"Which is better" is the wrong question. The right one: which stage of demand are you buying - people already searching for what you sell, or people who don’t know you exist yet?
Google captures existing demand
Search and Shopping intercept buyers who already want the product. Conversion rates are high, but scale is capped by how many people search your category each month.
Meta creates new demand
Creative-led discovery that scales beyond search volume - and lives or dies on your offer and how fast you test creative. Weak creative on Meta is just expensive reach.
They measure differently
Google often looks efficient because it takes credit for demand that already existed. Meta often looks expensive because it starts journeys that finish elsewhere. Judge both in one measurement view, or the budget split gets decided on bad data.
How to combine them
Meta for discovery, Google brand and Shopping to capture what Meta starts, retargeting to close. High existing search volume: Google-first. New or impulse product: Meta-first.
Rule of thumb
- Existing category demand - start with Google.
- New or impulse product - start with Meta.
- Scaling brand - run both, judged in one measurement view, never channel dashboards alone.