Loading
Advertising

Google Ads or Meta Ads: where should you spend first?

Author
Lumna Team
Published
1 min read

W hen budgets are limited, the question is not which platform is better but which one suits your product, your audience and the stage your business is at. Google and Meta work in fundamentally different ways.

Google Ads: meeting people who are already searching

Search campaigns show your ads to people actively looking for what you offer. Intent is high, so they often suit services, urgent needs and products people already know to search for. The trade-off is that you can only reach demand that already exists, and competitive keywords can be expensive.

Meta Ads: reaching people before they search

Facebook and Instagram ads are shown based on interests, behaviour and lookalike audiences. They are strong for visual products, new categories and building awareness. Creative quality matters enormously, because you are interrupting someone’s feed rather than answering a question.

How to decide

  • If people already search for your service, start with search campaigns
  • If your product is new, visual or impulse-led, test social first
  • If you have a long sales cycle, combine both and use remarketing
  • Whatever you choose, set up conversion tracking before you spend

Measure what matters

Clicks and impressions are not results. Track the actions that matter to the business, such as leads, sales or booked calls, and judge each campaign on cost per result. Give tests enough time and budget to learn before making big changes.

The strongest accounts are rarely set-and-forget. Regular reviews of search terms, audiences, creative and landing pages are what turn an acceptable campaign into an efficient one.

Lumna Team

Lumna is a London digital agency working across SEO, web design, social media, advertising, apps and analytics. We write about what we learn on client work so you can apply it to your own brand.

Leave a comment