Google Ads vs Facebook Ads: A Complete Guide in 2025

If you had to choose one – Google Ads vs Facebook Ads, where would you put your ad spend in 2025?

Before, let’s see the difference between them. Google Ads reaches customers who are searching for your product, while Facebook Ads targets customers who might be interested even if they’re not searching.

Two platforms with different behaviors – which one will you choose? Search or social? Intent or discovery?

In this blog, we’ll cover everything about Google Ads vs Facebook Ads, each platform’s benefits, and the factors to consider when deciding which ad platform to use.

Google Ads vs Facebook Ads: A Clear Definition With Examples

When discussing Google Ads vs Facebook Ads, it’s essential to understand how each platform works. Although both are paid advertising tools, they work in different ways.

Google Ads

Google Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) platform that shows your business to customers who are actively searching for a product or service.

For example, if your customer types “best digital marketing course in India”, your ad appears right at the top of the search results. So, Google Ads is perfect for capturing high-intent customers who already know what they’re looking for.

You can bid on keywords to show ads to potential customers. Moreover, you have various ad formats like search, display, shopping, and video ads, which help you to target customers based on search intent, interests, and demographics.

Both Google search and Shopping ads appear in search results based on the keywords your potential customers enter. You can also reach potential customers through image-based campaigns on Google’s Display Network.

Google Ads display across:

• Google search engine results pages (SERPs)
• Gmail
• YouTube
• Other websites on the Google Display Network
• Apps

Benefits of Google Ads

Choosing Google Ads vs Facebook Ads is difficult – before choosing, you can see the benefits of both platforms.

With 8.5 billion search queries per day, Google is an online advertising platform to reach audiences actively searching for what you’re offering.

While the list of benefits is long, here are some of the key advantages:

• Wider reach: Google processes over 99,000 searches each second. No matter your industry, your customers are almost certainly searching for something related to your business. With the unmatched audience size, this platform allows your ads to be seen by wider audience.
• High Intent Targeting: You can target customers who are actively looking for specific products or services. Customers are looking for solutions right now. When they searches “24/7 plumber near me,” it doesn’t shows your customer are just looking instead they’re waiting for a solution – someone to fix it. This makes it highly effective for driving conversions.
• Measurable Performance: You can track and measure the performance of your campaign. You can see how many people viewed your ad, clicked on it, and how many converted.
• Flexible Budget: It allows you to set your budget for how much you want to spend per day on campaign. Plus, you have a cost-per-click pricing model, where you only pay when customer clicks your ad.
• Diverse ad format: Google Ads offers flexibility in how you present your business:
• Text ads in search results
• Shopping ads showcases products with images and prices
• Display ads across Google partner websites
• Video ads on YouTube
• Local service ads for small businesses offering location-based services

Each ad formats designed to various campaign goals whether it can be brand awareness, product sales, or local lead generation.

Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads is a paid advertising platform that allows you to promote products or services. It uses an advanced targeting options to target customers based on user demographics, interests, behaviors, location, and past interactions.

For instance, if you run a fitness brand, Facebook Ads could place your product in front of customers who recently engaged with health-related content even if they never searched for it directly.

You can run various ad formats, including image, video, carousel, and story ads to drive brand awareness, engagement, and conversions. It is effective to enhance brand visibility and connect with customers who needs to familiar with your brand.

Facebook Ads display across:

• News feed
• Messenger
• Videos
• Marketplace
• Non-Facebook apps and websites through Meta Audience Network

Benefits of Facebook Ads

While looking into Google Ads vs Facebook Ads, Facebook Ads doesn’t have years of experience, but it doesn’t mean this doesn’t work. For many businesses that want brand awareness, community building, or niche targeting – Facebook Ads is the perfect platform to connect with potential customers.

Here’s why:

• Extensive Targeting Options: When it comes to targeting precisely, no platform can match Facebook’s advanced options. Instead of just targeting someone who remotely matches your ideal customer description, you can take advantage of Facebook’s features to aim for customers who have the highest chances to convert.

You can target customers based on:

• Demographics (age, location, work, income level)
  • Interests (hobbies, favorite brands, entertainment preferences)
  • Behaviors (purchase history, mobile device user, digital activities)
  • Life events (relationship, moved to a new city)
  • Connections (people who already follow your page)
  • Custom audiences (your email list or past website visitors)
  • Lookalike audiences (new people who resemble your best customers)
• Visual Appeal: Facebook is a visual platform. You can use various formats like photos, videos, carousels, or stories to tell your brand’s story creatively. Moreover, your ad doesn’t feel like an ad but can capture customers’ attention more effectively than traditional text-based ads.
• Retargeting: You can serve targeted ads to users who have previously interacted with your website or app. This is crucial for converting initial interest into sales.
• Affordable For All: While no platform guarantees lower prices, Facebook Ads generally allows you to start small. You can launch a campaign with a modest daily budget and still reach a well-defined audience. With Facebook’s advanced targeting, you won’t waste money on people who have no interest in your product or service.

Google Ads vs Facebook Ads: Which Should You Choose?

Facebook Ads vs Google Ads provides unique benefits to advertisers. Now, you may be thinking: do I pick one? Both? It depends on your product type, marketing goals, funnel stage, and budget.

If you can only focus on one, there is one key thing you want to consider.

Let’s break it down.

Your campaign goal

You need to ask yourself one simple question “What do I want to accomplish with this campaign?” Is it to build brand awareness, generate leads, drive sales, or something else? Your answer will point you in the right direction.

When to use Google Ads?

Google Ads makes sense if:

• You want to capture leads who are already looking for a solution.
• Your customers actively use Google to find your product or service.
• You’re solving an immediate problem.
• You want to target specific keywords to appear right when someone types them in.
• You compete on price or availability.
• You want local visibility.
• You want measurable ROI quickly.

When to use Facebook Ads?

Facebook Ads work best if:

• Your goal is to build brand awareness or grow your audience.
• You have a product or service that looks great visually, so images and videos perform extremely well.
• You want to build a community.
• You want to target specific groups of people.
• You have a unique value proposition that sparks curiosity when shown to the right audience.
• You’re testing different creatives and content.
• You want to nurture leads through content before the sale.

Choose Google Ads vs Facebook Ads for Your Upcoming Campaign

Google Ads vs Facebook Ads are both powerful tools for growing a business, but they work in very different ways. If your goal is quick sales and you want to capture people who are already searching for your product or service, Google Ads is the smarter choice. On the other hand, if you’re looking to reach new audiences, build awareness, and spark interest, Facebook Ads is where you’ll shine.

Moreover, it’s not about which platform is “better.” But about which one aligns with your marketing objectives? In most cases, both platforms offer unique advantages at different stages of your brand’s growth.

Need experts? At NB Marketing Solutions, we specialize in helping businesses create campaigns for both Google Ads and Facebook Ads to maximize traffic, clicks, and conversions.