{"id":1729,"date":"2022-10-11T06:57:40","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T17:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/f2fdigital.co.nz\/?p=1729"},"modified":"2022-10-11T07:05:06","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T18:05:06","slug":"google-ads-facebook-instagram-ads-small-businesses-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/f2fdigital.co.nz\/google-ads-facebook-instagram-ads-small-businesses-new-zealand\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Ads or Facebook\/Instagram Ads for Small Businesses in New Zealand?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
If you have reached this page, congratulations. You are on the right track to run effective digital ads for your website or business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most Small Businesses struggle to understand the differences between Google Ads and Meta Ads (Facebook\/Instagram). Understanding those differences is essential to identify which one will perform best for your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this article we will cover those differences, helping you figure out which one may be best for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before we jump into each platform, it is important to understand that any digital marketing platform will not guarantee the success of your ads. The success of your ads are mostly based on where your key audience is located, or how to reach them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly to the offline world, if you run a local bakery for example, distributing promotional flyers near your shop may be a very effective way to increase your foot-traffic and sales. Although, if you distribute the same flyer, at a neighbourhood that is 10 km away from your shop, it’s very unlikely that anyone receiving that flyer will actually take their car and drive to your shop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, some may do that, but the percentage of people keen to make that drive, is drastically reduced when compared to distributing near your shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a very short explanation, this is what marketing is about: increasing the odds in your favour to maximise the ROI (return on investment) of your flyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly to the example above, digital ads can be effective to you if know where your target audience is located, and how likely it is for them to reach to you (or make a purchase) when they see your ad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Digital ads may come in may different ways and shapes, but it’s important that you understand two main types: Search ads and Display Ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Search Ads are those ads that we see when we search online for something. Usually using Google Search, Bing Search, DuckDuckGo Search, Apple Search, among others. Search ads can also be found when you search on a map and see a ‘promoted location’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Search ads have a passive approach. This means the user will be actively searching for your product, service or brand and they want to find the product they are looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, if a person searches online for ‘bakery near me’, and the bakery in the example above had search ads running, they would probably show up among the first results in the search page. And since that customer is actively looking for a bakery, it is very likely they will find it and visit the bakery or shop online in the near future, because now they know where is that bakery near them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, if the person searches for ‘home made bread’, and the bakery ad shows up, it is unlikely they will visit the bakery or shop online. Afterall, they are looking for home made products, which is usually not something a bakery can provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again, the objective is to increase the odds of the advertisement in your favour. Search ads ads are great for most businesses if used wisely. We will cover how they work further down this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Display ads are fundamentally different from Search Ads. Display ads have an active approach. Similarly to distributing a promotional flyer, display ads will show up to people on websites, social media, apps, etc. Display ads must be still images, videos or GIFs in most cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This kind of ads can be very ‘invasive’, and sometimes annoying for the potential customers. Youtube ads are a great example of display ads that interrupt the user from watching a video unless they watch your the ad first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ads on Instagram, for example, are less ‘invasive’ because they are organically distributed within the feed. So the person who is browsing on Instagram, will see the ad and sometime not even realise it’s an ad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back to our bakery example, if they run a display ad on Facebook inviting people for a ‘special breakfast promotion, all you can eat for only $10 per person – Today only!’ and the ad is running at 11am on a neighbourhood far away, on that same day, it’s very unlikely that anyone will click to learn more, or even try to visit that bakery, after all, the ad is pretty much not relevant anymore and the advertiser is just wasting money at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, if they run this same ad, a couple days before the event and for an audience in the nearby neighbourhoods, the chances of that same ad had performed well, would have grown exponentially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The key point when running display ads is to make sure they are relevant for the audience you are targeting. Display ads are focused on ‘spreading the word’, they are effective to show your products, services or promotions for people who are not necessarily searching for it on that moment, but may be interested in what you have to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you have an innovative product, that people don’t know anything about, Display ads are more likely to perform better than Search Ads, since people won’t be actively searching for that product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now it’s time to break down a bit further on these two specific platforms and learn how we can benefit for both of them. Remember, this is not a tutorial on how to use these tools, our intention is to clarify how these tools work and why they may be a good option for your business – or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a few different types of Google Ads an advertiser can run: Search Ads, Display Ads, Video Ads and Performance Max (local) ads. Let’s see how each of them work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we mentioned before, search ads will show-up whenever a person searches for something on Google. These ads run based on predefined ‘Keywords’. This means the advertiser (you) should choose for which keywords or search terms, you want your ad to show-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So if the advertiser defines the intended keyword is ‘bread’, then whenever a person searches on Google ‘bread’ or related terms such as ‘home made bread’, ‘how to make bread’ or ‘best bread in Auckland’ their ad would come up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note that bread is a pretty broad keyword, and not all searches related to ‘bread’ would be good for their ad to show up. ‘How to make bread’ is an example of search term that would not be beneficial for the bakery to show their ads – after all, people searching for ‘how to make bread’ are not likely to buy bread from a bakery at this moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knowing the best keywords for your business is the key to run successful search ads. A lot of it will be trial and error, but you can discover relevant keywords for your business using the Google Keyword Planner<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n