Will Facebook Advertising challenge Google AdWords in Lead Generation?
In the recent weeks, I have noticed a theme running in the internet marketing industry and inbound marketers with the question “will Facebook Ads challenge Google AdWords?”. The quick answer is no; at least not any time soon. However the emergence of such a thought itself is a good sign for the industry. Some sort of credible competition is good ifor the online advertising. Facebook, as a leading social media tool with over 300 million members is growing as a credible advertising platform. As a lead generation business professional, it is essential to take a critical look at the Facebook Advertising platform. Obviously, any new medium should not be ignored for the sake of it.
Facebook Advertising
There are several advantages of advertising in Facebook. Here are some:
- The primary factor is the phenomenal growth of Facebook user base. However whether it will turn out to be a major search platform competing with Google is doubtful. Google’s ads are basically driven by people who search for products or services.
- The prices are cheap when compared with Google. How long it will stay that way is anybody’s guess. The moment it gains critical mass, advertisers will flock to the Facebook Advertising platform and the prices are bound to go go up significantly.
- The targeting with keywords and demographics is much better with Facebooks Ads.
- Even the basic ads support images in the advertisement. The text copy can go up to 135 characters (unlike Google’s 75 characters).
- The overall userbase is much younger. This could serve well for advertising in certain industry segments and verticals such as dating, music and entertainment, consumer electronics, beverages, education, etc.
- Conversion rates are much higher. Again, as the ad volume increases the rates will go down.
While some project that Facebook ads will be as big as Google AdWords, many are not so sure. But did you ever guess two years back that Twitter will be creating such a revolution? Hence keep your options open, evaluate your lead business vertical(s) and start sampling the Facebook advertising.
Competition is good but still Google’s ads are based on your search facebooks are banners that are not contextual for the most part. I can’t imagine they create the same lead quality
Dave,
You are right. Note point # 1 above where I mention that Google is all about search. And I don’t think Facebook will grow into a search platform. However, Facebook will refine and improve their ad targeting and delivery as they gain traction as an ad platform. Some competition is better than (almost) nothing! Hence Facebook should be treated as another channel option by lead generation companies.
I doubt facebook’s ad platform will ever be bigger then adsense. Reason i say this is because people dont use facebook to find serious information(products,cures,news,etc) they go there to find and share ”useless information”(gossip,photos,status updates) which does not warrant clickin on ads.on the other hand people use search engines to look for serious information which most of the time can be found by clicking on adverts.
Vincent,
You are right that Facebook can never beat Adwords / Adsense. But who knows how Facebook will grow and what direction it will go in the next couple of years. Yes, as of today it is not a Google challenger.
If we think how Google is encomposing the businesses (ex. yesterday’s new App Market launch), I doubt if it will lag behind Facebook in the ad market. Again, as I say in the post above, for lead generation firms it is another medium to explore, however small it is. Obviously some of the niches can perform well on Facebook and most others may not.