Advertising on Meta or Google: which suits your business?

Anyone advertising for the first time usually faces the same choice: Google or Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram. Both can generate enquiries. They simply work in a fundamentally different way. If you understand that difference, you choose the channel that suits your business and waste less budget.

Google: people who are already searching

On Google you advertise alongside search queries. Someone types "roofer Kortrijk" or "accountant for the self-employed" and sees your ad above or below the regular results. At that moment, that person has a question and is looking for a solution. This is called search intent.

The advantage is clear: you reach people at the moment they need something. The drawback: you only reach people who already know they are looking for something. If there is little search volume for your service, because it is new or little known, there is not much to gain on Google.

With search ads you pay per click. According to Google Ads Help, which ad is shown depends on more than your bid. The quality of your ad and of the page where the visitor lands also counts. A relevant ad with a good landing page can therefore rank higher than a competitor who bids more.

Meta: people who do not know you yet

On Facebook and Instagram nobody is searching for you. People scroll through posts from friends, pages and creators. Your ad appears between those posts. This is called discovery. You interrupt someone who is busy with something else.

That calls for a different approach. Your ad has to stand out within a few seconds and make clear why it is relevant. Images and video matter more here than on Google. The advantage is reach: according to the imec.digimeter 2025, 67 percent of Flemish people use Facebook at least monthly and 51 percent use Instagram. You can reach people before they know they need you.

Meta suits businesses with a visual product or result, offers that people do not spontaneously look up and campaigns with a clear occasion, such as an open day or a seasonal offer.

Which choice for which business

A simple rule of thumb:

• Are your customers actively searching for your service? Start with Google. Think of plumbers, lawyers, garages, installers and other services that meet a clear need.
• Does your customer first need to get to know you? Start with Meta. Think of interior businesses, hospitality, training courses and new products.
• Do you sell to businesses? Google works for services that businesses search for. For brand awareness among decision makers, LinkedIn is often a third option.

Many SMEs eventually combine both. Google captures the demand that already exists, Meta builds new demand.

The landing page determines the result

The ad brings the visitor in. The page where they land decides whether they send an enquiry. That is where most SME campaigns get stuck: the ad points to the home page, where visitors have to find their own way.

A good landing page:

• matches the ad in content, with the same promise and the same words
• has one clear action, such as a quote request or a phone call
• loads quickly on a mobile phone
• shows proof: photos of your own work, reviews, accreditations
• has a short form and a visible phone number

For Google, that page also counts directly in how your ad is assessed.

Think in cost per enquiry

The cost per click says little. What counts is what an enquiry costs and what a customer brings in. A cheap click that never leads to an enquiry is expensive. An expensive click that often brings in a customer is cheap.

So measure from day one how many enquiries each campaign generates. Divide the budget spent by the number of enquiries and you know your cost per enquiry. Set that against the value of an average customer. Only then do you know whether a campaign pays off.

Start small and learn

You do not need to start with a large budget. Begin with a limited daily budget on one campaign, one audience and one offer. Let it run for a few weeks, measure and adjust.

With Google, bear in mind how the daily budget works. According to Google Ads Help, a campaign can spend up to 2 times the average daily budget on a single day. Over a month you never pay more than 30.4 times that average daily budget. So think in monthly budgets.

Only increase the budget once you know which ad and which page generate enquiries. Scale what works and stop what does not.

What you can do now

1. Check whether your customers actively search for your service. Type in the search terms they would use yourself and see what comes up.
2. Create or improve one landing page per offer, with one action and a short form.
3. Start with a limited monthly budget on one channel and record the number of enquiries and the cost per enquiry for each campaign.

We work from Ghent for SMEs across Flanders. You can read more about our approach on our advertising page. Would you also like to know whether your business shows up when people ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for advice? Then take a look at our sister agency hetgeobureau.be.