Google Ads vs. Taboola

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Ads
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is Google's pay-per-click online advertising program. With Google Ads users set their budget and choose where their ads appear in search listings, and on partner websites. Google Ads uses cost-per-click (CPC) bidding.
$500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Taboola
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Taboola is a native advertising platform from the company of the same name in New York for publishing "recommended" content in a variety of popularly visited news sites and spaces. Taboola is partnered with many publishers (the Atlantic, Tribune, MailOnline, Business Insider, etc.).
$10
Starting Price Per Day
Pricing
Google AdsTaboola
Editions & Modules
Offer A
$500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Offer B
$1500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Offer C
$3000
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Campaigns
$10.00
Starting Price Per Day
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AdsTaboola
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google AdsTaboola
Considered Both Products
Google Ads
Chose Google Ads
Audience demographic reach is more when compared to the microsoft advertising. Google has massive reach and high search volume. It has a very great ecosystem and ad formats which means it supports multiple systems and has various tools integration google analytics helps track …
Chose Google Ads
I find the Google products easier to use, and with the ease of use it is quicker to get my message out in front of my customer. I think with the other platforms we have also tried (Meta) that the approval process is so much longer that if you want to get something out NOW when …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads is by far the best PPC advertising mechanism I've used especially when compared to the Microsoft/Bing platform. It's easier to navigate and the budgets are spent more effectively and efficiently. The display of the search results is easier to read and the quality of …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads remains at the top advertising channel within our business for both lead volume and revenue generation, whilst maintaining a reasonable cost per lead (CPL). Both Meta Ads and Microsoft Ads have a much lower CPL, those channels don't contribute as much revenue and …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads is one of the more advanced tools, all the above tools listed are great and provide very advanced features for advertising on those platforms. Usually a business would use multiple tools. Google Ads is great as it is very fined and established so you know what you …
Chose Google Ads
Google is a lot better at not just banning you for no reason. The platform is very intuitive and gets you in front of many people. Meta Ads is notorious for banning people and not giving them any reason. Google is very reasonable and has guidelines. Google clicks are also much …
Chose Google Ads
These are different channels, with different audiences and targeting options. It is important to first understand your objective, who you want to reach and at what stage of the journey.
Chose Google Ads
Well, I use Facebook/Meta pixels sometimes. But it is not as good as Google Ads. There are a lot of people searching on Google for good web development firms but how many are there finding the same sort of person on Facebook or Linkedin?
Thus, I like the abundance of users …
Chose Google Ads
It's gives me better results than the other platforms, cause by setting up keywords that are relevant to my business I can really target people who are actively searching for the topic. This really filters leads and brings better results.
Chose Google Ads
It is part of the Google suite of tools for content management for advertising and ads in the Google search engine.
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads is more robust and has more features as compared to Microsoft Advertising, aka Bing Ads. Google has better and more reach than other search engines in the market. Google stands well against all its competitors when it comes to media planning and buying. Go for it any …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads can be more useful than LinkedIn & Facebook Ads because it is reaching a larger pool of users. Both platforms have even better/more targeting options, but they limit the amount of reach you will receive. Google Ads catches users at the top of the sales funnel.
Chose Google Ads
Google ads provide no customer service.
Chose Google Ads
We had to stop using Bing as the results were all over the place and so we couldn't trust the service.
Chose Google Ads
We have observed that the Bing Ads performs better than the Google Ads when we target the older audience. The cost per conversion is also better than the Google Ads on Bing because of low competition possibly. However, Google Ads is preferred by us mostly because of the …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads clearly has high potential as more users search for their product when compared to other channels hence getting the desired audience.
Chose Google Ads
Neither platform seems to perform in my opinion. Google Ads is much more complicated while Facebook Ads are simpler to implement and run. No positive ROI on either though!
