Skip to main content

Tag: search engine marketing

Choosing the Right Facebook Ad Objective for Your Business

Setting up a Facebook ad for the first time using an ads manager account will surely make your mind go fuzzy. Every stage of the setup process is crucial to making a successful campaign, especially the objective selection.

Choosing your campaign objective is the first choice you will have to make. It will determine the optimization and bidding options you will have throughout the ad creation process. It’s like dictating to the Facebook system your goals and simultaneously trusting the system to follow through and provide you with the best tools to achieve it.

So how will you know which one to choose especially if you’re a stranger to Facebook advertising? The ultimate rule is that you choose the one closest to your advertising goal.

Facebook Ads Objective

To generate better results, you must understand what each objective means.

In a nutshell, Facebook uses the data it gets from people’s online behavior and targets the ones within your chosen target audience who are most likely to engage or see your ad.

Objectives are broken down into three categories: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion with sub-objective options each.

Awareness

This objective allows you to generate interest in what you sell. You have two choices in this category.

  1. Brand Awareness

Use this to increase awareness. This objective will help you reach people who are most likely to pay attention to what you promote on your ad.

Instead of boosting your ad for engagements (likes, comments, shares), this is the most recommended objective to take. This does not necessarily get people to engage, click-through, or purchase.

Huge companies like Jollibee, SM, and Coca-Cola may find value in this objective, the same way other companies who are not necessarily aiming to website traffic, sales leads, or increase in purchases. This may not, however, provide the same value to small and medium-sized businesses.

  1. Reach

Use reach if you want your ad to be seen by many people around your target coverage and budget plan.

Consideration

This campaign objective category allows you to reach people who want to know more information about your brand.

  1. Traffic

This objective allows you to drive traffic outside of Facebook like inviting people to read your blog on your website, listen to a podcast, see your app, and more. Facebook will serve your ad to people who are most likely to click through.

  1. Engagement

If you want people to engage on your ad, use engagement as an objective. The engagements include reactions, likes, comments, and shares. This could also help you increase your page following, event responses, and offer claims.

Choosing engagement will also allow you to retarget people who have previously engaged on your ad for future advertising campaigns.

  1. App Installs

Use this objective if you want people to download your mobile app. 

  1. Video Views

This objective will help you promote your video and target people who are most likely to watch it. The priority is to let them see your content on the video and not to click a link or register.

This objective is also beneficial when you are planning to build a video engagement audience for retargeting purposes.

  1. Lead Generation

This objective will allow you to generate leads right within the ad. It generally invites people to register their names, contact details, and other data you would like to get from them. Additionally, the data you get are auto-populated so you can get essential information out of the sign-ups.

There are only a couple of complex steps when doing this objective. You need to use a third-party tool that should be integrated to Facebook to automatically take all data going to CRM. You can do this within the Lead Set up on Facebook. This is crucial because people would expect to know what you are offering immediately.

Conversion

This last campaign category will get people to register, download applications, purchase, or visit your store.

To optimize for Conversion, you need to have at least 15-25 conversions a week. This is only a bare minimum; the ideal number is between 50-100. This is necessary so Facebook can learn about those people who converted and target the ones who most likely to convert as well within your target coverage. Without this data, Facebook won’t be able to optimize accurately the delivery of your ads.

1.Product Catalog Sales

When you have an e-commerce store you would like to promote, use product catalog sales as an objective. This will require you to have the catalog integrated to Facebook and choose product feeds in creating a campaign.

2.Store Visits

Use this objective if you have multiple business branches and you wish to get people to visit your nearest store to purchase. You will need to set up your business locations on the ads manager before you can use this objective.

—

Choose the most appropriate objective that is aligned to your current goals. Consider your first attempt as an A/B testing so you can know if your chosen objective really works for your business and if the expected results are met.

If all this is too much to take in – don’t fret as we don’t want you to stress out on something you don’t necessarily have to deal with. Get a reliable and experience-heavy agency who can do the job for you. Here at iManila, our expertise will help you build your brand and get more people to talk about your business. Request a quote for our Social Media Management and Social Media Ads now!

