You’ve got a budget, a business that works, and a room full of competitors eating your lunch online. So you do what every growth-minded business owner eventually does: you start asking about paid ads.
Then someone says “Google Ads”, someone says “Facebook Ads” and suddenly you’re an hour deep in conflicting advice and you’ve made zero decisions.
The unfortunate truth is that this isn’t even really an either/or question. But if you don’t understand what each platform actually does — and what it does for local service businesses specifically — you’ll waste your money. Let’s fix that.
Google and Facebook have very different buying psychologies. More than any benchmark stat, know the difference.
For any local service, such as a plumber or HVAC company, local contractor or dentist or law firm, it matters enormously where you start to spend your money.
If your business solves urgent, specific problems, and people are searching for solutions, then Google is your fastest path to return on ad spend.
For example, the auto repair and service industry, like most local service businesses in Google Ads, has a high click-to-conversion rate (up to 14.67% in 2025) the highest among all service business verticals. The result is that 1 in 7 of our clicks result in a lead. Compare that to the average conversion rate across industries of 7.52% and you can see why local service businesses have always dominated search.
Google Local Services Ads are another pay-for-performance option, where advertisers only pay when a customer calls them for a quote, so advertisers have a much more predictable cost of acquiring new customers. For example, a roofing company or a family law practice gets a far better risk profile with pay-per-lead than it does with pay-per-click.
Facebook’s superpower isn’t the click, it’s the targeting before the click. That’s critical for local service businesses with longer sales cycles and is more important than most people realize. Combined with Instagram, Facebook reaches 3.8 billion people monthly, and video ads beat static image ads on Facebook by 135 percent. But scale is only one part of the value Facebook brings. The real play is to get to your local market before your customers even know they need you.
That retargeting piece is critical. Somebody goes to your website, doesn’t call, and continues scrolling. To build the audience for your Facebook page, offer a deal, create a testimonial video, or run a limited-time special offer. The most lucrative type of Facebook campaign by far is the retargeting campaign because you’re following up with people who already raised their hand.
What it says about the best local businesses is that they don’t choose. They architect a funnel where both of those platforms are a part.
Google Ads PPC campaigns for high-intent searches generate 20% to 30% higher ROI on average. Facebook Ads PPC campaigns for brand awareness generate 40% more ROI on average, based on CPIs. These statistics complement each other. So Facebook fills the top of the funnel and then Google, more so than others, fills the bottom of the funnel when you actually go there and do a search.
The 70/30 Split: As a rule of thumb, a $3,000-5,000/mo. ad budget for a local service business may be split 65-70% Google (mostly in search + LSA) and 30-35% Meta (mostly in retargeting + awareness + video).
With paid media, it is all about how the idea is executed, not the platform. According to WordStream’s 2025 Google Ads Benchmarks, 65% of respondents report better conversion rates year-over-year. At the same time, it has become more important because the costs of acquisition are rising. For example, businesses running Google Ads without keyword sculpting, negative keyword lists, geographic targeting, or a bid strategy are leaving money on the table, and in fact are throwing money away.
Same on Facebook. As of March 2025, Meta has disabled many of its detailed targeting capabilities and left advertisers with large, broad audiences and scales based on creative quality and data signals instead of manual micro-targeting. If your creative isn’t stopping a scroll, and your offer isn’t compelling, then broad targeting simply speeds up your losses.
Google Ads closes, Facebook Ads builds. The best local businesses use both strategically, choosing the right platform for the right buyer’s journey stage, not just what some marketing blog said was “working in 2024.”
If you run a local service business and have never run paid advertising, Google is likely the best place to start. It captures demand for what you do. Then, as your budget grows and your brand needs to own more of the conversation in your market, layer in Facebook for awareness.
CaptivContent builds full-funnel paid media strategies that scale local businesses. If you’re
ready to stop wasting ad spend and start owning your market, let’s talk.
