According to a recent report, 80% of marketers agree that marketing has changed more in the past 3 years than in the past 50 years. What does this mean for B2B businesses? Ultimately, it means we can't keep doing things the same way we used to. To stand out and meet the needs of buyers, you must adapt your approach.
One of the key factors for this is investing in digital advertising, also known as pay-per-click (“PPC”). A lot of companies advertise online, but few do it well. It's especially difficult when businesses have plenty of options at their disposal. Should I invest in LinkedIn ads? Google ads? both? What are the differences between these platforms and when should they be used?
Whether you've already implemented digital advertising or have no experience with digital advertising at all, this guide will help you evaluate both platforms and choose the one that works best for you.
It's easy to get caught up in the subtle differences between ad platforms. So, we've put together a detailed guide comparing these two platforms which are extremely popular for B2B businesses.
We'll walk you through the types of ads each platform offers, how the audience targeting features work, and what you can expect in terms of cost. We'll also discuss the best platforms for each stage of the customer journey to help you prepare for success.
1. Ad Type
Both Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads offer not only a network of websites and platforms that serve ads, but also a wide variety of ad types. If you're new to digital advertising, we recommend the following ad types for each platform first.
- Search ads - This is the most common Google Ads format. These ads are displayed on the search implementation results page when users search for keywords that match the ads. In other words, if keyword research is carried out properly, there is a high possibility that users in the market looking for products and services like your company are browsing that keyword, and there is also a high possibility that they will become potential customers.
- Display ads - They appear on many websites participating in the Google Display Network. This ad type is perfect for increasing brand awareness and retargeting prospects who have seen ads before or who have viewed your website.
- Single image ads - They're one of the highest-performing ad types and are easy to set up. They appear directly in the news feed.
- Text ads - These are the least risky ads because they are the most affordable of all LinkedIn ad types. It also appears directly in the news feed.
Winner: 🤝 draw (depending on needs)
2. Audience targeting
LinkedIn Ads allows you to target very specific audiences. This is arguably the biggest benefit of using this advertising platform. Since 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members can directly influence business decisions, they also have the power to go after decision makers in particular.
Company match targeting is particularly effective for B2B businesses using account based marketing (ABM). Upload a list of companies you'd like to target, and LinkedIn will distribute ads to employees at those companies. You can also filter which employees see these ads by seniority or job title. Such highly specific audience targeting can have a huge impact on digital marketing.
LinkedIn ads have more specific audience targeting, but Google Ads has a larger overall audience reach of 97,105 Google searches per second. It goes without saying that Google Ads doesn't provide accurate targeting. Optimization takes time, but since LinkedIn is business-focused, there's a huge amount of data on prospects. Information such as the employer, employer size, background and work history, and seniority is information that LinkedIn knows, but Google often doesn't.
Winner: 🥇 LinkedIn ads
3. Costs
The cost of LinkedIn ads is one of the major disadvantages of this platform. If you don't have a monthly budget of $2,000 or more, and the lifetime value of your service or product isn't high, creating a profitable LinkedIn ad campaign is extremely difficult. Without such a budget, you'll find that you don't have enough statistically significant data to make informed decisions. It's also important to remember that the cost of a LinkedIn ad campaign varies greatly depending on the purpose of the campaign and ad type.
Depending on competition within the industry, Google ads are often significantly more affordable than LinkedIn ads. The cost per click (CPC) for Google Ads ranges from a few cents to hundreds of dollars, but this is usually proportional to the cost of the service or product.
Winner: 🥇 Google Ads
4. Ease of use
Google makes it easy to get started with your own ad platform. Google Ads Smart Max and Performance Max campaigns use Google's powerful automation technology to save time and resources. Often, these campaigns aren't the most optimized, but they only take 15 minutes to set up.
LinkedIn has far more limited options for quickly launching such ads. Key components of an ad, such as audience targeting, must be done by hand. This is complicated because many of LinkedIn's own recommendations often don't work. For example, LinkedIn recommends checking the “grow your audience” box, but we've found that this makes targeting controls unmanageable, and in most cases, results in substandard implementation results.
However, Google Ads automated campaigns often don't deliver the best results. Many organizations can improve performance by creating campaigns from scratch and managing them more closely. And this is where things get complicated. Getting started with Google Ads is easy, but the Google Ads platform is extremely complex. This method is useful if you have a good understanding of the system, but it may be difficult for first-time users to understand it. Meanwhile, LinkedIn campaign managers have far fewer “extras” to make custom ad campaigns easier to run.
At the end of the day, both platforms have their quirks. Creating simple ads with Google Ads is efficient, but it might be slightly easier to display customized ads on LinkedIn. At the end of the day, an expert partner might be able to help you get the most out of both platforms.
Winner: draw
Should I use LinkedIn ads or Google ads
If you have a budget you can invest in LinkedIn ads, I think LinkedIn is most useful for adding leads to the funnel, warming up, and moving them down the funnel. The platform is great for finding prospects that fit your ideal customer profile, but predicting whether those prospects are “on the market” with your services is nearly impossible. With this in mind, some effective campaigns you can run on LinkedIn include:
- Build trust with your audience by sharing educational blog posts and articles.
- Increase prospects by sharing e-books and other educational downloads
- Retarget users who respond to ads and keep your brand in mind
Meanwhile, Google Ads is a particularly good platform for B2B businesses that want to focus on the bottom of the funnel and target in-market users who are actively looking for solutions to business challenges. Given the volume of daily Google searches, these ads can have a huge impact.
Also, keep in mind that these ad platforms don't have to work vertically. You can use the best of both worlds to develop a thorough full-funnel strategy for digital advertising. Since LinkedIn ads target the upper and middle tier of the funnel, and Google Ads mainly focuses on bottom funnel conversions, we can begin building a fine-tuned digital ad machine.
Differences between LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads: Key Takeaways
Both LinkedIn ads and Google ads have their own advantages and disadvantages for B2B organizations. Choosing the best PPC for your business ultimately depends on your goals, budget, and target audience. LinkedIn ads excel at accurate audience targeting and reaching decision makers. Google Ads, on the other hand, have a wider reach, are more likely to reach “in-market” buyers, and are often more affordable.
To get the most out of each platform, we recommend using both platforms as a complement. Use LinkedIn ads to nurture top funnel and half-hearted prospects, and use Google Ads to get bottom funnel conversions. However, if you're limited to just one platform due to budget reasons, you now have the information you need to choose.
Keep in mind that advertising alone will likely not solve your business challenges. If your website isn't optimized for conversions or if you don't have a comprehensive inbound marketing plan, your efforts may fall short. To get the most out of your PPC budget, a thoughtful marketing strategy is essential.
Want to know how to get more out of your advertising and digital efforts? Consider Aspire's marketing services for B2B organizations.
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