Google Ads or Facebook Ads: which to choose for a local business
Google Ads or Facebook Ads for a local business: which channel when, minimum budgets, cost per lead for a renovation company, ad-free Facebook and Advantage+.
Take an example renovation company: the owner has PLN 1,500 a month for advertising and two pieces of advice from friends: “only Google, that’s where people search” and “only Facebook, that’s where everyone is”. Both are partly right, but neither will tell you how much you will pay for one phone call from a customer.
“Google Ads or Facebook Ads” is a question many local businesses ask themselves. Below I compare both channels, calculate the cost per lead on the example of a renovation company and explain what the ad-free paid version of Facebook and Advantage+ have changed. At the end you will find a simple cheat sheet: which channel when.
Google catches demand, Facebook and Instagram awaken it
The most important difference is about timing. On Google, the ad reaches a person who is already searching: they type “bathroom renovation Giżycko” or “emergency plumber”. They have a need today and are comparing several companies.
On Facebook and Instagram nobody is searching for a renovation. Someone is scrolling through friends’ photos and comes across a video of a bathroom makeover. If they have been thinking about a renovation for a long time, the ad can push them to decide. This is how you awaken demand that isn’t yet visible in the search engine.
A simple split follows from this:
- Google works where the customer types in the service themselves: repairs, breakdowns, services with travel to the customer, “near me” searches.
- Facebook and Instagram work where the decision is made by eye: renovations and finishing work, beauty and hair salons, restaurants, a new place in the area.
The way you pay differs too: in Google search you pay for a click, and on Meta most often for impressions. That is why the price of a click or an impression says little about profitability. What matters is the cost per lead.
How much you need to spend to start
Google Ads has no fixed fee or subscription. You set an average daily budget. In its help page on average daily budgets, Google writes that in most campaigns it can spend up to 2 times more on a given day, but in a month no more than the daily budget times 30.4. At PLN 50 a day, that is at most PLN 1,520 a month.
Meta requires a minimum budget, but doesn’t give a single amount. The minimum depends among other things on the currency, the objective and the bid strategy, and Ads Manager warns you when the budget is too low. If you set a target cost per result, the daily budget should be at least five times that: a target of PLN 40 per lead means a budget of at least PLN 200 a day.
The technical minimum is rarely the problem. It’s worse when the budget is too small to evaluate anything: with 3 leads a month you can’t tell chance from rule. That is why at PLN 1,500 a month it is usually better to start with one channel.
Example: a renovation company and PLN 1,500 a month
This is an invented example, and the numbers in the table are illustrative: they are not client data or market averages. What matters is the way of calculating, which you can apply to your own data.
The example company renovates bathrooms within 30 km of the city. For one month it spends PLN 1,500 on Google Ads, and in the next month the same amount on Facebook and Instagram, with an instant form that opens without leaving the app.
| Example | Google Ads (search) | Facebook and Instagram (form) |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | about PLN 5 per click | impressions |
| Leads in the ad dashboard | 18 (calls and forms) | 45 forms |
| Cost per lead according to the dashboard | about PLN 83 | about PLN 33 |
| Conversations about a specific job | 14 | 12 |
| Cost of a real inquiry | about PLN 107 | about PLN 125 |
At first glance Facebook wins: a lead from the dashboard is 2.5 times cheaper. But Meta can prefill the name, email and phone number in the form, so it is submitted in a few seconds, sometimes without much thought. Some people then don’t pick up the phone, and some were “just checking prices”.
In your business it may turn out the other way round, especially when videos of completed projects reach people well. That is why compare the channels by the cost of a conversation about a job, ideally of a job won, and not by the cost per lead from the dashboard. How much you can pay per lead for the ad to pay off, I calculate in the article on Google Ads for a small business.
Real data for comparison: in September 2026, in Google Ads campaigns from my projects, a lead cost PLN 47 for building inspections in Gdynia (calls and forms) and PLN 143 for interior design in Masuria (clicks on the phone number after arriving from the ad). That is the cost per lead according to the Google Ads dashboard, not of a conversation about a job, and the two companies counted a lead differently. So don’t transfer other people’s numbers to your industry.
What the paid ad-free version of Facebook changed
Since November 2023, users in the EU can pay to use Facebook and Instagram without ads. According to Meta’s help, the subscription costs €5.99 a month in a browser and €7.99 in the app (for one account, including tax; as of 20 October 2026). A subscriber doesn’t see ads on Facebook, Instagram, Threads or WhatsApp, if the accounts are in one Accounts Center.
Those who use it for free can choose less personalized ads. Meta then picks them based on what someone is viewing in a given session, as well as age, location, gender, device and reactions to ads. In April 2025 the European Commission fined Meta €200 million for violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and Meta appealed the decision. In December 2025 the Commission announced that Meta would offer users in the EU a new choice between full and limited personalization. According to Meta, the changes reached users in the first quarter of 2026.
What this means for a local business:
- Subscribers are out of reach of paid ads. They may still see posts from businesses they follow, so an ordinary business profile still makes sense.
- Location and age keep working, including with less personalized ads. For a business that travels to customers, these are the most important settings.
- Interests and ads to people who visited your website get weaker, because with this option Meta uses only context and a few basic data points.
