Google Ads vs Facebook Ads for SaaS: Which Should You Run?

Google and Facebook aren't competing channels - they answer different questions at different points in the buyer journey. Google captures existing demand. Facebook creates it. Getting this wrong means spending 6 months optimizing a channel that was never right for your buyer to begin with.

Why this happens

B2B SaaS with complex products ($200+/month) convert Google paid traffic at 3-5x the rate of Facebook cold traffic. That gap exists because intent changes everything. A buyer who typed "project management software for engineering teams" into Google already knows they have a problem and has decided to look for a solution. A buyer scrolling their Facebook feed hasn't made either decision yet.

The root cause of misallocated ad spend is treating Google and Facebook as interchangeable reach channels rather than different stages of the same buyer journey. The platform doesn't determine success - the match between channel and buyer awareness stage does.

What to check first

Before you spend another dollar on either platform, answer these four questions:

Is your ICP actively searching for a solution to the problem you solve? If you can name 5-10 search terms your buyer uses when they have the problem, Google is likely the right starting point. If you can't, your buyer may not be in search mode at all.
Is your product self-explanatory in 10 words, or does it need context? Google gives you a headline and 30 characters of description. If your product requires a paragraph to land, Google copy will feel flat. Facebook gives you room for a full hook-agitate-solve structure.
Do you know what search terms your buyer uses when they have the problem? This is different from knowing what you'd search for. Your ICP may call the problem something different than you do. Pull your search term reports - if your top terms are branded (people already looking for you), you're not capturing demand, you're just paying for what you'd get anyway.
Do you have creative that can stop a passive scroll? Facebook requires a visual hook strong enough to interrupt someone who wasn't looking for you. If you don't have that creative - or the budget to test it - Facebook will burn money while you figure it out.

How to fix it

Run one channel well before you run two channels badly.

If your ICP is searching: Start with Google Search. Focus on non-branded, problem-first keywords. A query like "reduce churn B2B SaaS" signals intent better than "SaaS analytics tool." Set a 90-day window to optimize for cost-per-trial or cost-per-demo before adding a second channel.

If your ICP doesn't know they have the problem: Start with Facebook. Your job here isn't to describe the product - it's to describe the moment before the buyer needed it. Test 3-5 hooks that each name the problem differently. The hook with the best thumb-stop rate tells you which framing resonates. Only then do you write the rest of the funnel.

If you're not sure: Run a 30-day Google search campaign with exact-match keywords around your core problem. If you can't find 500+ monthly searches for your problem across 10 keywords, your ICP isn't searching. That tells you more than any Facebook test can.

One number to track on each platform: cost-per-qualified-lead, not cost-per-click. Click costs on Facebook are often lower than Google - but if the leads don't convert, cheaper clicks are a false signal.

Remove the guesswork

Choosing the wrong channel doesn't just waste budget - it generates misleading data that shapes the wrong conclusions about what's working. RightAd validates your channel-offer match before you scale spend, so you know whether the problem is the channel, the creative, or the offer - and which variable to change first.

Validate your ad channel fit