Where Should You Spend Your Marketing Budget in 2020

It’s a sad reality that the year 2020 has impacted many businesses in various industries such as retail, tourism, transportation, and many more. The community quarantine has definitely limited the freedom of consumers in purchasing only their needs. Fortunately, there is a way to keep your business afloat despite the ongoing pandemic. Due to this, for the year 2020, businesses should join the hype by focusing on marketing trends and safely investing in different brand strategies to keep your business going.

Here are some areas where you should spend your Marketing Budget in 2020. 

Compelling blog content

Many people rely on blogs if they need answers to their questions. The reason why it is important to post high-quality content is to be able to capture the attention of your website visitors. Your content serves as one of your most important marketing tools and it must not be overlooked. Just as well, the competition when it comes to blog posting is very high that’s why your content should always be compelling to stand out. It is also a must to regularly update blog posts on your website to reach more audience and increase your organic traffic.  

Social Media Marketing

It is known that throughout the pandemic, social media usage has skyrocketed with more people staying at home. With that, and with the majority of online users on social media, no doubt that your brand should be on social media too! Social media marketing helps in improving brand loyalty. Now more than ever, it is the perfect time to invest in a social platform that will help you reach your target consumers and simultaneously build stronger relationships with your consumers. Here are the following areas you need to consider on Social Media Marketing: compelling content, visually enticing images, and paid advertising.

Quality Product Description

Product descriptions play a huge role in your marketing tool. If it is a dry feature your target consumers will surely lose their interest in your product. Product descriptions have many functions than characterizing a product. This answers the questions of your target market about your product. Product descriptions should evoke the right emotion and showcase the ability of the product. It is a must to provide a budget for writing marketing descriptions.

Video Marketing

Video Marketing is the perfect way to raise brand awareness and reach audiences who have an interest similar to your brand. Consumers watch videos for their entertainment and want to be a part of their interaction with the brand. To make video marketing effective, always have an objective in mind on what you want to achieve and determine the type of video that you will publish.

One way to keep your business afloat this 2020 is to invest in your Marketing Budget digitally (and wisely), in order to reach more audience and raise brand awareness online. The specifics of your business depend on your marketing strategies and investment. iManila is equipped to help your business keep going and to boost your online presence no matter what the situation is. Leave a message and let’s discuss how we can help you with your digital marketing needs.

SEO or SEM: Which Should You Prioritize?

When you hear digital marketing, two of the terms you would come across would be SEO or SEM. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) may sound alike but serve different purposes that both aid in digital marketing. 

Any digital marketing professional should know the difference the same way a business owner should know what kind of digital marketing strategy to apply for his business. Here’s what you need to know about SEO and SEM and which you should use for your business.  

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is when a search engine “crawls” content to see how effective it is in attracting traffic. Things such as website titles, keywords, and tags will be inspected so that the search engine is able to rank them in their capacity to attract organic traffic. Ranking the websites will rely on various factors, some of which are: having great quality content with good link building and keywords, if the user experience of the site can meet the end goals of the site visitors, and link patterns among sites of authority. 

Google is the primary target search engine, amassing 79% of search traffic results across the globe as searched by NetMarketShare. Other search engines in the running are Bing, Yahoo!, and Baidu, but Google takes the market lead. With 66,000 searches per second on Google, SEO becomes such a timely strategy to capitalize on. 

There are two types of SEO activities, on-page SEO and off-page SEO. The former talks about the optimization practices done such as updating the tags, publishing new content, or improving page speed while the latter talks about sharing your profile, outreach, and optimizing social media profiles. Some of the activities related to SEO include: optimizing key titles and descriptions, keyword research and analysis, content creation and optimization, and site and server optimization. 

SEO when done right, can bring in a good amount of traffic and strike up conversations with potential clients and can bring you better brand credibility to search engines that you are a valuable resource. This is a practice that is geared for the long term as changes require longer periods of monitoring, meaning if you are a relatively new site it is likely that Google would ignore you in favor of more established ones at the start. 

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing is an umbrella term for paid search advertising. This has a lot to do with having the right keywords and strategy to be able to appear at the top of search engines. It includes some popular SEM strategies such as: Pay-per-Click (PPC) ads, display advertising, shopping advertising, and remarketing. PPC is the most popular type of SEM and what comes to mind for most people when it is brought up. 

