We talk about targeting a lot and getting your ads in front of the right audience. Let’s back up even a step further and talk about which ad platform is right for you. The first step to lowering your cost per click is to stop running ads on the wrong PPC platform. 

What should you consider when you’re choosing your perfect PPC platform?

1. Are you a B2B or B2C business?

Facebook is the most effective channel for marketing to B2C audiences, but falls behind LinkedIn and Twitter when it comes to attracting B2B audiences. 

LinkedIn boasts 590 million professional members, making it an ideal PPC platform for B2B marketing efforts. Some quick stats about LinkedIn:

     – 50% of Americans with a college degree use LinkedIn
     – 45% of LinkedIn users are in upper management
     – 87 million millennials are on LinkedIn
     – 80% of B2B leads are generated on LinkedIn

 If you sell services or products to businesses, consider LinkedIn. If your target audience is the professionals and not the business itself, we’d suggest shifting your marketing efforts to Facebook or Instagram. Especially younger audiences are more likely to be on LinkedIn looking for a job than for your product. 

2. What age is your target audience?

While all age ranges are represented on Facebook, Facebook is the one PPC platform where older generations are heavily represented.

Some quick Facebook stats:

     – 68% of Americans use Facebook
     – 35% of Facebook’s audience is under 25
     – 41% of Americans 65+ use Facebook

Facebook is the #1 B2C platform and it’s the best social platform for raising brand awareness in people over 45.

3. What capacity do you have for generating creative content?

While Facebook is the top B2C PPC platform, running Facebook ads does require some serious creative collateral. 

Especially if you are in the news, entertainment, or technology industries, Twitter engagement is pretty amazing. Promoted tweets are a great way to engage your audience without the requirement of visual content and with some added benefits like hashtag targeting, and tailored audiences (where you can target all the followers of a chosen user).  

While the number of monthly active users is 330 million worldwide on Twitter, only 68 million are in the US. If your audience isn’t international, Twitter may not be right for you.

If Twitter isn’t the right fit but you don’t have the ability to create visual collateral, GoogleAds are worth considering. Which begs the question…

4. Are you trying to raise brand awareness?

GoogleAds is a great PPC platform if people are already actively looking for your product or your brand. 89.83% of searches take place on Google, so it’s safe to assume your target demographic is represented.

If you fill a common need that people search for (i.e. plumbing services, salon services, etc.) Google can be a great platform for you too, even if you’re not well known as an individual company. You only need copy for these ads, not visual assets, but they do tend to cost quite a bit more to run than Facebook or Instagram ads. 

Users on Google have a high purchase intent. They’re looking for products or services because they have already decided to buy them. If you need to warm your client up to the idea of purchasing your product or service, or if you’re trying to raise awareness, Google is not the PPC platform for you.

We know we threw a lot of information your way, so here’s a handy chart to help you zoom out a bit as you consider which of these platforms will be most effective for your business.