Meta, TikTok or Google: where should you start?
A side-by-side view to choose your first ad channel, based on your products, budget and creative.
There is no single best channel. The right first channel depends on how people discover your product, the creative you can produce and the budget you can test with. This overview is general and reflects the platforms at the time of writing; each platform changes its formats and rules regularly.
| Meta (Facebook, Instagram) | TikTok | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| How people find you | Discovery in feeds, Stories and Reels | Discovery in a full-screen video feed | Intent: people search for a product or problem |
| Best for | Visual products with broad appeal, retargeting | Products that demo well in short video, younger audiences | Products people already search for, Shopping feeds |
| Creative you need | Images, short videos, carousels | Native-looking vertical video, hooks in the first seconds | Product feed, text ads, some images and video |
| Learning curve | Medium | Medium, creative-heavy | Medium to high, keyword and feed work |
| Typical role | Prospecting and retargeting | Prospecting and awareness | Capturing existing demand |
| In Novaris | Meta ads | TikTok ads | Google ads |
How to decide
- If people already search for what you sell, start where that demand is: Google.
- If your product needs to be seen to be wanted, start with Meta or TikTok.
- If you can produce lots of short vertical video, TikTok can be a good testing ground.
- Keep one channel until you understand your break-even ROAS, then add the next.
Novaris connects to Meta, TikTok and Google from one dashboard, but is not an official partner of any of them. Each platform reviews ads and decides on accounts under its own policies. Results are not guaranteed and depend on your products, market, budget and ad accounts.
Tell us about your store.
Tell us about your store and the channels you advertise on. We set up your trial and show you the platform on a short call.