Chose Google Ads
We would use Facebook advertising often to generate strong reactions online. The benefit of using Google Ads is that people are always searching on Google and it's quick to pull your name first in a search ranking, where a majority of people are likely to click on compared to …
Chose Google Ads
In most cases, it's better between features, usability, performance (though Bing can sometimes cost less). Google is also smarter about its keywords. Bing is more similar to how Google was five or more years ago (needing to add variations to those keywords). I will say, though, …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads is pretty strong when it comes to search and shopping campaigns. It's a great tool to target people who are ready to buy and actively looking for products we have to offer. On the other hand, Facebook has been a great tool for raising awareness, brand uplift, and …
Chose Google Ads
Other platforms like Facebook Business Manager or Twitter Ads do not allow the same level of optimization and control of targeting as Google Ads. In same cases it may have less reach, but being more precise is better to see a ROAS sooner.
Chose Google Ads
Google is the largest search engine with the most users so this is the first choice. Other advertising options can give results but not to the same degree that Google Ads does. They have a better platform than other types of platforms available. This makes it the best option …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads has far more reach/audience capabilities than Microsoft Ads. More users use Google than Microsoft products.
Chose Google Ads
While it is still important to be present in those engines, Google Ads still offers the largest inventory, which helps reach more users and drive bigger volumes of conversions and achieve higher ROI.
Taboola
Chose Taboola
I was not involved in the decision to select Taboola but overall it stands out from their competitor based on Price, Communication, Market Values, Customer Base, Technology and IT, Optimization, Monetization they have in current market. Their feed is widely used across Media …
Chose Taboola
Taboola ranks pretty low for us, right next to Criteo and Revcontent, but above Traffic Junky. It's still nowhere as good as the social media platforms or Google. We selected Taboola because we had previously run ads years ago and wanted to see if we could make it profitable …
Chose Taboola
Taboola is the middle ground between the two. Policy ensures that only quality content and creatives are distributed, but they aren't extremely strict about what kind of content can be shown. Brax isn't in the list, but it is a great supplementary tool for Taboola. However, …
Chose Taboola
I tried Outbrain for a month just to compare the two platforms. The result is: Outbrain has similar CPC to Taboola, but the audience is low-quality. They don't spend much time on the website and only read the promoted content without continuing to other pages. In the long run, …
Chose Taboola
Outbrain doesn't charge a fee for automatic credit card billing. Often outbrain CPC for the same content is cheaper but not always. The Outbrain UX is not as good as Taboola but recent changes had made them better than they used to be. In outbrain you can not change images or …
Chose Taboola
Taboola and Outbrain are very similar and fairly easy to use to promote content.
Features
Google AdsTaboola
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
7.1
Ratings
10% above category average
Taboola
-
Ratings
Ad campaign creation7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad deployment7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Display advertising7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Sequence targeting6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Contextual advertising7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Social advertising5.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
7.3
Ratings
6% above category average
Taboola
-
Ratings
Ad dashboards7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad performance reports7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Auctions
Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
7.9
Ratings
6% below category average
Taboola
-
Ratings
Ad bidding7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google AdsTaboola
Small Businesses
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Amazon Advertising Sponsored Products
Amazon Advertising Sponsored Products
Score 5.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Amazon Advertising Sponsored Products
Amazon Advertising Sponsored Products
Score 5.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
AdSense
AdSense
Score 8.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google AdsTaboola
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.6
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
2.9
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AdsTaboola
Likelihood to Recommend
Clients who are selling products such as dresses, clothes, jewelry, beauty products, etc., generally work well. Also, in some cases, it doesn't fetch a good ROAS for very small business owners. If a client is already doing well in SEO, the probability for it to perform well over Google Ads is always enhanced, and if it doesn't have a good organic reach, Google Ads also suffers.
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I think Taboola is great for either lead gen or for shopping product sites. I would definitely have a full-time person running the campaigns. If not managed properly, things can get out of hand with costs going up and conversion rates dropping.
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Pros
  • Keyword Research - Google Ads has a handy built in tool that helps determine important keywords to target both for Ads & SEO
  • Intuitive Analytics Dashboad - Google Ads makes it fairly simple to see and analyze important metrics on how your ads are running week after week
  • Intuitive Setup - Google Ads makes it easy to figure out how to run ads with little to no training (although training is highly recommended to run effective ads), as their interface is clean and easy to figure out (unlike competing products).
