Facebook and TikTok are currently the two leading online advertising platforms in the world. When it comes to e-commerce advertising, both platforms deliver excellent results. Each platform has its advantages. But if you had to choose only one, which one would you choose? If you have a limited budget, is it possible to invest in Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads? This article is for you.
What is Facebook Ads?
Facebook Advertising (Facebook Ads) is a paid advertising service offered by Facebook. It is a type of advertisement that displays products, services, promotions, or marketing campaigns to potential customers on Facebook and social media platforms linked to Facebook.
Facebook Ads is an automated advertising format that targets users based on demographic, behavioral, and interest criteria. Through Facebook Ads, businesses and organizations can convey messages, brand images, products, promotions, and offers to Facebook users.
Facebook understands its customers and divides them into different target groups based on different fields or purposes. The simplest example we encounter every day is when we search for a product on Facebook, then immediately after that, more about that product or related products will appear on the news feed.
Posts with the words “Sponsored” are advertisements that businesses and organizations are paying Facebook to appear on your news feed.
What is TikTok Ads?
Similar to Facebook Ads, TikTok Advertising (TikTok Ads) is a paid advertising service that allows you to choose your target audience, such as video views, website visits, or new followers, and advertise your video content. TikTok advertising only distributes ads to users on this platform based on their video interaction behavior.
Advertisers use TikTok to carry out marketing campaigns and advertising to build brands or sell products, such as promoting large scale, high interaction, and increasing traffic to the destination page.
TikTok ads are not just entertainment that can be purchased, but also an effective solution for building brands. TikTok ads are vivid, attractive, and intuitive, mainly in video format, bringing more joy to customers’ shopping journey.
Google Ads vs Facebook Ads for Ecommerce
Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads are two of the leading platforms offering advertising opportunities. Both platforms have their own unique features and benefits that cater to different business needs. However, small businesses sometimes have to choose due to budget constraints. Or you may be just starting out and want to run a few campaigns before diving in. Either way, you want to know which is the better choice for e-commerce advertising: TikTok Ads or Facebook Ads. So, let’s discuss the advantages of both platforms to see which one you should choose!
The advantages of using Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads prioritize audience targeting over keywords. This method is often preferred by e-commerce businesses that sell multiple products or services at once, so it’s best to target the entire group of people who are likely to be interested in the product rather than keywords for each individual product. What are the specific advantages of using Facebook ads for ecommerce stores?
Rely on audiences
For ecommerce businesses, identifying the target audience is a crucial step in developing a successful marketing strategy. While keywords can be effective for businesses with only one product or service, ecommerce stores usually have a wide range of products and services.
With Facebook Ads, you can adjust your ad campaign to target potential customers who have a demand for your products and services through user classification criteria. This not only helps improve the effectiveness of your Facebook ad campaign but also saves you money by not having to pay for displaying ads to non-potential customers.
Higher conversion rate
Thanks to its high connectivity, Facebook has an impressive ability to spread information quickly. All it takes is one person to interact with or comment on an advertisement or post on your Fanpage, and the information will be displayed on their friends’ newsfeeds, naturally attracting their attention and interest to your Fanpage.
Consequently, the conversion rates on Facebook are also higher which is the most important factor for a business that sells anything – this is the metric that will ultimately reflect on sales. That’s why Facebook ads are more likely to yield higher results in terms of actual sales – because their conversion rate is also higher. In addition, achieving a good CTR for Facebook Ads is essential for maximizing campaign performance and effectively reaching the target audience.
Lower CPC and higher ROI
The cost of advertising on Facebook is more suitable for e-commerce business models and saves costs in terms of conversion rates. This is also why the return on investment of Facebook advertising is much higher than other advertising channels. You can run ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network with any budget. The exact cost is related to your ad being displayed to someone identified in the advertising auction process.
The advantages of using TikTok Ads
As of now, TikTok has transformed from one of the most popular social media platforms to a complete e-commerce platform for users, with unique advertisements to promote product collections and Shopify integration. TikTok has witnessed a significant increase in e-commerce activity. Since 2023, TikTok Shop has been introduced in the US, indicating TikTok’s intention to strengthen its position in the e-commerce market.
High user interaction rate
TikTok users spend an average of 52 minutes per day on the app. This high interaction rate provides many opportunities for e-commerce brands to introduce their products and interact with their audience effectively.
Increased brand interaction
TikTok users tend to interact more with brands than users on other social media platforms. TikTok ads encourage this interaction, allowing e-commerce brands to connect with their target audience more effectively.
Diverse ad formats
TikTok provides diverse and interactive ad formats such as In-Feed Ads, Branded Hashtag Challenges, TopView Ads, etc. These formats are particularly effective in attracting user attention and promoting e-commerce products and services.
Access to a wider audience in key demographic groups
TikTok’s algorithm understands its market and can integrate ads without alienating its most important consumers. This provides wide-ranging access, especially when considering their growing user base.
Lower advertising costs
Compared to Facebook and Instagram, TikTok advertising costs are relatively cheaper. Therefore, the cost per marketing campaign will be less than advertising on the other two platforms.
