YouTube vs. Facebook Ads: Which Is Better? Here's Your Answer Facebook's great marketing results are things of the past thanks to privacy policy changes, but is YouTube truly better for advertising?
By Corey Zieman •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You can get a much better return on YouTube ads compared to what you can get through Facebook ads in today's environment. While both of these platforms can still get you a positive return, the return you get on YouTube ads is much bigger overall.
Both platforms still give advertisers the same fundamental returns as always by offering insights into who is interested in buying products and services in your market in real time. In my experience, YouTube has gotten significantly better at offering these opportunities for their advertisers, while Facebook has gotten much worse during the same three-year period.
Here are five reasons that YouTube's ads now greatly excel in offering these buyer opportunities to your business so that you can increase the overall return from your ad budget in 2023.
Related: Why YouTube Ads Should Be in Your Advertising Budget
Reason 1: Facebook's data is not as good as it used to be and certainly not as good as Google's (who owns YouTube now)
Facebook's great marketing results of the past were largely built on customer data that they previously collected/purchased from Apple users, which tracked what they typed into their devices in real time. Unless you are in a niche where it's plausible to target users without having this preexisting knowledge about your users, your returns will not be as good as they were back in 2020 and earlier.
To that end, YouTube ads now give you a better opportunity to get in front of prospects who are looking to buy what you sell in real time.
Users who have recently made "purchase" related searches on Google in the recent past (for example, searching: "Amish furniture stores") can now be targeted on YouTube using video ads. There is a very high probability that these users would buy from you if you were to get in front of them while on Google's YouTube.
YouTube also gives you the ability to get in front of lists of people who have made specific searches on YouTube before as well (for example, searching: "Best toolboxes to buy under $3,000"). This gives you even more opportunities to advertise to people who are likely to buy from you in real time using YouTube's platform.
Reason 2: You can't target customers who are researching your competitors on Facebook anymore
It used to be that you could target most of your competitors' fans or prospects while on Facebook, but not since the privacy policy changes in 2021. On the flip side, YouTube directly provides a way to get in front of your competitors' prospects while on YouTube who:
- Have recently watched one of your competitors' YouTube channels (signaling future purchase probability), and
- Are currently watching a video about your competitors anywhere on YouTube (by having an ad appear during the video in question).
Both of these methods can be very profitable for your business.
While your competitors have paid big money to collect an audience in your niche, you can easily swoop in and steal these prospects by making a more compelling pitch during or after one of their videos. No fluff: This is the most profitable way for you to make money in online advertising today.
While Facebook allows you to target competitor audiences, this generally only works for competitors with more than $100 million in yearly revenue.
Reason 3: You can't target people who are actively seeking to solve problems on Facebook like you can on YouTube
YouTube has the second biggest search engine aside from Google itself. People visit daily to search for recommendations on whom to buy from in your niche. The question is if they will buy from you or somebody else who shows up for all your keywords in your space (for example, searching: "Who has the lowest interest rates on VA loans in 2023?"). Finding customers on YouTube is similar to Google search, but cheaper because YouTube advertising is less competitive, with fewer companies investing in producing videos that run ads there.
Meta still does have some digital equivalent of knowing who's in the market for products/services in your niche as they collect data on what their logged-in users do after leaving Facebook. However, it's nothing like Google's level of data, where they have all their users' previous Google and YouTube search histories. According to Kinsta, Google Chrome also holds 77% of the web browser market users in 2023, adding to your advantage of using YouTube ads.
Reason 4: YouTube's lead/purchase tracking is now much better than Facebook's
Facebook scaled back how many days they let you track users after clicking on one of your ads with changes to their attribution settings in January 2021. You can only track a user after clicking on one of your ads in Facebook for up to seven days, whereas it used to be up to 30 days.
On the other hand, YouTube allows you to track users for up to 90 days after the user clicks on an ad and up to 30 days after just seeing your ad. More than 50% of people do not make a purchase in your market upon first making it to your site.
Based on the Pareto Principle, you must find the 20% of your advertising that generates 80% of your results if you expect a good return from online advertising, and YouTube's extra bit of tracking data makes the difference.
Reason 5: For niche businesses, YouTube scales much more than Facebook
It is hard to build a campaign that scales on Facebook nowadays for niche businesses. Whereas Facebook's ad platform had been previously great at finding customers for niche businesses using their customer lookalikes matching algorithm, the results with this feature now are far less effective.
For example, our company generated great results through Facebook ads for the Nolah Mattress company using their customer matching algorithm in 2017, however, when using the same exact algorithm to advertise a different mattress company The Spinery in 2023, the results were not nearly as effective.
Knowing the exact 1,000 people that are considering a purchase in your space at any given time is far more important than the ability to get in front of random users on Facebook.
Summary
YouTube gives you the perfect opportunity to get in front of savvy consumers to steer them in your direction while they research before making a purchase. Experienced marketers know this, which is why Wyzowl's 2021 video marketing survey showed a clear increase in the number of people creating YouTube ads. Therefore, in 2023, YouTube is considered a must-have tool to scale up any niche business.
