Google Ads vs LinkedIn Ads: Which is the best channel for your business?
Are you hesitating between Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads to promote your business on the web? What if the key to success was… to combine the two? Google Ads offers a broad, flexible reach, while LinkedIn Ads specifically targets professionals. Depending on your company’s objectives, your target audience and the type of product or service you offer, it may be worthwhile combining the two to maximize the effectiveness and ROI of your advertising campaigns. Find out more in this article!
Google Ads vs LinkedIn Ads: 5 criteria for making the right choice
Choosing the right advertising channel can make all the difference to achieving your objectives. Discover the 5 criteria you need to take into account to make the best choice!
#1: Advertising objectives: what are you trying to achieve?
The first question to ask yourself is: what is the objective of your advertising campaign? Here are a few examples.
Increase brand awareness on a large scale
Pour faire connaître votre marque à un large public, Google Ads est roi ! With ads on the search engine, YouTube and millions of partner sites, you can reach a global audience in no time.
Boost online sales quickly and massively
When it comes to boosting your online sales, Google Ads excels. By capturing users’ attention when they want to buy your products, you maximize your chances of conversion!
Attract the best customers to your company
When it comes to recruiting the best professionals in your sector, LinkedIn is THE social network par excellence. With just a few clicks, you can precisely target the best candidates according to sector, experience or skills.
Generate qualified B2B leads
To reach decision-makers and generate high-quality leads, LinkedIn Ads surpasses Google Ads. You can directly target the professionals most relevant to your offer, in an ultra-precise way.
#2: Target audience: who do you want to reach?
Next, who do you want to reach? The target audience plays a key role in the choice of platform.
If you want to reach a large audience: Google Ads
Google has 92.8 billion monthly active users, with over 8.5 billion searches carried out every day (in comparison, LinkedIn has “only” 1 billion members!).
With Google Ads, you can reach a wide audience (both B2C and B2B) with your ads. The platform enables you to target users based on their online searches, reaching a wide range of people.
Please note: quantity is not synonymous with quality. With Google Ads, you’re bound to reach a large audience. But if you want it to be qualified, if you want a good conversion rate, you need to choose the right keywords according to their search volume and the competition, making sure they really match the user’s intention.
Targeting specific professionals or companies: LinkedIn Ads
Unlike Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads lets you reach professionals exclusively. The platform offers extremely precise targeting (200 targeting parameters!), enabling you to specifically target professionals likely to be interested in your services.
For example: do you market SaaS HR software? In just a few clicks, you can promote it to all HR managers on LinkedIn.
#3: Ad types: which format suits your message?
The third question to ask yourself when choosing between Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads: which format is best? It needs to capture your target’s attention, while conveying your message effectively.
Flexibility and diversity in your formats: Google Ads
Google Ads offers a wide variety of formats to suit your needs:
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Text ads for search results;
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Visual banners on the display network;
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Videos on YouTube (Instream or discovery);
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Google Shopping Ads to promote your products ;
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Remarketing ads to target people who have already visited your website;
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Gmail Ads to send a message to an ultra-targeted audience ;
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Local Services Ads to target prospects near your business.
This allows you to reach your audience at different points in their buying journey.
Want to target a professional audience with relevant content? LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn Ads excels in formats that integrate naturally into the professional content flow by offering several types of ads:
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Sponsored Content (articles, posts, videos), ideal for sharing content that engages ;
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Sponsored InMail, allowing you to directly target users with personalized messages ;
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Text ads, perfect for targeted promotion of B2B services.
Too many choices? Launch an A/B testing campaign to test several formats and find the one that suits you best!
#4: Cost per click: which platform is cheaper?
Cost-per-click (CPC) is a key factor in assessing the return on investment of your advertising campaigns.
You're looking for a lower CPC to reach a larger audience: Google Ads
With an average CPC of €0.93, Google Ads is a cost-effective option, especially if you want to position yourself on low-competition niche keywords. It allows you to generate a high volume of clicks at a low cost.
You're ready to invest more for quality clicks: LinkedIn Ads
With an average CPC of €5, LinkedIn Ads requires a significant initial investment.
Nevertheless, the platform enables you to target decision-makers or influential professionals directly. As a result, clicks are more qualified, and leads of higher quality.
#5 : Conversion : quelle plateforme génère les meilleures conversions ?
In the end, what counts is conversion. It’s up to you to decide which of these platforms will help you turn your clicks into concrete actions!
You want to maximize conversions: Google Ads
Thanks to its massive reach, Google Ads can generate a large number of conversions (especially for consumer products or services), as users arrive at your site after actively searching for what you offer.
What’s more, over 65% of users click on paid ads when making a purchase, and it’s estimated that traffic generated by Google Ads generates 50% more conversions than organic advertising!
The only downside is that high volume can lead to less qualified leads. So be sure to refine your targeting to maximize your return on investment!
For your information, the conversion rate for LinkedIn Ads is estimated at 6.1%. So if your target audience is on LinkedIn, this is THE platform par excellence for generating quality leads.
The winning B2B strategy: combining the strengths of Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads
To get the most out of your advertising campaigns, adopt a combined strategy using Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads. Attract a wide audience to your website with the former, then focus your efforts on the most promising prospects with the latter’s advanced targeting tools. The result: maximum efficiency and return on investment!
