PPC and Paid Social can sometimes be treated as competing channels. One captures people who are actively searching, while the other puts your brand in front of people before they even know they need you. The differences are exactly what makes them so effective when used together.
At Starlight Digital, we’ve seen first-hand how combining PPC with platforms such as Facebook and Instagram can help businesses build awareness, generate demand, and capture user intent. The key isn’t simply running Google Ads and Meta Ads at the same time. It’s making sure that each channel has a job to do and does it correctly.
PPC captures demand, Paid Social creates it
PPC, particularly Google Ads, is excellent at capturing existing demand. Someone searches “luxury UK holiday rental” for example, and a business has the opportunity to appear at precisely the moment they’re looking for these offerings. They’re already demonstrating intent.
Paid Social works a bit differently in terms of interest. Someone scrolling through Instagram or Facebook isn’t necessarily looking for your product or service. They might not even know your brand exists but a well-targeted ad can softly introduce them to it. That’s particularly powerful for products and services where the buying journey involves consideration, research and multiple touchpoints.
So rather than thinking: PPC or Paid Social? Google ads or Meta ads? It can be much more useful to think of their differences and digital impact. Of course, customer journeys aren’t always this linear, but when the two channels are planned together, each can support the other.
One of the biggest advantages we’ve noticed of combining the channels is what happens after someone sees your social ad.
A potential customer sees a beautiful video of your product while scrolling Instagram. They’re interested, but they’re not ready to purchase. A few days later, they may search Google for similar products while the idea of the product is still fresh in their mind. Your ads campaign is there to capture them as a brand they’ve already heard of.
That initial Meta impression may not have generated the conversion directly, but it helped put your brand into their consideration mindset.
The funnel
When PPC and Paid Social are managed as part of one strategy, you can use them to address different stages of the customer journey.
Top of the funnel: Getting noticed
Paid Social is particularly useful for reaching new audiences. You can introduce your brand, showcase your products or services, explain what makes you different and start building a familiarity with users.
Videos, lifestyle imagery, educational content and brand-led creative can all help here. The goal isn’t necessarily an immediate sale, it’s getting the right people interested.
Middle of the funnel: Building Interest
Once someone has interacted with your brand, you have more opportunities to nurture that interest.
A user might have:
- Watched one of your videos
- Visited your website
- Added something to their basket
- Engaged with an ad
- Viewed a particular product
- Read a blog
- Searched for your brand
This is where retargeting and more consideration-focused campaigns can become particularly valuable.
Bottom of the funnel: Capturing intent
This is where PPC can really shine. Someone who is now actively searching for the product or service has demonstrated a much stronger level of intent. Google Ads can put your brand in front of them at exactly the right moment.
Paid Social can also play an important role here, particularly through retargeting campaigns designed to bring interested users back and encourage them to convert.
The result is a connected strategy rather than two completely separate advertising accounts.
What does this look like in practice?
We’ve seen first-hand the benefits of combining PPC and Paid Social across a range of Starlight clients. Below, we’ve highlighted some of our most recent practices and case studies:
Mom’z
When pregnancy retreat brand mom’z came to Starlight, they were at the beginning of their digital journey. Brand awareness was low, bookings were sluggish and acquisition costs were high. We recommended using Meta Ads and Google Ads together, with each platform playing a different role.
Meta became an important awareness and demand-generation channel. We used it to reach relevant audiences, build interest and nurture potential customers. Google Ads then captured people actively searching for services such as pregnancy retreats, solo babymoons and related experiences.
As awareness increased through Meta, branded searches also began to increase, giving Google Ads more demand to capture.
The result?
Bookings increased by 1,250%, while CPA decreased by 80%. The growth was significant enough that mom’z went from offering one retreat per quarter to, on average, one retreat per month.
William Wood Watches
Luxury watch brand William Wood Watches provides another example of how the channels can work together across a longer customer journey.
A premium watch isn’t necessarily an impulse purchase. Customers may discover the brand, learn about its story, compare other products, consider the price and then return later before purchasing.
For William Wood Watches, we developed a strategy across both Google Ads and Meta Ads designed to cover different stages of that journey.
The result?
Since working with William Wood Watches, Starlight has achieved an overall ROAS of 600%, while 2026 is tracking at more than 1,000% ROAS, alongside a 239% increase in sales.
Big House Experience
Travel is another sector where the combination of PPC and Paid Social can be particularly powerful. For Big House Experience, Starlight managed Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and Meta Ads.
The strategy uses Paid Social to reach new audiences and build interest, while search activity captures people actively looking for large holiday properties. On Meta, prospecting campaigns have been used to generate high-quality users from relevant audiences, with video creatives helping to build engagement.
Meanwhile, Google and Microsoft Ads captured people further down the funnel who were actively searching and ready to book.
The result?
There has been great year-on-year growth in a challenging economy, as well as +36% increase in profit, +31% increase in bookings, +33% increase in revenue.
Want to see what PPC and Paid Social could do for your business?
If you’re currently running Google Ads or Paid Social separately, or you’re not sure whether your current strategy is making the most of both, we’d be happy to take a look.
Our team of experts can provide a free audit of your existing paid media activity, identify new opportunities and show you where we think you could be getting more from your budget.
