Google Ads vs Facebook Ads For Physios & Financial Advisers

Learning Objectives

A practical guide to deciding how to split budget between Google Ads and Meta/Facebook Ads. It explains the difference between high-intent search and interruption-based advertising, why lead volume alone can misrepresent channel performance, and how attribution, lead-form friction, omnipresence and purchase type should influence budget decisions.

By the end of this module, you’ll be able to:

• Read a lead report properly instead of reacting to raw numbers
• Explain why Facebook and Google ads produce different lead quality by design
• Set a starting budget split for your industry, and know when to adjust it
• Build the “friction” into a lead form so you stop paying for tyre-kickers
• Track attribution well enough to make this decision with data, not gut feel

Key Concepts

• Search Everywhere Optimisation (SEO) — the old idea of SEO was “rank in Google.” The new idea is “show up everywhere someone might look” — Google, Google Maps, ChatGPT, Perplexity, even Bing. Think of it like a tradie who wants their van, their Google listing, their website, and word of mouth all pointing the same way, so however someone finds you, they land in the same place.
• Interruption marketing vs intent marketing — a Facebook ad interrupts someone’s scroll when they weren’t thinking about you. A Google ad answers someone who’s already searching. It’s the difference between a billboard on the freeway (interruption) and a sign at the front of your shop when someone’s already walked in looking for what you sell (intent).
• The omnipresent effect — when a prospect sees your brand across several channels before they need you, by the time they do need you, they already trust you a bit. For a physio, that might mean: saw a reel, remembered the practice name, then searched “physio near me” three months later and picked the name they recognised.
• Lead friction — the number of steps and questions between “sees ad” and “submits form.” Too little friction (one-click, auto-filled forms) gets you volume but low quality. The right amount of friction filters for people who are actually going to show up.
• Attribution — working out which channel gets credit for a lead. Most businesses under-credit Facebook because the lead technically “came through” a Google search, even though Facebook built the brand recognition that made the person search in the first place.

Real-World Case Studies

Case Study: Riverside Physio & Osteo Clinic – Health & Allied Services – Richmond, Melbourne

The Challenge: Over one week, the clinic logged seven leads from Google (Ads and organic combined) and one lead from Facebook. The owner’s first reaction was to ask whether Facebook should be switched off entirely and the budget moved across to Google.

The Strategy: We’d just finished three filming sessions with the practitioners — some scripted, mostly not — covering common complaints like shoulder pain, lower back pain, and ACL recovery. Instead of cutting Facebook, we trimmed the split from roughly 70/20/10 (Google/Facebook/retargeting) to 80/20, kept the video content running as Facebook ads, and left conversion tracking in place across all three channels with unique phone numbers and unique forms per channel.

The Results: Lead volume from Google held steady, and the clinic kept a visible flow of brand-awareness impressions from the Facebook video ads at a lower spend. No paid figures were disclosed for this composite example — as a guide, clinics running a similar split typically see Facebook cost-per-lead land 3–5x higher than Google Ads cost-per-lead, which is expected and not a reason to panic (estimate, verify against your own tracking).

The Lesson: A 7-to-1 lead ratio doesn’t mean Facebook failed. It means Google intercepted people who were already searching, while Facebook built the recognition that made them search in the first place. Cutting Facebook the moment leads look “soft” throws away brand-building you’ve already paid for.

Industry Application: Any local service business selling something people don’t shop for often — physios, dentists, financial advisors, vets — should expect Facebook and Instagram leads to look weaker on paper than Google leads. That’s a feature of the channel, not a fault.

---

Case Study: Camberwell Wealth Partners – Financial Advisory – Camberwell, Melbourne

The Challenge: A three-year-old campaign for a financial advisory practice needed to keep converting a notoriously slow-moving audience: people over 50 starting to think seriously about retirement, who don’t wake up one day and Google “financial advisor” out of nowhere.

The Strategy: We started with an ideal client persona (ICP) exercise to map the exact worries this age group has about retirement — not generic “financial planning” messaging. We filmed the advisory team answering real client questions, unscripted where possible, so prospects could see how calm and experienced they were before ever picking up the phone. Split: 80% Google Ads, 20% Facebook, targeting the age bracket and geographic radius around the practice. Facebook carried the awareness and story; Google Ads and SEO carried the exact-match, high-intent terms like “retirement planning advisor [suburb].”

