Where to start, Google or Meta, is one of the most common questions we get. The answer depends on one thing: whether people are already searching for what you sell. Google captures demand that already exists. Meta creates it.
When to choose Google
If someone types roof repair in Riga or accounting for small companies into a search box, they already have the problem. Your job is simply to be there. In cases like this Google ads usually deliver faster results, because the intent is ready. That covers repairs, legal services, healthcare and most B2B services.
In Latvia a search click usually costs somewhere between 0.20 and 1.50 euro depending on the industry, with legal and medical services at the higher end. With 500 euro a month and an average click at 0.60 euro you get roughly 830 visits. If the website turns 3 percent of them into enquiries, that is around 25 leads a month at roughly 20 euro each. You can do this calculation before launching, and it immediately shows whether the plan is realistic.
When to choose Meta
If your product is new, visual or something people do not search for because they do not know it exists, Meta is the right choice. Instagram and Facebook let you show a product based on interests and behaviour rather than a search term. That works for goods, events, restaurants, clothing and anything where video says more than text.
For a local business Meta is often also the cheapest way to become visible at all. For a barbershop or a cafe, ads within a five kilometre radius with a simple video and a booking link can work on 150 to 200 euro a month. That is why in projects like kehrisbarbershop.lv the key is not a big budget but a short path from the ad to the booking.
How much budget you need
For a serious service company in the Latvian market the realistic minimum is around five hundred euro per month on one platform. A smaller sum split across two platforms usually means neither has enough data for the algorithm to learn, and two months later you still know nothing. One platform with a proper budget beats two with half of it.
Account for the learning period as well. The first two weeks perform worse, and that is normal. A fair test needs at least eight weeks. If you switch the campaign off after three days, you have paid for the learning and collected none of the result.
Set up tracking before the first euro
Conversion tracking has to be in place before the campaign starts, not after. Without it you will see clicks and impressions but not know what turned into an enquiry. That means events on the website, a form confirmation and call tracking if calls matter to you. If most clients call rather than write, without call tracking you see only part of the truth and will probably switch off a campaign that is actually working.
What to actually measure
- Cost per lead, not cost per click.
- How many leads become clients, because cheap leads are often empty ones.
- How much one client is worth, so you know how much you are allowed to spend.
We go deeper into this in Marketing analytics: how to know whether your money is working. Our own tool markflow.eu brings both platforms into one view.
The mistakes that burn budget fastest
- The ad leads to the home page instead of a page about what the ad promised.
- No negative keywords, so you pay for searches containing free and jobs.
- Five different services packed into one campaign on a single budget.
- Settings changed daily, so the learning phase never ends.
- Nobody replies to the leads on the same day.
A five step launch
- Work out what one client is worth and derive your allowed cost per lead from it.
- Set up conversion tracking and verify it with a test submission.
- Pick one platform and one main service for the first two months.
- Build a dedicated landing page carrying the same promise as the ad.
- Review weekly, but make larger changes only every two weeks.
Ads and SEO work together
Ads produce results within a week but stop the moment you switch the budget off. Search visibility grows slowly but stays. The right combination is ads for today's leads and content for next year's traffic. The basics are in SEO basics for companies. If you need help with both, look at our services or write to hello@polaroaks.com.