Search: someone is looking now
They typed a need, a brand or a comparison. The ad can be specific and the page has to answer exactly that. Volume depends on how many people search for it each month.
Guide — Paid campaigns
Google Ads or Meta Ads? ✦
One answers someone who is already looking. The other interrupts someone who is not. Which one you start with depends on how your customer buys.
/ The difference
Demand you catch or demand you create
The same budget behaves differently in each channel, because the person on the other side is in a different state of mind.
Social: nobody was looking
The ad arrives while they scroll. It has to stop the scroll, name a problem and offer something concrete in the first seconds. Cheap reach, more creative work.
Price of a click
Search clicks usually cost more because the intention is higher. Social reaches many more people per dollar but converts less often. Neither is better in the abstract.
How results show up
Search produces enquiries in days; social usually takes longer and depends more on repetition. Judging social with a search timeline is a common mistake.
/ Decision
Which one to start with
Start with search when people already look for what you sell, when the service is urgent (a repair, a treatment, a legal matter) or when one enquiry is worth a lot.
Start with social when the product is visual and new, when nobody searches for the category yet, or when you need to build a name before demand exists.
In both cases the page decides the cost per enquiry more than the platform does. An ad that lands on a slow page with ten options wastes most of its budget.
Measure before scaling. Search terms, message rate, cost per enquiry and how many enquiries fit what you sell. Only then does it make sense to increase the budget.
/ Budget
How the money is split
A simple way to think about the two lines that always exist in a paid campaign.
Media spend
Paid directly to Google or Meta with your card or account. It is your money, and it is the part that scales with the campaign.
Campaign work
Setup, audiences, creative direction, the destination page, tracking and reading the results. This is a service, quoted separately from the media.
Test budget and scale budget
The first weeks are for learning what works. Budget increases afterwards belong to what is already producing enquiries, not to hope.
What is never included
Guaranteed leads or sales. Anyone who promises a number before seeing your market is guessing with your money.
/ Keep reading
Read next
Campaign decisions, explained without promises.
You can, but with a small budget it is better to master one and then add the other. Splitting attention usually means learning nothing about either.
Two to three weeks is the minimum to see a pattern, and longer for social, where repetition matters. Deciding after three days usually means reacting to noise.
Not always, but the destination page has to match the ad and load fast on a phone. If your current page does that, it can be used as is.
Yours. The Meta Business account and the Google Ads account should be created in your name, with your payment method, and we work inside them.
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