Google Ads or Facebook ads: which one suits a local business.

The short answer

The two platforms meet customers at different moments. On Google, the customer moves first: they type "boiler repair Leeds" and your ad answers the search. On Facebook and Instagram, you move first: your ad appears while they scroll past friends' photos, and it has to make them want something they were not thinking about.

• Choose Google search ads when the need comes first and the search follows: something broke, hurts, leaks or is due.
• Choose Facebook and Instagram ads when seeing it creates the want: a haircut, a class, a dinner, a new kitchen, an offer with a date.
• Choose both only when one already works and you can measure them side by side.

GGSites builds landing pages for ads for both platforms and runs neither, so we gain nothing from your choice. The answer below is the same one we give in a consultation.

How Google search ads find customers

A search ad appears when someone types words you chose, called keywords, in the area you set. You pay when they click. You also choose the words you do not want, called negative keywords, so a boiler engineer does not pay for "boiler engineer jobs" or "how to repressurise a boiler".

Because the person asked first, the click is often from someone ready to act, and they are comparing you with the other ads and the map results on the same screen. That changes what the page has to do. It must answer the exact search fast: the service, the area, how soon you can come, what decides the price and a phone number that works with one tap.

Google rates each keyword with a Quality Score built from three parts: expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance and landing page experience, which is how useful your page is to people who click. Google says Quality Score is a diagnostic rather than an input to the auction, but the parts it measures are the things that make a click turn into a call.

If you are a trade business, Google also offers Local Services Ads, where you pay per lead rather than per click: see Local Services Ads or Google Ads for that choice.

How Facebook and Instagram ads find customers

A Meta ad is shown to people in the area and audience you set, chosen by Meta's delivery system based on the goal you pick, such as leads or messages. Nobody asked for it, so the first second decides everything: the picture, the first line and whether it looks like something for them.

That makes Meta good at three things search cannot do well:

• Creating demand for something people do not search for, such as a new class format or a seasonal menu.
• Showing work that sells by being seen: a finished bathroom, a colour treatment, a wedding table.
• Offers with a date, such as an open day or a last order date, where the reason to act is now.

Meta can also skip your website. Ads can open an instant form, start a chat in Messenger, Instagram or WhatsApp, or start a phone call, which suits businesses whose customers would rather talk than read a page.

The cost is that most people who see the ad were not looking. Expect more casual taps than on search, and judge the ads on booked customers. Meta also wears out: when the same people have seen your image too often, Ads Manager can show Creative fatigue in the delivery column, and you need a new picture or video.

Which trades suit which

These are starting points, not rules. Your own customers' habits beat any list.

• Search first: emergency trades such as plumbers, locksmiths, roofers for a leak and boiler repairs; dental clinics for toothache or a lost filling; law firms for a specific matter; accountants at tax return time.
• Meta first: salons and spas, barbers, gyms and studios, restaurants and cafes, florists, event venues, kids' holiday clubs.
• Both, by service: home services and trades that do urgent repairs and planned projects. The repair goes on search. The new kitchen or the garden makeover, which people plan for months and like to look at, goes on Meta.
• Neither yet: a business that cannot answer the phone during the hours the ads run, or has no page that matches the ad.

Health and beauty businesses have extra rules on Meta, from age limits on cosmetic procedures to limits on what your website can share with Meta: see Meta ads for clinics before you plan around it.

What each needs on the page

The same page rarely suits both. Someone who searched "emergency plumber" wants a phone number and an arrival time. Someone who saw a spring offer on Instagram wants to know who you are and whether the offer is real.

• For search: a page about the exact service in the search, the areas you cover in the first lines, the phone number at the top, how soon you can come and what decides the price. One page per service you advertise.
• For Meta: a first screen that repeats the ad's picture and promise, proof that you are real such as photos of your work and reviews, a short form, and a page that loads and works inside the Facebook and Instagram apps.
• For both: a reply promise next to the form, and tracking that records which ad brought each enquiry.

The full checklist for the page is in before you run ads. On Meta you can also skip the page with an instant form, which brings more leads and more junk: see fake and junk leads from lead ads.

