Medspa Facebook Ads vs Google Ads
In this blog we will discuss the benefits, the downsides, and ultimately which makes the most sense for your business when choosing between medspa Facebook Ads vs Google Ads. To preface this, we use Facebook and Instagram ads for our medspa clients and PMU clients.
Google Ads for Medspa Marketing
Why would someone want to use Google Ads for Medspa Marketing? Since understanding your client’s avatar and mindset is an important puzzle piece to excellent marketing, let’s start here…
Mindset Behind Your Customer Using Google
Before jumping into the medspa and cosmetic industry for Google Ads, lets take a step into the shoes of someone who would use google to find a service. The best example I like to use is an emergency service (since these services get amazing ROI when it comes to Google Ads).
Emergency service contractors love places like Florida and Texas during hail and hurricane season. So much so, I’ve talk to contractors who move down from all over the country to live there during these crucial months.
The reason? When someone’s roof has holes in it, or it gets blown off from the Atlantic winds, the first thing they are going to do is get on their phone and call the nearest roofer/plumber/contractor to fix their problem! They are in a “proactive buying state”, with “high buyer intent”, where they are proactively and urgently seeking a service, and the #1 tool for finding someone immediately is Google, making up the majority of searches, with Bing Search Engine in a faraway 2nd place (but still worth mentioning).
This is the downfall for other marketing platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. These platforms rely on “disruptive” marketing where you are scrolling through your feed for entertainment, mindlessly going about, when all of a sudden an ad “disrupts” you while scrolling. In this case, there is no URGENCY behind your activity. You’re not consciously or proactively searching for these ads and services as they pop up. I don’t think someone with a huge hole in their roof is going to say “well, let me just browse Facebook until I come across an ad for roofing” while they have gallons of water leaking through their house!
Conversely, some services and products do even better than Google on these platforms. Have you ever scrolled through your news feed and found clothes or gadgets that you just HAD to buy? Facebook and Instagram are really good at creating algorithms based on our behaviors patterns, showing us content and ads they know we will “bite” on.
Medspa and PMU Marketing on Google
We now understand the mindset behind an “active buyer” on Google, with the most extreme case being a buyer looking for an emergency service. But what about other services that are less urgent, like Medspa services or PMU services?
Let’s first note that at the core of lead generation, getting a result is the consequence of getting in front of people. Whether that is a billboard, newspaper, postcard, internet, or commercial. Wherever you post your ad, as long as it has many eyes viewing it, you’ll likely get a result at some point. What we are really looking for though, is hitting KPIs and getting the most BANG for our BUCK. This is where choosing the right platform can greatly decrease your medspa lead cost and increase your medspa lead quality.
Google users have the highest “buyer intent”. These people are actively looking for a medspa, it’s just a matter of which one. They don’t need to be convinced as much as people on Facebook who are being disrupted by our ads. These “ready to buy” Google leads don’t need to be persuaded as much as Facebook leads. Since this is the case, medspa Google leads will typically be more expensive than Facebook and Instagram medspa leads. You may get less volume from Google, but you’re paying for higher-quality medspa leads that are actively looking for your medspa services.
While working with Google Ads, keeping your businesses’ credibility in mind is important as well. If you are a bit more established and have good reviews, Google Ads will be beneficial as your prospects will look at your company while searching. Before and after case-studies, call-to-action buttons, and a modern website helps increase your conversion rate for medspa leads when they visit your website too.
Medspa & PMU Marketing on Facebook and Instagram
Conversely to emergency services on Facebook, some products like clothing, cosmetics, and visually aesthetic services do quite well on Facebook. These are products and services that you don’t urgently need, but would be a nice thing to have. Maybe it’s a new perfume that attracts the opposite sex, maybe it’s this season’s new makeup line, maybe it’s a new shower gel that makes your hair smell like lavender, or maybe it’s a new procedure that removes hair from your legs for good. Whatever it is, these products are addicting, and we naturally want to know more about them.
