The difference in one sentence
Google Ads answers a question someone has already typed; Facebook Ads interrupts someone who was not asking. Everything else follows from that: intent, cost per lead, creative, and how fast each channel produces results.
How Google Ads works
Someone searches “best dental clinic in Kathmandu” or “buy running shoes online Nepal”. They want the thing now, and your ad appears at that moment. That makes search the highest-intent advertising available, and it is why service businesses that people already search for, such as clinics, law firms, repair services and consultancies, usually get their cheapest qualified leads from it. The limitation is the same as the strength: if nobody searches for what you sell, there is nothing to capture. Costs and budgets are covered in how much Google Ads costs in Nepal, and the service itself under Google Ads management.
How Facebook and Instagram Ads work
Your audience is scrolling, not searching. Your ad has to earn attention with a message or a video that makes someone interested in something they were not looking for thirty seconds ago. That makes Meta Ads the channel for awareness, education and demand creation: new products, visual categories such as fashion, food, property and travel, and anything where seeing it is what sells it. It is also the channel where retargeting lives, bringing back people who visited the site and did not act. In Nepal, Facebook’s reach and its hand-off to WhatsApp and Messenger make it the default first channel for many consumer businesses. The service is under Meta Ads management.
Decision table
| Your situation | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| People already search for your service (clinic, lawyer, repair, consultancy, hotel) | Google Ads | High intent; leads arrive in week one if tracking and the landing page are ready |
| New product or brand nobody searches for yet | Meta Ads | Search volume does not exist; you have to create the demand |
| Visual product: fashion, food, decor, property, travel | Meta Ads first, Google Shopping or search second | Seeing sells; search captures those who then look you up |
| Small local budget and a WhatsApp-based sales process | Meta Ads with click-to-WhatsApp | Cheap reach, conversation-based conversion that matches how Nepal buys |
| Website visitors who did not convert | Meta retargeting plus Google remarketing | Both are cheap; use both |
| B2B or high-value service with long research | Google Ads on problem and solution searches, then Meta for follow-up | Capture the research, stay visible during the decision |
| Selling to Australia, the UK or the USA from Nepal | Google Ads | Search intent travels; social targeting abroad without local creative rarely does |
When to choose Google Ads
- People are already searching for your product or service, and you can see it in Keyword Planner or Search Console.
- You need leads this month rather than awareness this quarter.
- You are in a service business where the enquiry is a call or a form.
- Your product solves a known problem with a known name.
When to choose Facebook Ads
- You need to build awareness for a new brand, product or location.
- Your audience does not know your solution exists, so they cannot search for it.
- Visual content sells the product.
- Your sales happen in a chat. Lead forms with WhatsApp follow-up, as in the fertility clinic case study, produced 150+ leads at about NPR 180 each.
- You want to retarget website visitors, which is cheap on both platforms but usually easier to set up well on Meta.
Cost: which is cheaper?
Per click, Meta is usually cheaper in Nepal; per qualified lead, Google is often cheaper for services people already search for, because the intent is higher and fewer clicks are wasted. Neither is cheap if tracking is missing, because you will not know which of them is working. The ranges I see are in the digital marketing cost guide; the CPL calculator lets you compare your own numbers.
The usual answer: both, in sequence
Most businesses that can afford two channels should run both, but not at once from day one. The sequence that works most often in Nepal: start with the channel the decision table points to, get tracking and the landing page right, and reach a cost per lead you trust. Then add the second channel for the job the first cannot do: Google to capture the searches your Facebook awareness creates, or Meta to retarget the searchers who did not convert. Together they cover discovery to purchase; separately, each leaves a gap.
Common mistakes I see in Nepal
- Boosting Facebook posts with no objective and calling it advertising.
- Running Google Ads to a homepage with no phone number above the fold.
- Judging Facebook by likes and Google by clicks instead of both by leads.
- Splitting a small budget across both platforms so neither gets enough data.
- No conversion tracking on either, so the debate about which is better is settled by opinion.
Where this fits
If you want to compare costs before choosing, the cost guide covers both platforms and the packages page shows what management costs for each. If you already run one and want an honest read on it, the free Google Ads audit and free Meta Ads audit exist for that.