Today’s exploration into the online advertising worlds of Google Adwords and Facebook Ads was an eye opening experience. To date, I do not have any experience with online advertising. As my work is in the nonprofit world, we tend to not have a lot of advertising dollars to go around and our agency’s mission is to spread awareness so I’ve been a strict develop a message and disseminate it girl.
But as a girl going digital, once again my coursework and quest for knowledge have pushed me into uncharted territory. Here are a few things that I’ve learned…
According to Wikipedia,
Google AdWords is Google's main advertising product and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, cost-per-thousand (CPM) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads. The AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution. Google's text advertisements are short, consisting of one headline consisting of 25 characters and two additional text lines consisting of 35 characters each (2012).
From the information that I’ve found, Facebook has a very similar dynamic way to target consumers based on the information on their Facebook profiles and target your advertising to them. It seems that the debate of which platform is more effective has been an ongoing one since the first article that I found in Advertising Age was from 2007 (which we all know was an eternity ago in the digital world.)
How can you compare the world’s largest social network and the world’s largest search engine to see which is better? Here is an infographic that I found that compares Google Adwords and Facebook Ads [although I think I should add the disclaimer that I think this was created by a company that is an Adwords rep- even still it’s nice for info] http://www.wordstream.com/articles/facebook-vs-google-display-network
There seems to be a lot of mixed feelings about which is better, depending on the brand and probably the amount of money spent and search parameters indicated.
General Motors announced this year that “we've found Facebook ads to be very effective when strategically combined with engagement, great content and innovative ways of storytelling, rather than treating them as a straight advertising buy” (Crain, 2012).
However on the alternate side, “Ford Motor said it would "accelerate" ad spending on Facebook in conjunction with the content it's producing for the network” (Williams, 2012).
According to Scott Mondy, Ford’s head of social media, "We've found that Facebook ads are very effective, and they're most effective when we strategically combine them with great content and innovative forms of storytelling rather than a straight media buy,” [adding] “ that 20% to 25% of Ford's overall marketing budget goes to digital and social media)” (Williams, 2012).
Hmm… now I am seeing why my instructor paired these two assignments together – the content is king theme is again in the air. Again, it seems that content is the key to a successful marketing and advertising campaign.
References:
Crain, R. (2012, May 21). Despite the Buzz, Social-Media Users Still Not Really Interested in Your Ads. Advertising Age. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/rance-crain/buzz-social-media-users-interested-ads/234842/
Williams, S. (2012, May 15). GM Cuts Facebook Ad Spending, But Ford Steps on the Gas. Advertising Age. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/digital/gm-cuts-facebook-ad-spending-ford-steps-gas/234781/
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