The Results: Inquiries came in through all three forms — Facebook, Google Ads, and organic SEO — but the recurring feedback pattern was the tell: prospects mentioned seeing a retirement planning seminar ad, then a Facebook video, then finally Googling the practice by name once the timing was right. Three separate touchpoints, one booking.

The Lesson: For a purchase this considered, don’t expect one channel to close the loop. The job of Facebook here wasn’t to generate a form-fill — it was to make sure that when the prospect finally searched, they searched for you by name.

Industry Application: Professional services with long consideration cycles (accountants, lawyers, financial advisors) should budget Facebook as brand-building spend, not lead-generation spend, and judge it on recognition and retargeting reach rather than form-fill count alone.

---

Case Study: Preston Boxing Collective – Fitness & Wellbeing – Preston, Melbourne

The Challenge: A boxing gym assumed the same 80/20 Google-first split used for professional services would apply to them too, and was underwhelmed by slow Google Ads volume.

The Strategy: Fitness, weddings, and anything with an impulse or emotional trigger (a New Year’s resolution, a friend’s photo on Instagram, a partner’s engagement) behaves differently to a considered purchase like a financial advisor. We moved this client to closer to a 50/50 Google/Facebook split, leaning on Meta’s interest and life-event targeting (in this case, fitness interests and nearby suburb radius) rather than exact-match search terms, since search volume for “boxing gym Preston” alone wasn’t enough to fill the funnel.

The Results: Facebook lead volume lifted noticeably once the split shifted, while Google Ads was kept on for the smaller pool of people actively searching “boxing classes near me.”

The Lesson: The 70/20/10 or 80/20 split isn’t a universal rule — it’s a starting point for considered-purchase, high-trust services. Impulse-driven or social-proof-driven categories (gyms, weddings, beauty, kids’ activities) often perform better closer to 50/50.

Industry Application: Wedding venues and photographers can use Meta’s relationship-status targeting (people who’ve just got engaged); parenting and education businesses can use Meta’s parent-of-young-children targeting. Match the split to how impulsive or considered the purchase is, not to what worked for a different client.

Implementation Guide

Step 1: Set up real conversion tracking before you touch the budget

What it looks like: A unique phone number and a unique form for each channel — Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and organic SEO — so you can see exactly how many calls and form-fills came from where, every week.

Pro tip: If you can’t currently answer “how many leads did Facebook generate last month, separate from Google?” — fix that before you make any budget decision. Every conversation about cutting spend starts here.

Step 2: Start with a baseline split by purchase type

What it looks like: Considered purchases (financial advice, medical, legal, major trades work) start around 70% Google/SEO, 20% Facebook, 10% retargeting. Impulse or social-proof purchases (gyms, beauty, weddings, kids’ activities) start closer to 50/50.

Pro tip: Treat this as a starting point, not a rule. Pivot based on your own tracked data after 4–6 weeks, not after three days.

Step 3: Add friction to your Facebook lead forms

What it looks like: Instead of a one-tap, auto-filled Facebook lead form, send people to a landing page where they have to scroll, read, watch a video, and answer 2–3 qualifying questions before submitting.

Pro tip: Meta’s default lead form is optimised for Meta’s business goals (more leads, more ad spend), not yours. More friction means fewer, better leads.

Step 4: Build the omnipresent effect with real content, not stock ads

What it looks like: Film your team or practitioners answering the real questions your ideal client persona has. Trim it into shorter clips for Facebook and Instagram, publish the long version on YouTube, and boost the clips that perform best.

Pro tip: Unscripted, genuine answers from someone who’s done the job for years usually outperform a scripted ad. People can tell the difference.

Step 5: Review and pivot every 4–6 weeks, not every few days

What it looks like: Pull your channel-by-channel lead numbers monthly. If Facebook’s lead count stays consistently low relative to spend after two full months, trim the split by 10 percentage points rather than cutting it entirely.