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  • A good value on clicks -- they have visitors for all CPCs!
  • Worldwide reach and relatability -- so many providers use Taboola. It's very easy to reach your audience wherever.
  • High quality -- their policies ensure that only enjoyable, modest content is provided.
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Cons
  • Google's heavy dependence on AI makes many of the campaign behavior inscrutable and, often, it performs poorly as a result.
  • Their responsive ads, for example, which are heavily recommended by them, often perform significantly worse than normal text ads.
  • Their support, while relatively quick, becomes useless if you need any deep insight/help.
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  • I have noticed that customer support has decreased in the past year as Taboola has grown. It sometimes takes four days or more for a campaign to be approved. It used to be immediate and always within 24 hours.
  • Credit card billing with high fees is now mandatory. If a company is going to make credit card billing mandatory don't charge fees. Our expense has increased by around 2.5% which I need to always keep in mind when comparing the CPC of campaigns on competing platforms.
  • Our customer support rep used to give us a lot of help with optimization. We stopped getting support from her over eight months ago and we recently got an email that we now have to contact support@taboola.com even though our spend had almost doubled! However, we just were informed that we will now have a new rep, hopefully we will get more support now. When I say support I mean a rep that contacts us with optimization ideas.
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Likelihood to Renew
As of today Google AdWords leads approximately 90% of paid searches globally. There is practically is no other network that can offer such a relevant and engaging audience at the price. The PPC model is also unique in that no media dollars are wasted, since PPC models ensure brand interaction versus traditional media which has heavy ad avoidance and clutter but still charges a hefty amount for ads.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
This is more of a subjective rating, because I think it can be increased with how much our ad spend is. The more of an ad spend, the more visibility we can get, and therefore all features can climb. With an overall larger presence the usability is that where we can get messages out quick, and that's the main thing we try to do with our campaigns.
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It was pretty straightforward getting an account set up and having an account rep assigned. Compared to some other platforms Taboola is actually rather intuitive when it comes to navigating the user interface. Pixel implementation was easy and we didn't have any discrepancies tracking conversions. Also the ability to target LALs was very useful and semi-straightforward to upload.
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Support Rating
We have not yet had an account rep who hasn't tried to bully me or other employees to raise our budgets. At the same time, several years ago, one attempted to help refine our ads and ended up changing the ads to be something we were not affiliated with
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Support on Taboola has been great. We have always been in constant communication with their team and they have answered all of our questions and helped us when we had any issues or concerns.
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Online Training
Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Google Ads remains at the top advertising channel within our business for both lead volume and revenue generation, whilst maintaining a reasonable cost per lead (CPL). Both Meta Ads and Microsoft Ads have a much lower CPL, those channels don't contribute as much revenue and lead generation.
Read full review
Taboola ranks pretty low for us, right next to Criteo and Revcontent, but above Traffic Junky. It's still nowhere as good as the social media platforms or Google. We selected Taboola because we had previously run ads years ago and wanted to see if we could make it profitable again. It offers more targeting options than Revcontent and Traffic Junky. I didn't care for the billing by credit card though. I would much prefer a net 15 or net 30 plan.
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Return on Investment
  • Once we got the hang of it and had everything setup, it was a great monthly expense that we could count on ROI from. Either by obtaining new customers or literally staying above our competition in search rankings.
  • We also started consulting on ads for customers and helping them set things up, which created a new revenue stream for us.
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  • Taboola guarantees stable user flow across the campaign period. I use balanced spending setting on my campaign so that the budget is well spread throughout the month, but usually, the traffic is higher nearing the end of the campaign.
  • New users and more awareness. Taboola allows us to reach potential readers without much hassle.
  • Users from Taboola are a high-quality audience who spend a lot of time on your website and read several pages. Unlikely to be bots.
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ScreenShots