse purchases.
But, if you're still building your brand's credibility or trying to sell complex or expensive products, the social media route may be more effective, as it allows you to gradually build awareness. Plus, it can help slowly nurture prospects through the funnel by using retargeting functionalities and a variety of ad formats.
The social shopping trend
Finally, as you decide between advertising on Google vs. Facebook, it's worth noting that social media is gaining a more prominent role in people's shopping habits.
According to data from 2023, 47% of US consumers have made a purchase through social media. More importantly, about one-third of global consumers use social networks for per-purchase research (compared to 55% who use search engines and 36% who go straight to Amazon).
So, even though Facebook may not fully take over the ecommerce landscape any time soon, it could be the key to engaging and converting a significant portion of your target audience.
It's evident that your conversion-boosting tactics must involve relevant social media channels, even if you might not need to spend your budget on Facebook ads to achieve the results you're after.
Final Thoughts
Identifying the best advertising for your business is never easy.
For starters, you have to have a strong understanding of your market and competitors' advertising strategies. It's also crucial that you understand your target audience's needs, priorities, and behaviors. On top of all that, you have to understand the benefits each of the platforms offers so that you can choose the right type of ads according to your business goals.
This, of course, takes a lot of prep work. And even more, it might require some trial and error.
Fortunately, both Facebook and Google provide marketers with powerful analytics tools. So, as you choose whether to invest in Google or Facebook ads, don't hesitate to use these tools to your advantage.
Do your best to make the most of them. Use them to assess your strategy. Employ the data to improve your approach, regardless of whether that means tweaking your targeting settings, your budget, or choosing to prioritize organic content on socials vs. paid ads on search engines.