Meta claims that such ads produce clearly fewer conversions (in July 2025 it wrote about 61% fewer conversions outside its own apps), but that is the position of a party to the dispute with the Commission. I haven’t found data on how many users chose which option. In practice, count less on narrow interests and more on the ad itself: a video of a bathroom before and after a renovation attracts, all by itself, people who are thinking about a renovation. I will prepare a vertical video with a voice-over and subtitles in the Video ad with voice-over service, from PLN 990 net.
Advantage+: what Meta sets up for you
Meta started testing simplified campaign creation in February 2025, and today, as it writes in its help for businesses, most campaigns start in the recommended Advantage+ configuration. With the Leads objective, the Advantage+ budget, audience and placements are on by default, so who sees the ad and where is decided mainly by Meta’s AI.
For a local business, the key thing is which settings are firm and which are only a suggestion:
| Setting | How it works in the Advantage+ audience |
|---|---|
| Locations, minimum age, languages, excluded audiences | a restriction: the ad will not go beyond them |
| Age range, gender, interests, custom audiences | a suggestion: Meta may also show the ad to others |
What to check before launch:
- Location. According to Meta’s help, the ad may go beyond the chosen places if you tick the option “Reach more people who are likely to respond to your ads”. A business that travels up to 30 km doesn’t need inquiries from the other end of Poland.
- Age and gender. These are only suggestions. You can set a hard restriction with the option “Limit your audience even further”, but the campaign then usually loses its Advantage+ status (Ads Manager shows “Advantage+: off”).
- Form type. The default is “More volume”. The “Higher intent” type adds a screen where the customer confirms their details, although it works only in the Feed on phones. Also add a question, for example about the renovation date or the floor area.
Meta says that in preliminary tests, campaigns with the Leads objective and Advantage+ turned on had a 14% lower cost per lead on average. Check this against your own numbers, counting the cost of a conversation, not of a form.
How to measure the cost per lead in both channels
A comparison makes sense only if you count the same thing in both channels: calls and forms that ended in a conversation about a job.
- Google Ads: set clicks on the phone number, calls from ads and a submitted form as conversions. Why a click on the number is not yet a conversation, I explain in the article on measuring calls from Google Ads.
- Facebook and Instagram: download leads from instant forms from Meta’s tools or send them to email or a CRM. Call back the same day, because such a lead goes cold quickly.
- Website traffic: tag the links in your ads with UTM parameters, and GA4 will show how many calls and forms came from each channel. I implement this kind of measurement in the Analytics and tags service, from PLN 990 net.
Phone calls are the hardest: someone sees an ad on Instagram and calls two days later from a number copied from the website. Call tracking solves this, meaning a separate number for each source: from PLN 990 net for setup and from PLN 249 net per month. It is implemented by StartOrbit, a company I co-own.
To start, a spreadsheet is enough: date, source, conversation about a job, job won and amount. Ask every caller how they heard about you.
When to use which: a simple decision
| Situation | Choose to start with |
|---|---|
| A breakdown or urgent service: plumber, electrician, mechanic, roadside assistance | Google Ads |
| People type the service with a city, e.g., “bathroom renovation Olsztyn” | Google Ads |
| A service judged by eye: finishing work, nails, haircuts, dishes | Facebook and Instagram |
| A new place, an opening, a new menu, free slots this week | Facebook and Instagram |
| A budget of up to about PLN 1,500 a month | one channel, the one where demand already exists |
| Google works, is measured and you want more jobs | Facebook and Instagram as a second channel |
You can check demand on Google for free in Keyword Planner in your Google Ads account. If almost nobody types in your service in the region, Google has nothing to catch and it is better to start with Facebook and Instagram.
Also check the location setting in Google Ads. The default option “Presence or interest” also covers people who are merely interested in your region, and for services with travel to the customer “Presence” is usually better.
For the renovation company in the example, I would advise starting with Google and, after two months, adding Facebook and Instagram with videos of completed projects, for 20–30% of the budget. Then each month shift money to where a conversation about a job is cheaper.
Summary
Google catches people who are already searching, and Facebook and Instagram awaken the need in those who are not searching yet. With a small budget, start with one channel and compare both by the cost of a conversation about a job, not by dashboard numbers. If you want to start with search, I will set up and run Google Ads with call and form tracking: from PLN 990 net to start and from PLN 790 net per month or 15% of the budget. I reply within 24 hours, and the first conversation and quote are free.
Frequently asked questions
Usually not at the start. A small budget split across two channels gives too few leads in each to judge the result reliably. It is better to measure one channel well for two months and add the other once you know how much a conversation about a job costs.
An instant form is submitted in a few seconds, often with data already filled in by Meta, so you also get people who are merely curious. The “Higher intent” form type, one specific question and a callback the same day help. Compare the cost of a conversation about a job, not the cost of the form alone.
People with a subscription don’t see ads, but I haven’t found public data on how many of them there are in Poland. For a local business, the option of less personalized ads matters more: location and age still work, while interests and ads to people who visited your website get weaker. So a lot more depends on the ad itself, for example a video of a completed project.
At least a month per channel, ideally two, without daily changes to settings. With a small budget, a few leads more or less is still chance. Compare full months and count the same thing in both channels: conversations about a job and jobs won.
Yes, Google has demand-generating campaigns (Demand Gen) with ads on YouTube, Gmail and Discover, among others, which are seen by people who aren’t searching for anything at the moment. In a small local business, however, you usually start with search ads, because that is where the budget turns into phone calls fastest.
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