This is a different question from paid versus organic, which we covered in SEO vs Google Ads. Here both options cost money per result. The question is which kind of attention your business actually needs.
The difference that decides it
Google Ads catches demand that already exists. Somebody typed "emergency plumber near me" or "CRM for small business". They have the problem now and they are looking for the answer. You are competing to be the answer.
Meta Ads create demand that did not exist. Nobody opens Instagram looking for your product. You interrupt them with something appealing enough to stop the scroll. You are competing with their friends' photos.
Everything else follows from that. If people search for what you sell, start with Google. If they do not know your kind of product exists, or if the appeal is visual, start with Meta.
Google Ads suits you if…
- People search for your service by name — plumber, dentist, accountant, lawyer, web design.
- The need is urgent and the customer will not wait to be persuaded.
- You sell something with a clear category: software, parts, equipment, repairs.
- You are local and "near me" searches matter.
- Your margins can carry the click prices in your industry, which vary enormously.
Meta Ads suit you if…
- The product is visual — clothing, jewellery, food, interiors, beauty, travel.
- Nobody searches for it because they do not know it exists.
- It is an impulse or lifestyle purchase rather than a solution to a stated problem.
- You can define the audience well: a place, an age, an interest, people who already visited your site.
- You have good photography or video. Meta is unforgiving without it.
What each one costs you
Both are auctions, so there is no fixed price. What differs is the shape of the spend.
- Google charges more per click in most industries, because the person is closer to buying. Fewer clicks, each worth more.
- Meta charges less per click but converts a far smaller share of them, because the person was not looking. More clicks, each worth less.
- Compare them on cost per customer, never on cost per click. A cheap click that never buys is the most expensive traffic you can purchase.
Give either one enough budget and enough time to produce data. A handful of clicks tells you nothing, and both platforms need a learning period before their results mean anything.
Creative matters very differently
On Google the ad is mostly text, and the work is in picking the right search terms and writing a headline that matches what was typed. A plain ad against the right search beats a clever ad against the wrong one.
On Meta the creative is almost the whole job. The targeting has become largely automatic; what you control is whether the image or video stops the scroll. Expect to produce several versions and to replace them regularly, because the same audience sees them repeatedly and stops noticing.
Where each one wastes money
- Google: broad match with no negative keywords, so you pay for "plumbing courses" and "plumber salary". Sending every ad to the homepage. Never opening the search terms report. No conversion tracking.
- Meta: boosting a post from the app instead of building a campaign. One image run until the audience is numb. Sending traffic to a slow page. Judging it on likes rather than enquiries.
- Both: no conversion tracking at all, which means the platform optimises toward traffic and happily sells you more of it.
Using them together, once you can
The combination that works for most small businesses: Meta introduces you to people who did not know you existed, Google catches them later when they search for you or for what you sell. Retargeting sits between the two — showing something again to people who already visited.
Do not start with both. Learn one properly, get it producing customers, then add the other. Two half-managed accounts lose more money than one managed well.
What you need before you spend anything
Both platforms will happily take money from an account that cannot possibly work. Three things have to exist first:
- A page that matches the ad. Someone who clicked an ad about kitchen fitting should land on kitchen fitting, not the homepage. This single thing moves results more than any targeting setting.
- Conversion tracking that fires on a real outcome — a submitted form, a booked call, a completed order. Without it the platform optimises toward clicks, because clicks are all it can see.
- An offer a stranger can understand in five seconds. If the page needs a paragraph before the visitor knows what you do, the ad money is buying bounces.
What a first campaign looks like on each
Google. Start narrow: one campaign, a handful of search terms where someone is clearly ready to buy, phrase or exact match rather than broad. Add negative keywords for 'free', 'jobs', 'salary', 'course' and 'DIY' before you launch. Point each ad group at its own page. Read the search terms report in week one and keep adding negatives.
Meta. Start with one campaign optimised for your conversion, a broad audience in your delivery area, and three or four genuinely different creatives rather than three crops of the same picture. Let it run long enough to leave the learning phase before you judge it, and change one thing at a time afterwards.
Retargeting: where both earn their keep
Most people do not buy on the first visit, and retargeting shows something again to people who already came. It is usually the cheapest paid result either platform produces, because the audience already knows who you are.
Keep it modest and keep it honest: a short window, a frequency cap so the same person is not followed around for weeks, and an easy way for them to buy. Retargeting that feels like surveillance costs you the goodwill the first visit earned.
When neither one is the answer
If your margins cannot carry the click prices in your industry, if nobody searches for what you sell and it does not photograph well, or if your site cannot take an enquiry properly yet, paid ads will simply spend money faster than organic would. Fix the page and the offer first — that work makes every later ad cheaper.
Measure the same thing on both
Decide before you start what counts as a result — a form, a call, a booking, a sale — and track it identically on both platforms. Set up Google Analytics 4 under your own login, which our guide to setting it up covers, and judge both channels on cost per customer rather than on the metrics each platform likes to show you.
If you want help deciding which to start with and running it properly, that is what our digital marketing work does, and it sits alongside SEO for the organic side. To talk it through, contact us.