Set the area properly on each

A local business pays for every click from outside the area it serves, so check the location setting on both platforms before you judge anything else.

• Google: the default location option reaches people in, regularly in, or who have shown interest in the places you target. The other option, called Presence, reaches only people who are in or regularly in them. For a business that visits customers, or expects them to walk in, Presence is the safer choice.
• Google: exclude the places you do not serve, and expect people to type the town as well as the service, such as roofer Harrogate.
• Meta: set the location to the towns or the radius you really cover. Meta says its location signals cannot be fully accurate, so an occasional lead from outside will still arrive. Ask the area in the form.
• Both: name the area in the ad and on the page, so people outside it do not tap in the first place.

Check where clicks came from after the first week. On Google, the Locations report shows matched locations, which is where your ads appeared. On Meta, break the results down by region in Ads Manager. If many clicks come from outside your area, fix the setting before you decide the platform does not work.

What each asks of you every week

Neither runs itself. The weekly work is different:

• Google: read the search terms report, which lists what people actually typed, and add negative keywords for the searches you do not want. Check which keywords bring calls and forms, and move budget towards them.
• Meta: watch for tired ads and make new ones, answer comments and messages on the ads, and check where results come from with the placement breakdown.
• Both: answer every enquiry quickly, record how each one ended, and compare cost per booked customer, not cost per click.

If nobody in the business will do this weekly, that is a real reason to pick the one that fits your habits. Search rewards someone who likes lists and tidying. Meta rewards someone who takes good photos and posts often.

What decides the cost of each

Neither platform has a fixed price, and anyone quoting a typical cost per click for your trade is guessing about your town. What decides it:

• On Google: how many other businesses bid on the same searches in your area, how relevant your ad and page are, how narrowly you set the area, hours and keywords, and how many searches there are.
• On Meta: the size of the audience you can reach, how many other advertisers want the same people that week, the goal you choose and how well your picture stops people scrolling.
• On both: how many enquiries it takes to win one customer, which depends on your reply, your price and your reviews more than on the ad.

The number that matters is what one booked customer costs you, next to what one customer is worth. Work out the second before you spend anything. The GGSites prices page lists what a landing page costs if you need one.

A fair first test of each

A verdict such as "Facebook doesn't work for us" or "Google is too expensive" is only as good as the test behind it. A fair test looks like this:

• One platform at a time, one service, one area.
• A page or form built for that ad, tested on a phone before launch.
• utm tags on every link, a question to every caller about how they found you, and a tracking number if most customers ring. Calls are covered in call tracking for a small business.
• Spend, length and the result that counts as success written down before you start, so one quiet week does not end it.
• On Meta, a goal you can feed: Meta says an ad set usually needs about 50 results in a week to leave its learning phase.
• At the end, cost per booked customer for that platform, from your own records.

Then run the other one the same way, and compare like with like. The tracking for each is in how to track leads from Google Ads and how to track leads from Meta ads.

A physio clinic and a florist

A physiotherapy clinic gets most new patients from people in pain who search "physio near me" or "sports massage" with the town's name. Its search ads go to a page per treatment, with the next free appointment times and the phone number. When it launches a new evening Pilates class that nobody searches for by name, it runs a Meta ad with a video of a class and a short form for a taster session.

A florist sells most bouquets when people see them, so Meta carries the year: a weekly arrangement, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day with clear last order dates. But people planning a funeral search for funeral flowers in their town and want to call someone, so a small search campaign with its own page runs all year.

Both businesses use both platforms, each for a different service. Neither split its budget evenly, and neither started both on the same day.

Mistakes when choosing

• Choosing the platform a competitor uses without knowing whether it works for them. You can see their ads, but not their results.
• Sending both platforms to the home page.
• Judging Meta on clicks and Google on impressions, instead of both on booked customers.
• Starting both at once with a small budget, so neither gets enough data to judge.
• No way of telling which platform brought a phone call.
• Letting the person who sells you ad management pick the platform they happen to sell.
• Running ads while the phone goes unanswered at the hours they show.

If you want to see what local competitors are running before you decide, how to see your competitors' ads shows both platforms' public ad libraries.