Facebook vs Google ads for a dental office?

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A common question people have when they start advertising, it’s what’s the best platform to advertise a dental practice. And there’s three main ones. There is Google ads, there is meta ads, and a third category which I would say are newer platforms, for example, Tik Tok. Um, the newer platforms I don’t know as much as I should, so I can’t really give you advice on that. But if you understand how Google ads and meta ads work, you can kind of extrapolate into the other platforms as well. I think Tik

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Tok ads would perform similarly to Facebook ads just because of the nature of it. But let’s talk about it. Which is better? And the main things I’m going to talk about are Google and Meta. And what I have to say is that they serve very different purposes and use cases. So if you understand when to use which, then you have a leg up on other people who don’t. So let’s take a look at Google ads first. Google ads how it works is someone does a search you can choose to advertise for people who do that type of

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search. So you can advertise or you can show up for people who are searching for let’s say dental implants in La Habra or dental implants near me and you set a radius around your office let’s say 3 to 5 miles on and say that I want to target here when someone in that radius searches this search term I want to show up as an advertisement and you’ll get a little listing at the top of the Google search place with your advertisement. So the drawback of that is that it’s so specific that you get a very specific

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location and you get a very specific search. So what happens is there’s a lot of competition for that search term. So you’ll get a lot of offices if if you live in an area that is very dense with dental offices, you’ll get a lot of offices competing to show up at the top for that search term. So what Google does is it has an auction system. So whoever is willing to pay the most when you set up your advertising, you say, “Hey, I’m willing to pay this much to show up at the top for this search

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term.” And someone might say, “Oh, you might say like, let’s say I I’m willing to pay $10 to show up at the top.” Another person might say, “I might I’m willing to pay $20.” So in that scenario, Google would put that other person towards the top, and you get this auction system that goes on. So, because more people are starting to go into advertising and because Google Ads is considered lowhanging fruit, because it has such high intent behind the searches, when someone does a

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search, they’re most likely looking to find a provider as long as you target the right searches. So, you’re not looking for like um you’re not looking to target is Popcorn safe for braces because if someone is searching that, they’re not necessarily looking for a provider for braces. In fact, they probably already have braces. But if you choose to compete for the search term of braces near me or doctors that offer braces near me, then you’re going to be competing with the other people. And

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because it’s so competitive, the prices go up really high. All right? And also the mindset of the user itself is that they are this this must be something that they are looking for that they are in the mood, right? Or in the moment that they are searching for this service. All right, now let’s take a look at meta ads. So meta ads, the way we target is different. We target by user interest, user like how they engage with the platform. So what have they liked before? What kind of content do

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they like? What and we get kind of get an understanding of what kind of psychology they have and that is the basis for targeting. And unlike Google ads, people aren’t searching. they we don’t know their intent before the advertisement shows up. Or on Facebook, you might be scrolling or Meta owns Facebook and Instagram. So if you advertise on Meta, you can access both. And so as people are scrolling through their feeds, whether it’s Facebook or Instagram, your advertisement shows up. But unlike

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Google, it’s not text, it’s a graphic. And you’re not targeting, you’re not engaging with people who are searching, you’re engaging with people who are not searching. It’s a form of interruption advertisement. Whereas Google is more of a they say permission advertisement, but it’s it’s a little bit different, but permission advertisement, right? versus interruptive advertisement. So what we see in Facebook ads is you’re not necessarily competing with other competitors for a user who is

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intentionally searching for something. You’re competing with content. You’re competing with entertainment and everything else, which is completely fine. It’s I’m not saying that you have to be entertaining and it’s going to be hard to beat it, but what it requires is that you need something that stands out. Because if you just go with a generic advertisement, then you’re chances are you’re not going to perform very well. But if you have, let’s say, a very good promotion going on, a very good special,

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you’re more likely to find more traction with that. So, typically meta ads are going to require some sort sort of promotion or some sort of engaging um piece of advertisement that is going to get people in. Like, hey, this is a limited time special. um give people a reason to click on that advertisement right now and because Facebook users are on that platform longer Facebook and Instagram and they’re going through more content than Google where in Google as soon as you find something you’re leaving

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there is more room for advertisements so that means the costs are typically going to be cheaper and when you look at thirdparty platforms like Tik Tok they follow a similar model where it’s display advertisements you’re you’re showing a it’s called a banner ad where you show a graphic design and their pricing structure is going to be the be similar and typically newer platforms like Tik Tok are going to be a bit cheaper. They’re going to want advertisers to come over to their

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platform so they give better rates. Hey, you can advertise on our platform and it’s going to be cheaper than advertising on Facebook. So, there’s that to consider. And both of these are going to be rum or let’s recap that. So Google ads user has intent. So it’s going to be a smaller pool of people, right? Because there are less people who are searching for a certain service, a dental service, than there are the actual population. And you can target specific keywords and search terms that they search for. But it comes

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with higher costs and more competition um and less volume because people are uh you’re limited to the number of people who are actually searching. Meta you get rid of those limitations but you have to have or you don’t have to have but you typically want a more engaging promotion. You want something that gives people a reason to act now and you’re not dealing with the limitations of user search. you’re just targeting uh a radius around your office and trying to get people to engage with whatever it is

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that you’re offering. Both have a few significant drawbacks now, uh especially as time has gone on. Back in the day, we were able to track meticulously what people did after uh they clicked on the advertisement, whether it was Google or Facebook. And that tracking was so important because it would give the advertisers data on how they could improve the advertisements. And based on that data, we would be able to make iterations and change the ads a little by little, even the graphics to find the ones that

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worked best. So we could have two graphics um saying, “Hey, we have a dental uh exam special, new patient special for $99.” And you might have someone with holding a toothbrush on their right hand. And you would test that with someone holding a toothbrush with their left hand, let’s say. And based on that data, you would be able to find, okay, this performed a bit better. Let’s try a different variation there and see how we can continuously improve it so that you can get the most for your

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money. And now our ability to track data and to see what’s happening after people engage has really been throttled. there’s so much issue with privacy concerns and regulations around uh users privacy and users data especially when it comes to healthcare uh that I get emails maybe every month or every two months from Google or Meta telling us that they have new restrictions that are preventing us from doing better tracking. So while Google and Meta are still very viable platforms, uh it’s quickly becoming a

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bit more difficult, a bit more costly because we can’t iterate as accurately and it’s going to take a longer time for us to find ads that work well. So that’s the bit of a drawback that we’re seeing right now and and that trend is kind of continuing. So which is better, Google ads or Facebook ads? It really depends. Are you do you have a service that people are actively searching for? If so, I would recommend Google Ads. Like definitely go and check it out there. But at the same

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time, you’ll benefit from Meta Ads as long as you can do the work of iterating and tracking and improving the ad until it becomes profitable because there are people who might want that service who aren’t necessarily searching for it at the moment. Yet, if they come into contact with the right stimulus, uh, with the right offer, with the right, um, urgency, then they might be likely to be motivated to take the action right now, and you won’t have to deal with the competitive price wars that are going on

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at the Google level. If your service is more elective, it’s more visual, so uh teeth whitening, it it shows up well on on uh photos, it’s likely that you’re going to want to prioritize meta. And if it’s not as commonly searched for, then you you’re likely going to want to uh prioritize meta as well. So, these are different considerations to have. There is no such thing as a better advertising platform. They’re simply different, and you have to understand the use cases. Hope this

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video is helpful and I’ll see you guys in the next one.