Facebook Ads vs. Google Display Network
The world’s biggest online advertisers are compared to see where the most reach, revenue, and performance can be found for businesses.
Advertising Reach
Both advertising avenues get an excellent score when it comes to advertising reach. Facebook Ads offers more impressions among the world’s largest social network comprising of almost 900 million monthly active users. That is a reach of over half of all internet users in the world with a trillion pageviews per month.
Google’s display networks have a broader reach with the ability to market on YouTube, Blogger, and Gmail. They can reach 90% of overall internet users in the world with the largest online display network comprising of 180 Billion ad impressions each month.
Revenue and Growth
Facebook has seen a slow drop in revenue for their 2011/2012 year with over a billion earned in advertising. Google’s networks on the other hand have seen an increase with over double the amount of revenue earned from advertising.
Advertising Performance
The average click through rate for banner ads in the United States is .1%. The Cost per Click is largely based on selected ad placement options with an average of $0.75 CPC. What Facebook does not tell you is their overall average CTR. The average CPC for Facebook advertising is $0.80. These rates declined by half two days after they are released.
Independent analysis performed by Webtrends founded Facebook’s CTR was 0.051 which is drastically lower than Google’s average CTR if 0.4%. Depending on your target audience, Google display network can offer up to 36 times higher CTR.
Ad Targeting Options
Facebook offers one targeted option that Google does not and that is based on their users education, workplace, and likes. Google offers topic and interest targeting, keyword contextual targeting, and remarketing as options that Facebook cannot supply. Both of these services provide location targeting and demographic targeting.
Ad Formats
Facebook scores drastically lower than Google when it comes to ad formats. The basic Facebook ad includes only a title, description, and image. Sponsored stories can also be promoted.
Google on the other hand preforms well on ad formats with different image sizes made available as well as the ability to promote a flash based ad. Additionally, options on the type of ad you can perform are bigger. Text, image, video, and mobile web ads are all acceptable formats for Google’s display network.
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