Social Media Ads or AdWords?

Social Media ads or AdWords ads…seems to be the million dollar question. If you would have ask me this question seven short years ago and I would’ve made it easy for you….ADWORDS!! Times have changed, and so has advertising to the masses. It’s not a very complicated question is it, I mean the answer is uber (there’s another word not used much seven years ago) simple…both. Nobody wants to hear that though. The thought of spreading their well thought out budget over two different platforms seems minimalist, and surely can’t don the returns a full budget on one platform would…well you are partly correct.

Algorithms

An Algorithm by its very definition is a set of rules…’nuff said? No, well OK, so think of it this way, there are a set of rules a program goes by to make a decision on what to do next. That’s how programs kinda sorta work (if y / x = A then got 36) you get it, right? What I am saying is, these algorithms are put in place to determine what when and where something belongs. Google and Facebook both have algorithms to serve ads to folks, but have two totally different methods of doing it.

Now most will tell you that AdWords doesn’t use Algorithms, that’s SEO you dummy. Well, there you go again, now go back to the beginning and read. An algorithm is a set of rules, and yes, there is an algorithm for AdWords, and there’s a separate algorithm for organic or SEO. I think the most recent version is named “Fred”. Google impressed upon everyone what made their AdWords program so perfect was the fact it was based on keywords from people “in the buying cycle”. In the buying cycle, talk about strong rhetoric to get people move there advertising for Billboards, Newspapers and TV, over to Google, because only people looking for their product would see their ad thus improving impression exposure and ROI…and it worked. Even though only about 10% of that keyword buying cycle group were clicking on ads, they were a targeted market. So not much has changed..other than the most important part, the CPC or Cost Per Click, it seems, like inflation, to have created some vortex of flea market price gouging. Where clicks on ads at 3 am for a pair of Vans started costing the retailer $5-$7 per click, roughly 10% of the price of the shoe.  Yes, Google AdWords is still pretty hot…but wait Facebook has an algorithm too. It must pretty much do the same thing..right? Well, yes, yes it does. Both Algorithms are auction based, using there own separate methodologies to determine which ads are served to which people.  It’s just that simple, I should just pick one then…not so fast.

Browsing VS Shopping

I’ll make this quick, most everyone now has a different functionality for every site or network they visit. Google and Bing for data search and Facebook and Instagram for funny pics, what’s up to friends and occasional real news. So then where do I want to spend my money. Here’s the best analogy I could give. Say you’re a shoe vendor…do I want to sell shoes at a huge retail mall, with thousands of customers visiting daily, with costly storefront retail. Or do I want to be the CVS on the corner next to Disney World. Tons of traffic passing daily, that may or may not be totally interested, or in the buying cycle, but that volume is huge. Hmm…decisions, decisions. To be fair, Facebook isn’t void of its own buyers cycle, just most buyers are not scrolling news feeds looking for a set of new radial tires.

The answer to the riddle was given at the beginning, do both, split test like your supposed to. I mean split test everything, build buying personas, and be realistic with budgets. A $5 a day budget really doesn’t work for much of anything anymore, but might be a good start to decide what space your product is sold in.