Positive ROI
Many e-commerce brands have reported positive return on investment (ROI) from their TikTok advertising campaigns. The ability to target specific demographic groups and interests is a contributing factor.
What are the differences between Facebook Ads vs TikTok Ads?
Algorithm
Facebook Ads’s algorithm
Facebook’s algorithm leverages vast user data and advanced targeting capabilities to enable advertisers to reach highly specific audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and even custom audiences created from existing customer data. Facebook’s targeting options are more diverse and provide more specific targeting than TikTok Ads.
TikTok Ads’s algorithm
On the other hand, TikTok Ads uses a unique delivery algorithm that masters user engagement with minimal effort. TikTok Ads distributes your ad video right on the TikTok app while users scroll down. Like other platforms, you must set up many options before running an ad, such as TikTok targeting, budget, time, etc.
In summary, Facebook’s algorithm provides more specific targeting options, while TikTok Ads’s algorithm is designed to maximize user engagement with minimal effort.
Targeting options
Facebook Ads targeting options
According to a WordStream article, Facebook’s targeting options are more diverse and provide more specific targeting than TikTok Ads. Facebook’s algorithm leverages vast user data and advanced targeting capabilities to enable advertisers to reach highly specific audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and even custom audiences created from existing customer data. Facebook ads can be served in various placements, including Facebook Stories, Facebook Messenger, the Facebook home feed, and more. They’re also available in a wide range of different formats, and these formats are often designed to achieve specific campaign objectives.
TikTok Ads targeting options
TikTok’s targeting options are not as advanced as Facebook’s, but they still allow businesses to target users based on their demographics, location, interests, and device type.
TikTok ad demographics segmentation includes gender, age, location, and language. With interests and behavior targeting, marketers can deliver ads to segments based on interest, purchase intent, hashtag engagement history, and content behavior. Device targeting allows eCommerce advertisers to define targeting by connection types (Wi-Fi/5G/etc.), operation type (iOS/Android), operation system version (Android 4.0 and higher), and mobile carrier. TikTok ads are also available in a range of different formats, including In-Feed ads, Top View ads, Branded Effects, and Branded Hashtag Challenges.
Cost
Facebook Ads Cost
Facebook requires a minimum daily budget spend of $1 for CPM ads.
- The average CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions) of Facebook is $7.00.
- The average CPC (Cost per Click) on TikTok Ads is $1.
TikTok Ads Cost
On TikTok Ads, advertisers can change their budget at any time during the campaign, and the TikTok system will never run over the budget you set. The minimum budget at the campaign level is $500, and the minimum at the ad group level is $50.
- The average CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions) of TikTok starts from $10.
- The average CPC (Cost per Click) on TikTok Ads is $1. This price is comparable to the CPC price on other social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
CPM for Facebook Ads, on average, cost less than TikTok ads. However, it’s important to note that the CPC price can vary depending on various factors such as the target audience, ad placement, and bidding strategy. For example, if your ads primarily use short-form video content to TikTok’s predominant user base, you may experience a lower cost-per-click from TikTok.
User Demographics
Facebook Ads user demographics
- 18-24 Age Group: 22.6%
- 25-34 Age Group: 29.6%, its largest user group, translating to 668.5 million individuals.
- Combined 18-34 Age Group: 52.2%
- 35-65+ Age Group: 47.8%
- Combined 35+ Age Group: 94% of Facebook’s active users are above 35.
TikTok Ads user demographics
Following Hootsuite, TikTok got over 1 billion active monthly users. The primary type of TikTok users is from 18-35. This audience is suited for eCommerce-enabled brands to reach and convert them to customers due to online shopping behavior.
Regarding each platform’s active users, there’s the common belief that TikTok mainly caters to Gen Z and Millennials, while Facebook has a wider age span. But is it really true? Let’s dive into the data and judge for ourselves:
- 18-24 Age Group: 38.9%
- 25-34 Age Group: 32.4%
- Combined 18-34 Age Group: A whopping 70.2% of adult users.
- Combined 35+ Age Group: 29.8%
Which one should advertisers choose for E-commerce: Facebook Ads or TikTok Ads?
In order to make the best decision for your advertising campaign, you need to take everything into consideration like your objectives, goals, what you can do, duration, etc. In general, both channels are doing great in their missions of running advertising for brands and businesses. Plan your campaign and choose which one is more suitable for your company.
And the lower cost-per-click is especially important for ecommerce stores, regardless of their budgets. Even if you have no strict budget limits, getting higher conversions for a lower price is a plus in either case. Facebook ads are simultaneously better suited to the ecommerce business model, and they’re also more cost-effective in terms of conversion to price ratio. This is also why the return on investment is also much higher with Facebook ads. So, for ecommerce purposes, Facebook ads are preferable most of the time.
Learn more: Google Ads or TikTok Ads: Which one is better?
Final words, the most premium option is to combine both of these advertising types if you have competence in budgeting and want to achieve overall results. You can use TikTok to analyze targeted customers and link them to your landing page installed with Facebook excel to get the most efficiency with multichannel marketing.