What are Meta ads?
Advertising across Facebook and Instagram, targeted by interests, behaviour and audiences you supply. Strong for demand you have to create; search is stronger for demand that already exists.
Meta ads are the ads you run through Meta’s advertising platform, which places them across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and a network of partner apps. They are managed from one account, so one campaign can reach people on several of these at once.
The difference from search advertising is the most useful thing to understand about them. On Google, someone has already searched for what you sell. On Facebook and Instagram, they were scrolling for something else. Meta ads have to catch attention and create interest that was not there a moment before, which makes the creative, the picture or video and the first line, the thing that decides whether they work.
That makes them strong for products people do not know they want yet, for building awareness, and for remarketing to people who have already visited. They are usually weaker than search for urgent needs. We compare the two directly in Google Ads versus Facebook ads, and set out what they cost in how much Instagram ads cost.
Paid media measured on what it returns, not what it spends.
Google, Meta, LinkedIn and TikTok campaigns built on search terms, creative testing and conversion tracking, not impressions.