Explain why search ads target what people ask for, while social ads target who people are.
On a Tuesday night, a mother in Tampines (an invented example, like everyone in these notes) sees the mark on her son's P5 maths test, and it worries her. She types "P5 maths tuition Tampines" into Google on her phone. She has a problem, she has named it, and she is looking for an answer.
On Saturday morning she scrolls Instagram while waiting for the laundry. She is not thinking about tuition. A short video of a tutor explaining a fractions problem appears between her friends' holiday photos. On Saturday she has not yet decided her son needs help.
She has the same underlying need on both days but is in a very different state of mind. Priya runs a maths centre in Tampines. She can reach the mother at both moments, but she needs a different ad and a different kind of targeting for each.
On Google Search you target searches rather than people. You choose keywords, and your ad becomes eligible to show when someone types a search that matches them. On search, the words people type do the job that audience settings do on other platforms.
Search ads are unusual because the person has already said what they want, in their own words, at the moment they want it. This person is a searcher: someone who is actively looking and has named their need. Your job is to show up with a relevant answer and make it easy to act. A search ad doesn't need to create interest. It needs to match interest that already exists.
A good search ad does three things. It repeats what the person asked for, gives a reason to choose your business over the others on the page, and leads to a page that delivers. Priya's ad for the Tuesday searcher is direct: P5 maths tuition in Tampines, small classes, free trial lesson, book online. Lesson 5.2, "Search ad text that matches what people typed", covers how to write these.
The limit of search is volume, because you can only reach people who are already looking. If few people search for what you sell, search has little to offer. This happens when the product is new or when people don't know it exists.
On Meta, TikTok and YouTube, people are not searching for you. They come for their friends' news, or for something to watch while the bus crawls along, and your ad interrupts them. A scroller is someone who wasn't looking and is interrupted by the ad. The ad has to earn attention from someone who didn't ask for it, and then create the interest a searcher already had.
These platforms let you describe who should see the ad, rather than what they typed. The main targeting levers are:
location age gender language interests and behaviours the platform infers from how people use it your own data, such as your customer list and website visitors
You can combine these levers. More and more, you can also let the platform look beyond your settings. This is broad targeting, and Lesson 4.2, "Broad targeting and why platforms now push it", explains how it works.
The advantage of social is reach: you can put an offer in front of people who would never have searched for it. The cost is that most of the people you reach were not in a buying mood, so the ad has more work to do.
The same offer usually needs different ads for searchers and for scrollers. A searcher wants detail, and a direct ad helps them decide instead of putting them off. For a scroller, a direct message means little. Open with something they recognise from their own life, then show what the product or service is like, then make the offer.
Priya's Saturday ad opens with something the mother recognises, such as a child stuck on a fractions question or the homework argument at the dinner table. It then shows what the class is like, and after that it makes the offer. Lesson 5.1, "Ads that look like the feed, not like ads", shows how to build this kind of ad.
The landing page can often be the same for both audiences, because both end up wanting the same information. Whether she searched on Tuesday or stopped scrolling on Saturday, the mother wants to know about P5 classes in Tampines and how to book a trial. One page covering that can serve both of Priya's ads.
Describe your buyer as a searcher and as a scroller, even if you plan to start on only one platform. Doing both makes you think about where the buyer is when they have the problem.
As a searcher, your buyer is defined by what they type and when. Mei Ling sells custom cakes. Her searcher types "custom birthday cake Punggol" or "number cake delivery", usually a week or two before a party.
As a scroller, your buyer is defined by who they are and what catches their eye. Mei Ling's scroller is a parent of a young child in the north-east who stops for photos of cakes with characters their child loves.
If you can't write the searcher sentence, search may not be your first channel. If you can't write the scroller sentence, you may not know your customer well enough yet, so go back to the course "Digital marketing foundations: strategy before tactics".
In the activity below, write both sentences for your own buyer: what they type and when, and who they are and what catches their eye.
Write one sentence about your buyer when they are searching, and one about them when they are scrolling.
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