Facebook vs Google vs LinkedIn vs Twitter vs Snapchat Ads
Choosing the best ad platform is much like choosing the best roadway in a car race. You can have the best product, the best offer, and the best creative but if you’re on the wrong road, you’re going to burn your budget for nothing.
Different ad platforms have different advantages and disadvantages as well as specific ideal use cases. So whether you’re a dropshipper looking to expand your Shopify store or a B2B SaaS founder in search of company decision-makers or you’re a solopreneur with a personal brand looking to deepen connections, where you market your brand is just as effective as where you market it.
Let’s examine the pros and cons of the 5 most common ad platforms—Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter and Snapchat—and you’ll know where to invest for optimal ROI.
🔵 Facebook Ads: Most Reach and Most Opportunities for Personalization
✅ Pros:
- Massive Reach: With 2.8 billion monthly active users, nearly half of all people online could see your ad on Facebook.
- Super Targeting: Interest, behaviors, age, gender, life events, type of device-used—and intent to purchase. There isn’t a more granular targeting engine.
- Creative Possibilities: Carousels, videos, slideshows, dynamic product ads, stories—you can do it all. Facebook opens itself up to whatever you can dream of (within your budget) creatively.
- Comprehensive Reporting: CTR, ROAS and beyond. Facebook’s Ads Manager provides you with comprehensive performance reporting so you can adjust, optimize and scale.
- Sends to Instagram: Any ad you create on Facebook can be sent to Instagram with the push of a button, allowing you to access a younger Millennial and Gen Z audience.
❌ Cons:
- Ad Fatigue: The longer your audience sees the same ad, the worse it performs. This means you need to constantly be refreshing creative.
- Costly: CPC and CPM can be very high due to competitive nature and auction-style bidding process—especially in Q4 and other major holiday shopping times.
- 💡 Best for:
- DTC brands, dropshipping boutiques, lifestyle products, mobile apps and anything that is visually appealing. for optimal ROI.
💡 Best for:
DTC brands, dropshipping boutiques, lifestyle products, mobile apps and anything that is visually appealing.
🔍 Google Search Ads: Connect with Customers When They Want It Most
✅ Pros:
- Intent: Since Google Ads don’t interrupt the experience, they come in at the right time, and people are searching. Thus, there is more intent to transact and more likelihood of conversion.
- Keyword Functionality: You can use any keywords you want to trigger your ads. Moreover, it’s easy to rely on many long-tail keywords to get incredibly niche.
- Different Platforms Available: You can use Search as well as YouTube and Gmail. Plus, there’s the Google Display Network which encapsulates 90% of all internet users.
❌ Cons:
- Keyword Competition: Everyone is competing for the same keywords—especially in business finance, law, health and wellness, and eCommerce. Expect to pay a lot for well-searched options.
- Less Targeting: Google is great for search intent—but not as much for specific interest targeting or psychographics that something like Facebook could offer.
💡 Best for:
Big ticket items and services, brick-and-mortar businesses, SaaS companies, eCommerce businesses with products you can’t find elsewhere and any offer that solves an already known problem.
💼 LinkedIn Ads: The Professional Network
✅ Pros:
- Professional Targeting: If you’re in the B2B space, there’s no better targeting available than LinkedIn. You can target people by job title, industry, company size, seniority, education, even companies.
- Trust and Credibility: People view LinkedIn content as more professional and business-related; it’s an excellent place for whitepapers, webinars, lead magnets and consultation.
- Quality Traffic: You’re receiving not just traffic but also traffic from decision-makers, C-suiters, and industry influencers.
❌ Cons:
- Cost Per Click is High: LinkedIn ads are expensive. CPC can value anywhere from $5–$12+, if not more based on your industry/audience.
- Limited Audience: If you’re selling impulse buys, beauty products, or memes, this isn’t for you. The professionalism can be both a good thing and a bad thing.
💡 Best for:
B2B software, coaching/consulting, enterprise services, recruitment and in-house training programming.
🐦 Twitter Ads: Speed, Trends and Conversation
✅ Pros:
- Real-Time Marketing: Twitter is all about what’s happening right now. You can seamlessly integrate your brand into trending topics and live events with ease, plus age-old activities that are suddenly topical worldwide.
- Hashtag Power: Promoted trends and hashtags can create brand awareness in just a few hours—even better if related to a timely event or current cultural occurrence.
- Conversation Driven: Great for getting engaged and building community.
❌ Cons:
- Short Ad Space: Limited characters and fast scrolling can make it hard to tell the whole story or encourage a long course of action.
- Vaguer Targeting: There’s vaguer targeting and less precision on Twitter than Facebook or LinkedIn.
- Lower Conversion Numbers: If your ask isn’t simple, memorable and timely while it’s trending, you’re not going to get as many results.
💡 Best For:
News/media companies, news/apps, crypto/web3 projects and anything that needs live pitching or a flash sale.
👻 Snapchat Ads: The Gen Z Playground
✅ Pros:
- Young Audience: If your target skews Gen Z (or Millennials), Snapchat remains one of the most highly engaged social apps still on the market.
- Immersive Ad Formats: Vertical video, AR filters and lenses, Snapchat hosts creative and interactive options that promote play and engagement.
- Cost Effective (Sometimes): With less advertisers than Meta or Google, sometimes this results in lower CPMs—especially if your creatives perform well.
❌ Cons:
- Smaller Reach: Snapchat has roughly 400-500 million users which means it doesn’t have as much global penetration as Instagram or Facebook.
- Impermanent Engagement: Ads disappear after seconds which may limit brand awareness unless you’re super creative and to-the-point.
- Less of a Sales Intent: People are there to have fun, not to buy and engage with long, complex sales funnels.
💡 Best for:
App downloads, hot DTC items, in-person events, basically anything lifestyle/fashion/entertainment-related.
🎯 Ultimately: Which Advertising Platform is Best for You?
There’s no single solution for everyone. It’s more of a marketing arsenal:
- Need attention now and fast? → Facebook or TikTok.
- Need buyers who are already in the buying mindset? → Google.
- Need to target professionals/a niche industry? → LinkedIn.
- Need to jump on a trending topic to go viral? → Twitter.
- Need to capture Gen Z? → Snapchat.
But the truth is— multiple platforms are typically the best approach. Catch buyers on Google when they’re in the moment at the bottom of the funnel, bring them back on Facebook with social proof and then keep them occupied on LinkedIn.
Try it out. Learn it. Tweak it. Then scale what’s working.