There are many activities that fall under SEM which includes: targeted (paid) ad campaigns, writing ad copy, making sure the ad falls into budget, and making use of indicators and metrics such as cost-per-click (CPC) or click-through-ratio (CTR). 

While SEO is more for brand credibility, SEM is great for brand recognition most especially if you are at the top of the searches. With SEM it is easy to see your ROI because you are getting the results that you paid for, and you are able to monitor the traffic and create campaigns based on that information. SEM requires extra knowledge especially with tools such as Google AdSense. 

Which Is the One for You? 

While SEO gets organic traffic, SEM gets paid traffic through ads, which makes both actually complementary as they both rely on traffic and are accessed by queries on search engines when they try to look for something. Given the consumer pattern that most customers search online before buying, a combination of both strategies can give you the best results with visibility you need in the long term. 

A website should be SEO-friendly so SEM can have a greater chance of working. Having good SEO foundations is always a good start in letting the search engines know you are a credible site.

However, if your site is fairly new, focusing on SEM would be a better choice as SEO rank building does take time. It is still important though to keep in mind that although SEO is a long-term investment, consistently working on your SEO for a long period of time will make it even harder for your competitors to outrank you organically in the long term. 

So which strategy is the right one for you? The answer really depends on your marketing goals. Do you want to drive leads and sales or generate brand awareness? A finely tuned campaign made to address your marketing goals will be of great help in getting started on digital marketing. Not sure where to begin with SEO and SEM? Leave it to the experts in digital campaigns, leave a message and let’s discuss how we can unlock all your digital marketing possibilities. 

Benefits of Google Display Advertising

Trying different techniques to boost the visibility of your business? Make it more compelling through Display Advertising. 

 

What is Display Advertising?

Display Advertising are image-based ads that appear on websites, social media and mobile applications that attract the target market of a specific product. It also increases brand awareness and brings in possible consumers. With its visual and targeting capacity, display ads offer different benefits to a company, from visibility to remarketing.

 

Here are the reasons why you should consider Display Advertising for your business:

 

  • It is visually enticing

The placement of display ads draws the attention of your target market at the same time your business stands out to the audience and attracts attention, for it is a graphic content which converts to leads, because the consumers are more likely to purchase the product of the business especially if it is visually appealing to its target audience. 

 

  • Remarketing

Display ads also allow retargeting. Through it you can target your advertisement to the people who recently visited your website. Remarketing helps create on-going reminders of a brand. It is an advertisement strategy to remind the prospects of the business, while at the same time it reaches out to people who have keen interest in your business which can turn them to loyal consumers. 

 

  • Consumer Targeting

Just as well, display ads allow you to reach people based on their needs and with interests similar to that of your company, even when your target audience visits websites or apps which are not related to your business. Display ads can be visible with shared interest in different categories. It can also reach specific demographics such as gender and age. 

 

  • It can boost small or big brand 

Whether a business is large scale or small, display ads can help the business make a great difference. It increases the online visibility of a business and helps a small and start up business to build a reputation and be a great brand. Adding influential ads can remind the audience about the brand that they might be interested in whether it is big or small. It can also serve as a reminder of what they are looking for. 

 

  • Increases the visibility of the business

Although Display ads target specific consumers, it does not mean that it limits your visibility online. Display advertising has the ability to show on websites and different social media platforms that are not only high trafficked but also related to your product. It gives your business many consumers, even when they are not searching.

 

Display advertising benefits your brand by gaining more members of your target market in a very impactful way, building your business reputation and most importantly increasing sales. It is an efficient way that can benefit your business with the demands of the times and deliver exceptional results on your marketing strategies. 

iManila is a Google Partner agency that can help you navigate Google’s diverse marketing platforms and reach your audiences with optimal results! Feel free to drop us a message at [email protected] and kick start your digital marketing journey with us.

How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency

Choosing the right Digital Marketing Agency for your company, like any other business decisions, should be thought of with careful considerations. Only a bad entrepreneur will invest his money in an agency without doing a little research first.

Below we’ve listed down a few things that you should consider when looking for the best digital marketing agency:

 

Decide what services you need

Before approaching digital marketing agencies, you must first decide and write down what you’re going to ask from them. Take a good look at your marketing and business objectives and then plot the strategies you think you’re going to need. 