If we take a look at some of the features that Facebook advertising has for your medspa leads, we can see options like targeting. Though Google has targeting and retargeting options, Facebook’s algorithm is much more advanced than Googles because they have tons of behavioral data for every profile. Have you ever had a conversation or thought about a product, and next thing you know its on your Facebook or Instagram feed? This is because Facebook knows exactly the types of products you like and will show ads specific to your wants based on past behavior and other data (that may not be as private as we think on our phones and laptops).
Regardless of Zuckerberg and his evil plot to take over the world through our data, we can utilize this beneficial platform to our advantage. Using this data, we can hyper-target an ideal audience with amazing accuracy. Demographics, interests, and location targeting help us tremendously here.
Facebook and Instagram are very visual platforms as well. This means, anything that is aesthetically pleasing and “pops” will typically do well. Since we are working in the medpsa, aesthetics, and PMU space, these services and procedures work exceptionally well. People want to see results and beautiful transformations, which is a MAJOR advantage why Facebook and Instagram ads for medspas and cosmetics works especially well here. From our campaigns, we have generated more leads and appointments for medspas, PMUs and aestheticians at a cheaper cost than any other niche we have worked in.
Platform Specific Audiences
Understanding your audience is key to your marketing efforts. Where do they hang out? What are they interested in? How old are they? What are their pains?
Now that Facebook and Instagram have been around for some time, and looking at the demographic on Facebook and Instagram, we can see some patterns:
Facebook is the most popular social network in the United States and as of April 2021, 54.2 percent of U.S. Facebook audiences were female, and 45.8 percent of users were male. The social network had a combined 258 million monthly active users in the United States and Canada as of the fourth quarter of 2020. Source: Statista.com
We are starting to see more and more millennials who are tech savvy, using Facebook and Instagram predominantly. As they continue to move into their 30s and 40s, these age groups are the most likely to get services from medspas, PMUs and aestheticians. This is another reason why these social media platforms are powerful.
It’s worth mentioning other platforms like Snapchat and TikTok when it comes to medspa and cosmetic advertising. These platforms harbor a younger demographic and have a lot of potential for aesthetic products and services.
So... WHICH ONE IS BETTER?!
There truly is not one platform that is better than the other. Both have their perks. Based on our experience though, we recommend going with Facebook and Instagram at first. Here’s why…
We have found that Facebook and Instagram leads are a lot cheaper and more affordable. Compared to Google, you will generally have to compete with some of the biggest players who have deeper pockets and can easily outbid smaller business or new business owners. With Facebook and Instagram, though the buyer intent is lower, you can still get lots of eyes on your ads for a cheaper price while avoiding Google’s expensive bidding war.
As far as targeting goes, Facebook is king. This allows more margin for error and the algorithm can easily optimize itself to target your ideal client with little data combidined with proper tracking.
Facebook and Instagram work especially well for the medspa and aesthetics space because it is a visually appealing and “sexy” industry. Videos and images go a long way and contribute to getting extremely cheap leads compared to a Google Ad. When coupled with an awesome landing page to increase friction and weed out the “tire-kickers”, nurturing campaigns, and follow-up, Facebook will have a better cost per acquisition than Google most the time.
Another advantage with social media platforms advertising for the medspas and aesthetics is that so many new procedures come out all the time, it’s hard to keep track of them! Most people don’t even know the names of these procedures and can’t even look them up on Google. They don’t know what they don’t know, and Facebook is an awesome platform to educate your buyers with videos and ad copy. With Facebook and Instagram, you can create massive awareness and demand for new procedures that people don’t even know exist yet!
Our opinion? At the end of the day stick with Facebook and Instagram especially if your are a new medspa, PMU or aesthetician. If you have a large marketing budget and want to diversify, put a percentage into Google as well. There may be specific keywords for new services that you can get a low bid for on Google. These keywords are worth testing if bigger companies are not advertising for those services.
Our Medspa Growth Factor system uses Facebook and Instagram and we have proven ads and copy that works. If your a medspa, aesthetician, PMU artist or cosmetic business owner, check out our Growth Factor Agency process.
