Found this fantastic image, courtesy of onlineschools.org and thought it was worth a share.
Under the wings of an aspiring startup and managing a blog with sustained Ad-sense revenue, I feel I'm at a point where I can seriously comment on the value of a both ad-platforms.
A Google Ad-words account is essentially the bread-and-butter of any fledgling service-based company's success. Initializing a good campaign and learning from your mistakes are essential to boosting your page-rank and meaningful ad-conversions. The Page-Rank algorithm (Google's method of ranking your page in search results) is highly secretive, one can only make reasonable conjecture's as to how it works.
Gone are the days of keyword tracking (thanks to keyword spammers). Now we're looking at an algorithm based off of quantity of back-links, back-link rank, site-maps AND keyword matching. It makes me wonder - is there an allocation for ad-words spending? Think about it - spending money on an ad-words campaign is going to help you achieve both impressions and clicks that are registered in google's servers. This would undoubtedly boost your page-rank.
Does this mean that an ad-words initiative is integral to a startup's success? I hope not.
I have a few problems with ad-words. Like the original query-indexes, all ad results are based on keyword and key-phrase matching. What if I want to target a specific demographic (age-group, professional in a certain field/job-type, etc.)? Moreover, what if my content is catered specifically to a demographic that is technologically proficient and uses firefox and/or chrome? These individuals are more likely to have ad-block enabled and if not, even less likely to click a "stupid Google ad".
That's where facebook ad's come in. Not only are they cheaper, they allow me to connect with specific demographics based on their account information. Now we're talking.
Unfortunately, these facebook ads are not related to search, therefore I require both an ad-words and facebook ad campaign to make sure I'm targeting both search content and demographic relationships.
Now rewind a few months back to Google Buzz. The advent of Buzz made me update and refine my Google profile and it got me thinking... Google now has some of my personal information (age, interests, jobs, etc.). Does this mean that Google ads will soon be "interest and demographic targeted" to users logged into their Google accounts while searching?
It only makes sense. I'm sure Google is already identifying my search habits and building it's own profile of who I am - why not help it? After all, I am paying their bills.
boom.