Facebook vs Google for a cold offer: same creative, opposite economics
The setup: A finance lead-gen offer, $9 payout, no warm list. We tested Facebook feed and Google Search with matched budgets — $1,500 each over 12 days.
The move: Facebook got interest-stack targeting and a problem-aware video. Google got exact-match intent keywords and a boring text ad pointing to the same landing page.
The numbers (illustrative): Facebook: $1,500 spend, 168 leads, $8.93 CPL, ROI roughly break-even at -2%. Google: $1,500 spend, 94 leads, $15.95 CPL — but lead quality scored 2.4x higher, and net ROI landed at +31% after the advertiser's quality bonus.
The lesson: CPL is a vanity metric across channels. Facebook manufactures demand cheaply but the leads are lukewarm. Google harvests existing intent expensively but those people already wanted it. Compare on revenue-per-lead, never cost-per-lead.
What I'd do differently: I almost killed Google on day 4 because the CPL looked twice as bad. The quality bonus only showed up in the week-2 reconciliation. Give intent channels a longer payback window before you judge them on front-end cost.
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