  • Set an expectation for your digital campaign (Do you want more leads or are you just looking to build brand awareness?);
  • A project duration (Is this for a long-term project or something more urgent like an upcoming sale?);
  • and/or a specialty (Does your business have a website or is it heavier on social media?)

 

 Evaluate Case Studies

Review the digital marketing agency’s portfolio and previous clients’ feedback. A good agency will have positive reactions from their past clients and will also have an impressive portfolio of successful campaigns.  By doing this, you will also get a picture of the extent of their experiences and what you can expect from them.

 

See The Kind of People You Will Be Working With

A shared vision is the key to any successful campaign. If you have a team working for you, of course, you’d want them to understand your brand story and your goals. It is important to know whether the people in the agency are the kind of people you’d entrust your business with. So what’s the secret recipe in creating the A-Team (or should I stay DM Team)? Let me tell you:

  • Professional
  • Determined
  • Strategic
  • Creative
  • Team players

 

Look at the History and Reputation of the Agency

It is easy to think that young agencies are the most tech-savvy and therefore the right choice when it comes to digital strategies. But the key point here is not how young or old the company is. A great agency combines experience and development. Look at how a company started and how it is today. A company that has been in the industry for many years and is able to adapt through innovations shows that they know how to build and maintain–a company that is perfect in helping you grow your business. 

Awards and Partnerships are also a key factor in deciding which Digital Marketing Agency you should choose. An agency that has a certification or partnership with reputable companies like Google, is more likely to deliver quality service. You can also scan for news or run a quick Google search to show you everything you need to know about the Digital Marketing Agency you’re interested in.

 

iManila, a certified Google Partner, has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry and carries a website that is placed among the top 500 websites in the Philippines (we’re currently at Rank 460!). Competing against thousands of both small and big players on the web, iManila’s Alexa Ranking further proves our company’s credible reputation in delivering quality digital marketing services that are trusted by our clients both here and abroad. Choose iManila as your Digital Marketing partner now. Find out how by dropping us an email at [email protected] or by visiting our website at www.imanila.ph. #iManila #DigitalMarketing

Website Must-Haves: How to Reach your Full Potential Online

You can’t deny that modern technology has affected the way companies do business. Today, most successful businesses have grasped the importance of having an online presence. While a website is good place to start, it is not enough, and you definitely shouldn’t stop there.

To help you out, here are some factors that you should be keeping an eye on to make sure that your business will thrive in the digital age.

Site Security

Imagine that your website is your house. Now, you don’t want intruders easily accessing and coming into your house, right? So you put up a gate and filter what comes in and out of your house. That is precisely what an SSL Certificate does. SSL or Security Sockets Layer is the standard security technology that functions to establish an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. The link ensures that all the data or sensitive information that have been submitted or collected through the web server and the browser will remain private, confidential, and secure. You have to keep in mind that security builds credibility among your website visitors, thus, making your business look more legitimate and trustworthy. It is best that you secure your website by purchasing an SSL certificate from an authorized provider.

Better Google Ranking through Paid Ads

Aside from frequently uploading relevant content on your website, another factor that Google uses to help your website rank is PAID ADS. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) plays a vital role to reach a wider audience, drive more traffic to your website, and can potentially generate leads. The catch is making sure that your ads are relevant to your target audience. Google’s algorithm pushes your ads to users who are more likely to engage with it. Meaning, your ad should target a specific need of your audience so they will really click on it. Make sure you use the right keywords so you also reach the right audience.

Digital User Experience

Is your website user-friendly? Does it take less than a second to load? If yes, then great job on providing users with a good digital experience! Forbes defines ‘digital user experience’ as something that encompasses all aspects of person’s interaction with your website, including behavior, actions taken, perceptions, and satisfaction. However, if you are experiencing high bounce rate because your site is taking too long to load, then there might be a problem with your web host. On average, a user will leave your site if it takes more than 10-20 seconds to load. A good hosting provider will help you beat that time and successfully retain your audience.

Going digital has opened so many opportunities for businesses to reach their full potential. It’s important that you invest in the right marketing tools and strategies to keep your online presence afloat.  Now it’s all up to you. Will you just wait in vain while your competitors surpass you, or will you take the leap and go digital today?

