Meta video vs Google Search ads: which should your brand run?

Owners often ask us which is better, Google or Facebook and Instagram, as if one of them simply wins. Neither does. They do different jobs, and one question about your product usually tells you which job you need done first.

In short: Google Search ads catch people who are already looking for what you sell. Meta video ads, on Facebook and Instagram, make people want something they weren't looking for. The question that decides between them is whether people already search for what you sell.

Google Search catches demand that already exists

A Search ad appears when someone types words that match what you sell. Someone whose aircon has just stopped working types "aircon repair Jurong" and wants it fixed today. If your ad is there, with a page that answers the search, you are close to a booking.

That is Search's great strength: the person has already decided they need something. You don't have to persuade them of the need, only that you are the right one to call.

What you pay for that click is not just your bid. Google decides which ads show, and in what order, from the bid together with how good the ad and its landing page are and how well they match the search. Google says a relevant ad can win a higher position at a lower price than a weaker one. So a clear ad that leads to a page answering the exact search is worth more than a bigger bid.

Search is the right first channel when people know your category and look for it: emergency repairs, spare parts, a lawyer for a specific problem, "shipping from the US to Singapore".

Search has a ceiling

The same strength sets a limit. You can only reach as many people as are searching. Once your ads already show for most of those searches, more money doesn't find more customers. It mostly raises what you pay for each click, because every competitor wants the same searches.

You can usually see the ceiling in your own account. The budget goes up, the cost of each new customer goes up with it, and the number of customers barely moves. That is the moment to stop bidding harder and look for people who aren't searching yet.

Meta video makes people want something

Meta shows your ad to people because of who they are and what they do online, not because of what they just typed. Most of them were not thinking about your product a second earlier. A short video has a few seconds to show them a problem they recognise and the way your product solves it.

That is why video suits products people need to see to understand. A new skincare product, a gadget that does something clever, a service most people have never heard of: nobody searches for these until they know they exist. A twenty-second video can show the texture on skin, the gadget working, or the parcel arriving at the door, and that is often what makes someone want it.

Meta video also works when your category is bigger than the number of people searching for it today. Search lets you collect the demand that exists. Video creates more of it.

Meta video needs two things Search needs less

First, Meta has to be able to see your sales. It learns who buys from the purchases and enquiries it can count. Meta recommends counting them twice over: with the pixel on your website, and with the Conversions API from your server, so a sale still counts when a browser blocks the pixel. Without that, Meta optimises for clicks and views, which are cheap and often worthless.

Second, video runs on versions. Meta's ad system settles once an ad set has had about 50 results in a week, and the ad that wins is rarely the first one you make. Plan for several videos, each opening a different way, run side by side, with the money moving to whichever brings customers in most cheaply. Meta's own tools now help with the making: in October 2026 it said advertisers can turn a few product photos into video ads. The judging still has to be yours.

The question that decides: do people already search for what you sell?

You can answer it in an afternoon.

1. Type the words a customer would use into Google's Keyword Planner and look at how many searches a month they get in Singapore. A healthy, steady number says Search can carry you.
2. If you already run Search ads, look at the search terms report. If most of your spend goes to a handful of searches and the cost per customer has stopped falling, you are near the ceiling.
3. Ask your last ten customers how they found you. "I searched for it" and "I saw it and wanted it" point to different channels.

If people search for you and the numbers still work, start with Google Search. If your product has to be shown, or Search has stopped growing, start with Meta video.

What happened when Buy&Ship moved

Buy&Ship, a cross-border shopping and shipping service in Singapore and Malaysia, had got all it could from its own Google Search ads. Someone typing "ship from US to Singapore" is close to buying, but only so many people type it, and every competitor bids for the same words. Each request was costing S$25.30, and that figure had stopped coming down.

Proxy shopping is something you show, not a keyword you bid on. So we moved its advertising to short videos on Facebook and Instagram, in the same two markets, and ran several versions against each other: the store that won't ship to you, the money you save, the parcel arriving. The cost per request fell to S$3.49, 86% less. For the same budget, that was about seven times as many requests. The full story is in the Buy&Ship case study.

Most brands end up running both

Search and video are not rivals. Many established brands run Google to catch the demand that exists and Meta video to create more of it, and each makes the other work better: people who saw a video later search for the brand by name, and those searches usually cost little.

With a small budget, though, splitting it across both usually leaves each with too little to learn from. Pick the one that matches how your product earns trust, put your effort there until it works, and add the other when the numbers say it will pay.

Questions, answered