The most common version of this question goes: "Should we run Google Ads or Meta ads?" It is a reasonable thing to ask and almost the wrong starting point. The question that actually determines whether paid advertising works is simpler, and most businesses skip it entirely: do your buyers already know they have the problem you solve?
Photo: Lukas Blazek via Pexels
When Google Ads is the right answer
Paid search works when people are already searching for what you offer. If someone types "commercial solicitor Manchester" or "accountant for freelancers," they have identified their problem and are actively looking for a solution. You appear at the top of the results. They click. If the page is relevant and the offer is credible, some of them convert.
The economics have to stack up, though. If your margin per sale is below £300, cost-per-click and cost-per-acquisition become very difficult to justify unless your conversion rate is exceptional. Below that threshold, the maths rarely work regardless of how well the campaigns are managed. This disqualifies more businesses than most paid media agencies would prefer to admit.
When Meta is the right answer
Meta — Facebook and Instagram — is an interruption channel. People are not looking for what you are selling. They are looking at a photo of someone's lunch. This makes Meta poor for capturing existing demand and genuinely good at creating demand that did not previously exist.
If your product is visual, lifestyle-adjacent, or something buyers would not know to search for, Meta can build awareness efficiently. It also works well for remarketing — reaching people who have already visited your site and are somewhere in a consideration process but have not yet converted. Showing your offer to someone who already knows about you costs a fraction of what it costs to find a cold audience.
When neither channel is the right answer yet
Paid search only works if meaningful search demand exists. Meta only works if the creative is strong and the audience is defined tightly enough to be worth the cost-per-thousand impressions. If demand is low and you do not have the creative production capacity to run Meta properly, both channels will consume your budget and produce mainly data about why they are not working.
That data is genuinely useful. It is just not what most businesses mean when they say "let's try some ads."
The question worth asking before any of this
Find out how your best current customers discovered you. Not your target customers — your actual best customers. One hour spent on that question is worth more than most paid media strategy sessions. If they came through search, Google is probably right. If they came through referral and social, the awareness channels matter more. If nobody quite knows how they heard about you, that is important information too.
For a closer look at the structural problems that waste budget even on well-run campaigns, see our post on why most Google Ads campaigns waste 40% of their budget. Our paid media management service covers both channels.