Partner with a reliable digital marketing agency to cater to all your digital requirements. Here at iManila, we provide services that will help your business succeed in the digital world. We offer Web and App Development, Digital Marketing, Hosting Services, and 24/7 Technical Support. For inquiries, visit our Contact Us page or get in touch with our team at (02) 490 0000 or (+63) 917 845 6005.

 

Understanding the key terms on Google AdWords

 

Have you been into your Google AdWords dashboard and saw the terms that seem complicated? No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. AdWords can be really confusing especially if you are not familiar with the terms that you’re seeing on its dashboard.

Google AdWords is Google’s online advertising platform. Through this, you will be able to create online ads to reach people and encourage them to buy your products or services.

As a search engine marketer, understanding the vernacular of AdWords is important in order to create campaigns that are suitable for the marketing objectives of your client and easily make some tweaks if needed. Having the knowledge on the definition of these jargons and being able to explain it in layman’s terms will help you in creating valuable and effective performance reports for your clients.

Since there are hundreds of terms that you may see on your AdWords dashboards and insights, we will only be dealing with the most common encountered key terms upon implementing ads and those that are normally included in your reports.

 

AdWords Basics

  •  Campaign – A campaign on Google AdWords is the set of ad groups that share budget, location targeting, and other specifications depending on the marketing objectives of your client.

 

  • Ad Group – An ad group is consisted of one or more ads that contain a shared set of keywords. Through Ad Groups, you will be able to distinguish and organize your keywords depending on their theme.

 

  • Keywords – These are the words, phrases, or terms that best describe your products, services, or your website itself that will help on determining when and where your ad may appear.

 

  • Daily Budget – This is the amount that you will set for each ad campaign. You can specify the average amount that you would like to spend for each day. To determine your Daily Budget, divide your monthly budget by 30.4 which is the average number of days in a month.

 

  • Maximum CPC Bid – or Maximum Cost-per-Click. This is the highest amount that you are willing to pay for each click on your ad.

 

  • Final URL – This is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of your ads landing page (in green font color). Meaning, this is where the online users will go upon clicking your ad. You must remember that the approval of your ads also depends on the site where the users will land upon clicking which is called the Destination Experience. The landing page or the website itself must adhere to the Google Advertising Policies, otherwise, your ads will be disapproved. (See the Destination Requirements here.)

 

 Google AdWords Metrics

  •  Clicks Column – This column generally counts every click on your ad. Know that a click is still counted even if the user doesn’t reach your website due to downtime or internet problems. Highly-relevant ads are more likely to receive clicks.

 

  • Impressions Column – The number of impressions is equivalent to the times your ad was served or seen on Google Search results. Even though an impression is not guaranteed to turn into clicks every time, this is still valuable on calculating your ad’s click-through rate to test its effectiveness.

 

  • Click-through Rate – Abbreviated as CTR, your click-through rate determines the effectiveness of your ad. It is derived by means of dividing the number of your acquired ad clicks by its acquired number of impressions.

 

  • Average Cost-per-Click – This is the average cost of each click on your ad. It is derived by dividing the amount that you pay for your ad by the total number of your acquired clicks.

 

  • Average Position – This metric shows your ad’s position among other advertisers.

 

  • Quality Score – This is the estimated rating of your ad made by Google AdWords based on the ad quality, its keywords, and the landing page.

 

As you can see there are a lot of terms that you need to know and understand. Some terms may take you some time to digest, but, just keep in mind that these are all beneficial for your own learning and search engine marketing skills development.

To further have an idea and complex knowledge on all of these, try engaging yourself to Google Academy for Ads. This will not just help you understand the terms mentioned above but will also give you some in-depth details on how AdWords works.

iManila-Talk-To-Us-CTA

Exciting Learnings and Updates from Marketing Next 2017

San Francisco, California – The Ads and Commerce Business of Google has announced new innovations at the recently concluded Google Marketing Next 2017 event. They made it clear to the audience that these updates are thrilling for both advertisers and agencies. The innovation for this year focuses more on making AdWords, Analytics and DoubleClick, much efficient for all – especially in making reports and digesting data to better understand the online audiences.