Pro tip: A single bad week (seven Google leads, one Facebook lead) isn’t a trend. Don’t make budget decisions on data that thin.

Common Pitfalls & Solutions

• Pitfall: Cutting Facebook budget entirely after one weak reporting period → Fix: Trim the split by 10–20 percentage points and re-measure over 4–6 weeks → Prevention: Set a review cadence in advance so decisions aren’t made on a single bad (or good) week.
• Pitfall: Comparing Facebook and Google lead counts as if they’re the same kind of lead → Fix: Track lead quality (did they answer the phone, did they book, did they show up) separately per channel, not just volume → Prevention: Build qualifying questions into every form so you’re comparing quality, not just quantity.
• Pitfall: Using a one-click, auto-filled Facebook lead form → Fix: Move to a landing page with genuine friction — video, scroll, qualifying questions → Prevention: Review your form completion rate; if it’s suspiciously high, you’re probably attracting tyre-kickers.
• Pitfall: Applying the same channel split across every client or industry → Fix: Match the split to the purchase type — considered purchase (70/20/10 to 80/20) versus impulse or social-proof purchase (closer to 50/50) → Prevention: Ask “would someone book this from a scroll alone, or does it need a trigger event first?” before setting the split.

Practical Exercise

• Quick Win (5 mins): Pull last month’s leads by channel. If you can’t separate Facebook from Google from organic, that’s your first fix — not the budget split.
• Deep Dive (30 mins): Map your own ideal client persona’s buying journey — what would make them see your brand three times before they search for you by name? List the three touchpoints you’d want them to hit.
• Real Business Application: A landscaper in Sydney’s Hills District could use Facebook for before/after project reels targeted by suburb radius, keep Google Ads for “landscaper near me” exact-match terms, and use SEO/Google Business Profile for the “near me” searches that convert once someone’s already decided to get quotes.

Keyword Intelligence (Ahrefs, Australia)

Search demand around this topic is modest but telling — most business owners are asking this question in person or in a Facebook group, not typing it into Google. That’s worth knowing before you build content around it.

*Ahrefs CPC data is sourced in USD; AUD estimates apply a ~1.55x conversion. These are directional only — Ahrefs CPC typically runs well below actual Google Ads top-of-page bids, so verify against Google Ads Keyword Planner before setting a campaign budget.

What this tells us for content and SEO strategy:

• “Facebook ads vs google ads” has next-to-no competition (difficulty 1) with genuine, if modest, AU search volume — a low-effort, high-relevance blog post or landing page target for an agency wanting to rank for this exact question.
• “Omnichannel marketing” and “ideal customer profile” carry the highest volume in this cluster and low-to-moderate difficulty — both are worth their own supporting pages that this module’s topic can link out to (or be linked from).
• “Ai search visibility” showing 200 monthly searches with zero difficulty confirms this is still an emerging, low-competition topic — a good pillar page opportunity while it’s still early.
• Zero-volume returns on terms like “how much should I spend on facebook ads” and “digital marketing budget allocation” don’t mean nobody’s asking — it means they’re asking it as a question in forums, Facebook groups, or directly to an agency rather than typing it into Google. That’s editorially useful: it tells you this content performs better as a lead magnet, email nurture piece, or video than as an SEO blog post chasing search volume.
• “Retargeting ads” carries the highest difficulty (60) in this set — a harder ranking target, better suited to a well-established site than a new content push.

Tools & Resources

• Google Ads Keyword Planner — free with a Google Ads account, use to verify Ahrefs CPC estimates before setting a real campaign budget
• Meta Ads Manager — free to use (you pay for ad spend), use the detailed targeting options (life events, interests, relationship status) mentioned in the case studies above
• Call tracking software (e.g. CallRail or similar) — paid, essential once you’re running more than one channel and need to attribute calls correctly
• Google Search Console + Google Analytics — free, use to confirm which platforms (Meta, YouTube, TikTok) are sending traffic even when they’re not the “last click” before a form-fill
• ICP (Ideal Client Persona) template — build this before you touch ad spend; it should cover pain points, objections, and the exact language your ideal client uses

---

CMO Eugene | Ranked — Melbourne-based SEO, Google Ads, and digital marketing agency