Google Ads or Meta Ads: which is right for a small business

Whoever asks whether it's worth advertising on Google or on Meta usually frames it as a contest with a winner. It isn't one: they're two different ways of getting a customer, and they answer two different questions. I checked how each platform actually works against its own official documentation, consulted on 30 October 2026, because that's where the criterion to choose comes from, not a price comparison.

1. People who search already know what they want: Google's Search Network

On Google Ads' Search Network, when someone types a search, the system looks among the ads for the ones whose keywords match that search. Google's own guide puts it this way: the system "finds all the ads whose keywords match" the search made. Among the eligible ads, an auction that runs on every single search decides which ones show and in what position, based on the bid and the ad's quality.

The point that matters for deciding isn't technical, it's practical: the ad shows up because someone just searched for something tied to those keywords. The Search Network doesn't create a need, it catches one at the exact moment it already exists, in the shape of an active search. It works well when there's already an audience typing phrases tied to what you sell, like a service people search for only when they actually need it (a plumber, an accountant, a quote for a specific job).

One clarification is worth making, because "Google Ads" doesn't always mean this: the mechanism just described applies to Search Network campaigns. Google Ads also includes other formats, like Performance Max or Discovery, which don't wait for an active search but use signals and automation to decide who sees the ad across several channels at once, closer to how Meta Ads works. I'm not covering those formats here: if you want to know what following a Search Network campaign actually involves once it's live, I go into it in managing Google Ads campaigns.

2. People scrolling don't know it yet: Meta Ads' audience

On Facebook and Instagram the mechanism runs the other way. With Advantage+ Audience turned on, which today is the default setting offered when creating a new ad set, the system can look for people outside the interests and audience specified by whoever runs the campaign: Meta's own documentation for advertisers describes this feature as expanding the "eligible audience pool" the system can search.

Not everything expands the same way. Some constraints stay fixed, which Meta calls non-negotiable: location, minimum age, language, and any custom audience exclusions. The interests and audiences chosen by whoever runs the campaign, instead, become more of a starting point for the system than a strict filter, and whoever runs the campaign can turn expansion off and go back to an audience defined only by those interests. The exception is advertising in certain regulated categories, such as housing, employment or credit ads: there, targeting stays rigid by requirement, regardless of what's chosen.

The practical point is the opposite of the Search Network's: the ad can reach people who, at that moment, weren't looking for anything like it. It works when the need hasn't turned into a search yet, because the person doesn't know your service exists yet or hasn't decided to act yet: a new shop in the area, a product people discover by seeing it, a promotion that needs to get known. It's the same logic behind the Facebook campaigns service: getting known by people who aren't searching yet, not getting found by people already searching.

3. Why there's no comparison figure here

Whoever compares the two platforms is usually also looking for a number: which one costs less per click, which one returns more. I looked for a reliable comparison between the average cost of a click on Google Ads and one on Meta Ads, and it doesn't exist: the figures circulating online almost always come from agencies or ad software vendors, with an interest in making the platform they sell look like the better deal, and they don't agree with each other, not even in order of magnitude. No independent body publishes a comparable benchmark between the two platforms with a public methodology.

Publishing one of those numbers would give it an authority it doesn't have. So I won't, and the criterion in the next section doesn't depend on that number anyway.

4. The criterion to choose

The useful question isn't which platform is better, it's a different one: does demand for what you sell already exist as active searches, or does it still need to be built?

• If the people you need today are already searching for something specific, tied to an actual need at the moment they search (an urgent service, a quote, a product they've already decided to buy), Google Ads' Search Network catches that demand the moment it appears. Before starting, it's worth knowing what drives the cost of those clicks: I cover it in how much budget you need for Google Ads.
• If what you offer needs to be discovered, because whoever should buy it doesn't know it exists yet or hasn't decided to act yet, Meta Ads works better: it shows the ad to people who weren't searching for it, and it rides mostly on the quality of the images and video, more than on the budget put on the table.
• If you're not sure which case you're in, that's a signal in itself: it means you haven't yet checked whether an active search already exists for what you sell. The tool for checking, described in the budget article, costs nothing before spending anything on advertising.

The two don't rule each other out. It often makes sense to run both, precisely because they answer different questions: Google Ads collects people already searching, Meta Ads builds people who might search tomorrow. The real constraint, in that case, isn't technical: running two panels with different logic well takes more attention than running just one, and starting both with a budget too small to learn from either often means learning nothing from neither.

One warning that holds regardless of the platform: having clicks isn't the same as having customers. If after picking one of the two routes contacts don't grow as much as clicks do, the problem is often after the ad, not in the ad: I cover it in clicks going up, customers flat.

Where to start

Before opening an account on either platform, write in one sentence who you need and what they're doing the moment before becoming a customer: do they search for what you sell, or do they stumble on it while doing something else? The answer to that sentence matters more than any figure found online. If you'd like a view on your specific case, write to me: we'll look together at who you actually need to reach, and with which of the two platforms, before spending anything on ad budget.