The Keynote event was started by the Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s Senior Vice President for Ads and Commerce with the overview of what shall be expected with Google AdWords, Google Analytics and DoubleClick for this year. Below is a rundown of interesting facts that you need to know:

  • Ramaswamy presented that 87% of the world population rely on Google search in times of need. He highlighted in his talk that “search” above all, serves as the first contact point of users whenever they are curious about knowing something or doing research prior to purchase.
  • 20% of worldwide searches are voice search. And what does this supposed to mean, especially for the marketers? This is a good gauge that as mobile devices evolve in a fast-paced, so is the way users search in Google.
  • Ramaswamy reminded marketers to always put consumers at the heart of their brand strategy. And the only way to do that is my making a marketing strategy driven by smart data in every phase of the consumers’ searches. And that is what the current updates in Google AdWords address.
  • Get the fundamentals of ‘mobile-first’ right. – The usage of mobile devices is increasing at a rate higher that what is expected, but the availability and infrastructure for mobile data around the world are not completely fast. There are countries like the Philippines with a below-average mobile data. To ensure users have a better experience as they navigate your website, it should load not more than two (2) seconds. Every second – beyond 2 seconds – delivers a much larger bounce rate.

In order to attain this, your website should be mobile responsive and all your media (photos, video, and dynamic) should be compressed in a size optimal for mobile web browsing.

  • The consumer has a diminishing sense of the boundary between online and offline. – The reality of doing business today is embracing the reality that users can no longer distinguish online between offline.

70% of consumers turn to their smartphones before making an action, either buying or dining. And with that, consumers move seamlessly from online to offline – from searching locally in Google to actually going into their choice of store. This action brings consumers to a thinking that what they had experienced while searching for a store online should be exactly what they will experience as they step into the store’s entrance.

iManila-Talk-To-Us-CTA

Google Updates

Below is a quick list of the updates of Google for their three platforms:

  • Google Attribution

Before, marketers are left with no choice but to rely on the last click attribution as the final touch point that contributes to conversion. Now, Google has resolved the issue of attribution in doing campaigns – hence the Google Attribution. The good thing is, Attribution will be available for AdWords, Analytics, and DoubleClicks for no cost. However, there is an Attribution 360 available for a certain cost which gives more flexibility in doing customization depending on the demand for granular data by the company.

Moreover, Google will be introducing Unique Reach reporting in AdWords. This metric is de-duplicated across devices, campaigns, and formats. Now, you can measure how many people were shown your display and video ads. You can see two new metrics in your AdWords: Unique users and average impression per unique users.

  • Integration of Google Optimize in AdWords

We all know that when a website is hard to use, the bottom-line of the campaign will be severely affected. Google Optimize is a tool targeted for marketers to create a landing page that can be tested for its effectivity. This tool doesn’t need the help of a webmaster and coding skills to run. Google will soon integrate Optimize to AdWords for marketers to evaluate the effectiveness of their landing pages to improve their ad quality scores.

  • Google Surveys in AdWords and DoubleClick

After getting a hit from your ad, it is still hard to get from these figures a qualitative data that is essential in evaluating the success of your campaign. Google announced that it will soon integrate Google Surveys in AdWords to let marketers send an automatic quick survey to every click to extract some vital qualitative information.

For further functionalities, Google will make Google Survey 360 available for advertisers who need it.

  • Google Assistant

This is the most exciting part for retail-type of clients. Google Assistant is a conversation with Google to help people get things done – this is a brief but powerful message from Jennifer Liu, the director for Google Shopping.

For a better understanding, Google Assistant is an artificial intelligence that is activated via voice command. From the word itself, it is designed to help users search for something over Google without lifting a finger.

Now, this one is by far the most thrilling innovation for retailers. Why? Because Google Assistant is designed for searches of tangible products (or even services in the future). Google is encouraging retailers to take part in making shopping via Google easy for every user by sending updates of their inventories in their branches.

You can watch the entire Keynote speeches in the video from Google below:

***

Google Marketing Next 2017 surely brought a lot of exciting innovations what will surely improve every stakeholder of Google’s ecosystem. It will surely make advertisers and agencies happy and most of all making users much happier by getting more relevant information.

