Social Ads vs. Google Adwords: which one do I use?

On which social network should I advertise to get the best results? Each one has its own characteristics and particularities. We tell you how to get the most out of your investment to achieve your goals.

1. Social Ads

More and more companies are taking up advertising on social networks (or Social Ads). In Spain, their use continues to increase year after year and they are having very good results. Since 2009 the number of social network users in Spain has gone from 51% to 86% so far in 2017 (including the entire population between 16 and 65 years old.) Let’s see why:

a. Facebook Ads

La red social por excelencia, no solo para sus millones de usuarios sino para el mundo publicitario en general. Las herramientas publicitarias de Facebook han evolucionado tanto que permite un nivel de concreción en las segmentaciones que ninguna otra red social es capaz de igualar (con permiso de su hermana Instagram). La clave para conseguir alcanzar al público objetivo de una manera tan cualificada se debe a la calidad de la información que tiene de sus usuarios. Cada perfil de Facebook tiene información que el propio usuario ha ido introduciendo y que en la gran mayoría de ocasiones es real. Además se complementa con el algoritmo de la propia red social que puede establecer nuestros gustos o intereses en base a las interacciones que realizamos en la red social. Además de esto, Facebook es capaz de medir nuestro comportamiento incluso fuera de su entorno, gracias al uso de los píxeles. Por todo ello, Facebook se ha convertido en el pilar principal de la publicidad social en Internet y un lugar donde sí o sí, tendrás que lanzar tus campañas publicitarias.

Recommended objectives on Facebook

• Brand Awareness: improve brand recognition.
• Conversions: get sales of your product more easily.
• Traffic: attract clicks from Facebook users to your website.
• Engagement: get interactions with your content (clicks, shares, views…)
• Leads: potential customer records
• Video views: video views

Target audience on Facebook

The audience that works best is between 18 and 55 years old. With any type of interest. In terms of gender, women have a more intensive use of this social network.

Most popular format on Facebook

Video has a higher growth rate than any other format and is achieving the best resultss, although always related to engagement. For conversions, the star format is still the classic image and text format.

b. Ads on Instagram

Since Facebook acquired Instagram, the growth and popularity of this social network has only increased. As of today, it is surpassing Facebook in aspects such as daily usage time of users and the outlook could not be better. Being integrated into the same system as Facebook, advertising on Instagram works identically, except for the exclusive formats of this social network such asStories or other specific formats.

Recommended goals on Instagram

• Engagement: get interactions with yourcontent (clicks, shares, views…)
• Video views: video views

Target audience on Instagram

The audience is very similar to Facebook although it reaches a smaller number of people. However, the Instagram user profile is that of younger users, who spend more time viewing content and who like to interact with other users, whether in the form of ‘likes’, comments, sharing, etc.

Most popular format on Instagram

Video is king on Instagram. Being a social network in which content is given more importance, both in quality and quantity, video is especially attractive in this social network.

c. Twitter Ads

The giant with feet of clay. It does not manage to overshadow Facebook or Instagram but it still has its audience. In Spain it is quite popular and works especially well for real time events. Users use this network to comment and interact with things that are happening at that very moment. That is why it works especially well for promotions that have to do with live events (movies, series, soccer matches etc.) It is very dynamic and requires special planning, as it is necessary to know the current trends to be able to launch content adapted to the circumstances. The key with Twitter is to encourage user participation with our content, so it is essential that the content is friendly, attractive and appealing.

Recommended targets on Twitter

• Engagement: interactions that users make with our tweet, whether it is sharing, watching a video, clicking on the button, etc.
• Video views: video views. Usually all videos are on autoplay and will play automatically.

Target audience on Twitter

Users of all ages who are followers of series, sporting events, etc. and who are very active on social networks. They are mainly active over 30, mainly men. The content they look for in this social network has a more professional, informative and topical approach compared to others mentioned above.

Most popular format on Twitter

Video works well but Twitter allows for more dynamic and engaging formats such as Conversational Ads or the Poll format.

d. LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn is the preferred social network for promotions that seek to reach a mostly professional audience or B2B companies. Advertising on this social network is still not so fashionable and sometimes it is a little more expensive than the other alternatives we have mentioned above, but it will certainly be highly effective in reaching your customers.

This social network also has a wide range of segmentation possibilities: by geographic location, age, professional groups, company size, area of study, job position, etc.

Recommended objectives on LinkedIn

• Brand Awareness: improve brand recognition.
• Traffic: attract clicks from LinkedIn users to your website.
• Engagement: interactions that users make with our advertising.
• Leads: potential customer records

Target audience on LinkedIn

As we mentioned earlier, the target audience of this social network will be mainly potential B2B customers, regardless of their age and gender.

Most popular format on LinkedIn

Within the variety of formats offered by the platform, Display Media ads are the most appropriate when generating campaigns whose objectives are related to Awareness, lead generation and traffic boosting.

Google Adwords

Google is not a social network per se, but the users that use it for their Internet searches could well be considered a community, since most of them use some of Google’s free services on a daily basis, such as Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Maps, YouTube, Google Play, etc. The key to Google is that it has no real competition and therefore all content that is not within social networks, will pass through their hands. YouTube is undoubtedly the most social part of Google and where users do organize themselves as communities, interact with the content of others and leave their opinion.

Recommended objectives

• Traffic: user clicks to the website from the Google search engine.
• Video Views: Youtube remains the king of video views
• Brand Awareness: brand recognition through content marketing and its indexation in the Google search engine. This objective is not included in the SEM part, but we have included it as it is an objective to take into account for our Google strategy.

Target audience

Any. Everyone on the Internet interacts in one way or another with some Google service.

Most popular format

• Text ad in the search network: integrates both the Google search engine and its search partners. We can select the keywords (brand, service, product, even competitor brands) for which we want to appear when a user searches in the Google search engine. The ads include a title, a long description and the address of the page, and offers us the possibility to add some extensions (phone, additional links, physical address, Google+ followers, reviews…). It is a very direct advertising and specially oriented to conversion.
• Text ad in the display network: we will appear in any portal in the world with a wide variety of topics and users. Especially recommended for branding campaigns, since we will reach users who do not know us, who are not looking for us or who visited us before but we did not manage to convince them.
• Video campaigns: the most commonly used are in-stream videos, which are shown before a YouTube video or other video portals. Their great advantage is that they are only charged per reproduction (at least 30 seconds of visualization), contrary to what happens with other formats that are charged per impressions, regardless of whether the user watches it or not.

Once the user visits our website, the content of the landing pages will be of great importance. Whether it is video, articles, infographics, animations… Content is what nourishes and makes Google useful. By the nature of its ecosystem, good content can go viral and give us great visibility. Perfect for making ourselves known in an extremely competitive environment.