Twitter Ads vs Facebook Ads: Advantages of each Advertising Platform

As social media adds advertising solutions, marketers face an increasing dilemma: we don’t want to miss any opportunity to reach our target, but we need to optimize the advertising budget as much as possible. That’s why I want to help you decide between Twitter Ads vs. Facebook Ads and tell you the advantages of each advertising platform.

But look, this isn’t a boxing match. Both advertising solutions have many benefits and can be used in a complementary way, but to do so, you need to be very clear what each one can bring you. Let’s go over there.

Benefits of Twitter Ads

In order for you to have a balanced view, I will present you with the advantages of each advertising solution in relation to your competitor. We started with Twitter:

1. Speed. If there’s one thing that characterizes Twitter as a social network, it’s its instantaneity. Not in vain 62 percent of users think it’s the fastest way to keep up with the news. It’s a way to be connected in real time to the pulse of the world and also to be able to interact with celebrities, so it makes sense to take advantage of this feature to be able to connect directly and quickly to brands and users.
2. Alignment with the company’s objectives. Twitter Ads’ new types of campaign allow you to fully adapt advertising to your company’s business goals and pay only when you get them. You can create a campaign to increase your number of followers, get more clicks on your website or conversions, get interactions with your tweets, encourage downloads or interactions with your apps, increase your list of potential customers and add visits to your videos. And if none of these options convince you, you can also launch personalized campaigns.
3. Integration. The Twitter advertising is fully integrated into the user’s chronology through sponsored tweets. Except for a small symbol at the top, these tweets look and behave like the rest of the posts. The user can interact with them directly through mentions, retweets, I like… in short, that there is no clear difference between advertising and non-advertising content. However, we can especially highlight sponsored tweets through the ecards. This functionality allows you to add visual content based on the objectives of each campaign, thus improving conversions.
4. Mobile potential. As we told you about a few months ago on this blog, the mobile phone is the king in 2016. These devices are already the main means of Internet access, so social networks more focused on mobile have a great advantage. And here Twitter triumphs, as more than 85 percent of its users access from mobile devices (compared to 68 percent in the case of Facebook). In addition, tweeters spend more time on each visit from mobile.
5. Multiscreen shot. Up to 61 percent of tweeting users use this network in combination with television. Advertising on Twitter will be able to take advantage of this trend in the future to generate campaigns with multiple impacts.
6. Adjusted prices. Twitter Ads’ payment model is based on the target payment achieved: downloading of the application, conversion, video playback, lead… so that the entire budget invested is intended to achieve the objective proposed by the campaign. Like Facebook, it is based on a bidding system, but with the tighter prices relative to the competition: to win an auction you only have to pay a penny more than the next advertiser.
7. Better CTR. Several recent studies suggest that Twitter ads get better CTR consistently, so we can conclude that campaigns get more attention from the potential audience on this network. We believe that the reasons for this may be the greater integration with the content of users and the presence of less competition (while Facebook has been swept up with ads for some time, there are still fewer marketers betting on advertising on Twitter).
8. Greater viral potential. The retweet is part of the essence of Twitter, so at the same number of interactions, Twitter Ads is likely to multiply their reach more easily.
9. New technological solutions. Looking ahead, automation solutions are being developed specially designed for advertising on Twitter. These tools will allow systematizing the creation of ad versions, facilitating the entire process and obtaining real-time insights to focus investment on the most effective ads.

Benefits of Facebook Ads

After this list, you might be thinking Twitter wins from the street. But the truth is that Facebook advertising has some very interesting aces on its sleeve:

1. Number of users. In terms of gross figures, Facebook remains undoubtedly the most popular network in the world and local levels. According to the latest Statista data, Twitter has 305 million active users worldwide, 8 million of them in Spain. These are impressive numbers, but they pale before those of the great giant of social networks: 1.590 million active users a month worldwide and 18 million of them in our country. That is, Facebook has a potential market five times higher. In any case, both networks have an audience that far exceeds that of the traditional media.
2. More scope. Of course, these figures show that the potential reach of Facebook advertising is much higher for most market segments. Studies show that Facebook Ads campaigns are simply seen more. And while the new digital marketing tools allow us to define our goals much more, the truth is that putting our brand in the face of as many eyes as possible remains part of the essence of advertising.
3. Increased number of interactions. One of the biggest advantages of social media advertising over traditional solutions is that it allows users to interact with it, become part of the brand’s history and identify with their values. In this sense, Facebook is the winner, although the difference is small: in Zuckerberg’s network there are 382,000 interactions every minute, while in the bluebird we find 350,000 interactions at the same time.
4. Price. In absolute terms, Facebook advertising has a clear advantage in terms of cost per click and a thousand impressions. Although this does not indicate that the cost per final conversion is lower, it does point out that this network could be more optimal in terms of budget. In any case, it will be interesting to see if Twitter advertising prices fall as this solution gains popularity.
5. Ability to attract traffic to webs. According to a recent study by Forbes, Facebook is responsible for 23.4 percent of website visits, a percentage that competes with other sources such as direct traffic, search engines and SEM. However, Twitter only contributes 1 % of traffic to websites. We can deduce from it that Facebook has a greater ability to bring visits to our sites. But to see these figures in perspective, we must remember that the number of Twitter users is five times lower than that of Facebook and that today its advertising tools are much less used.
6. Downloads of apps. Although Twitter dominates the mobile market, Facebook advertising is number one in terms of getting pay app downloads.

Conclusions: Better Twitter Ads or Facebook Ads?

As you can see on these lists, both tools have many advantages, and we don’t have a clear winner. Both Twitter and Facebook have a lot to contribute to your campaigns, so focusing on one or the other depends on your overall strategy.

When doing digital marketing, my recommendation is that you analyze the benefits and user profile of each network before deciding on which you will focus your presence. Facebook is an ideal place to improve your brand’s visibility and connect with your consumers, although it may not be the best to reach the teen public. On the other hand, Twitter is an ideal site if your brand has any kind of relationship with the current situation, as it is the place where users come to quickly learn about the latest news.

Another factor to take into account is whether we have a strong brand presence on either or both. Since to take advantage of the full potential of advertising on social networks, the ideal is to complement it with an active organic presence. If your brand has many followers or fans and posts interesting content on a regular basis, your ads will have much more credibility.

Finally, I want to remind you once again that you don’t need to choose just an advertising solution, but you can also bet on splitting your advertising budget between Facebook and Twitter. Only in this way will you really appreciate which of the two is most effective for your company and your brand. – Luck.