If you want to know how AdWords can help your small business make a big leap in Google search engine, you can always reach iManila at (02) 490-0000 or at [email protected] for services relevant to Google marketing such Search Engine Advertising for search and display, and Search Engine Optimization to improve your website’s ranking.

Online Duopoly: Which One Is Suitable For Your Business, Facebook or Google?

 

Facebook or Google? This could be one of the common questions business owners kept on asking themselves. One of the digital truths that you need to deal with is that a business cannot grow online on organic alone. That is true in some cases, especially when venturing into digital marketing for the first time. But with so many platforms available, from search engines, apps, websites, and to social media networks – you might be wondering which one to choose when advertising your business online.

The truth is, these overwhelming choices shouldn’t be your primary concern.

Why?

Because there are only two dominant leaders in online advertising today namely: Google and Facebook. And you should stick with them quite often when dealing with digital ads,

The Duopoly

Admit it or not, there are only two entities in so far, who have valuable profile data of online users in the world – Google and Facebook. They are the two titans who earn a lot from their ad platform businesses, thus calling them a duopoly.

Why duopoly? You probably asking yourself.

To begin with, Facebook owns Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. These four are the top social media networks and social messaging platforms in terms of numbers of active users.

In the recent quarterly report of Facebook, the flagship platform has reached a 1.9 Billion user base per month. Instagram has 700 million each month while the two leading social messaging platform – Messenger and WhatsApp – both have 1.2 billion user base.

Facebook earns a staggering 97% of its 2016 revenue from its digital advertising business.

iManila-Click-here-to-know-more-CTA

Meanwhile, Google – a world renowned search engine brand that reached immense trust and popularity for having a spot in the Oxford dictionary is also a leader in transforming digital marketing these days. This brand has earned an accepted scholastic use of its verb variations such as “googled” and googling” making Google undeniably one of the greatest modern enterprises of the millennium.

Google owns YouTube – the world’s largest video streaming site. It also expands its services through consolidating its core businesses under the name Alphabet Inc. Alphabet is responsible for developing and reshaping its services that are linked with their core mission to improve the user experience. Alphabet Inc. from the name of the company itself covers almost the entire Roman alphabet including the Ad platform of Google for search and display networks.

Google digital ad business generates 32.8% of the total revenue of this tech conglomerate.

Which One is Right for Your Business?

A good approach to this question is to try both and see which works well with your business. But since most of the SMEs marketing budget are strictly limited, doing so is not in your priority list. To weight which one is right for your business. Below is our weigh in:

 

  • B2B and Service-oriented business

Does your business belong in this category? If YES, then Google search engine marketing (SEM) fits your business well. Why? The reason is plain and simple. A B2B model relies heavily on website transactions, and this is out of corporate custom revolving around the idea of legitimacy. When a website is your primary contact point online, Google’s search engine marketing is a go-to platform.

iManila-Talk-To-Us-CTA

  • B2C and Consumer Goods / Retail

The good thing about this category is that the risk of losing money when investing in both platforms is low compared to B2B and Service-oriented businesses. The reason is, reaching the end consumers with products (tangible trades) that they really need is one foot ahead than business offering services (which are intangible).

In this kind of business, if one looks after brand awareness, social ad via Facebook is a good avenue. With most retail business in the country relying on brick-and-mortar store than e-commerce, social ads by Facebook fits just fine. Be it engagement or web clicks (or visits), Facebooks ads can surely reach to the end consumers with ease.

***

In the Philippines, there is a preconceived notion of having comfort in purchasing tangible trades than the intangible ones. If you are in the business of providing services, you got to build a solid reputation to compete well with your competitors online. If you are dealing with consumer goods and retail, the challenge is to create a way to sift through the clutters of other consumer-centric ads online.

Be it Facebook or Google, the success of an online ad relies on understanding your audience and your business. Once you all had it in your mind and in your heart, sending the message across these two platforms won’t be too much of a pain.

If by chance that a business like yours is looking for an assistance in starting your brand presence online either through Facebook or through the search engine of Google, iManila is capable of helping you get noticed by your target audience online.

Give us a call at (02) 490-0000 / (02) 565-4064, or send your inquiries through our website portal at https://imanila.ph/lets-talk/