This question gets answered badly almost everywhere, usually with a table of made-up numbers comparing cost per click on the two platforms. Neither Google nor Meta publishes those numbers. Every benchmark you have seen was modelled by somebody selling a service, so we are going to leave all of it out and work from what the two companies actually document.
The real difference between Google Ads and Facebook Ads
Google matches your ad to something a person typed. Google's own description of keywords is that they are the words or phrases used to match your ads with the terms people are searching for. Somebody wants a thing, they go and look for it, and you appear while they are looking.
Meta matches your ad to a person. Meta's detailed targeting is described as reaching people based on their interests, behaviours and demographics, and Meta lists what feeds that: the ads people click, the Pages and posts they engage with, the groups they joined and events they responded to, the device they use and the speed of their connection, and the apps they have installed. Nobody searched for you. You appeared in front of somebody who fits a pattern.
That single difference decides the answer for most businesses, and you can work it out yourself without spending anything. Ask whether people already go looking for what you sell.
If somebody with a burst pipe searches for a plumber, if somebody planning a wedding searches for an event centre in Lekki, if somebody searches for a particular part for a particular car, then the demand already exists and it is being typed into a search box every day. Google puts you in front of that. You are not persuading anybody, you are being present at the moment they decided.
If what you sell is something people would want but would never think to search for, Meta is where it works. Nobody searches for a brand of scented candle they have never heard of, or a new lounge, or a shortlet they did not know existed. They see it, they want it, and the wanting happens on the platform.
The Nigerian decision that matters more than the platform
Here is the part almost nobody tells you, and it costs real money.
Meta publishes a payment page for Nigeria specifically, and it lists local manual payment methods that most Nigerian advertisers never see: a naira card, and NIBSS, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System. These are genuinely available. But the page carries a condition, and the condition is brutal.
In Meta's own words, those manual payment methods are only available if the country of your ad account is set to Nigeria and your currency is set to the Nigerian naira, and you will only be able to add a manual payment method if you choose one when you first set up your ad account.
Read that last clause again. It is a one-time decision. If you open your ad account, put a Visa card on automatic billing because that is what the setup screen suggested, and then find later that your bank keeps declining international charges, you cannot simply add a naira card to that account.
And changing the currency does not rescue you. Meta documents that choosing a new currency creates a new ad account, that the old account is closed, and that all ads created with the old account stop running. Whatever history that account built, you start again.
So if you are a Nigerian business setting up Meta ads for the first time, decide your funding method before you click anything. If a naira card or a bank transfer is how you will realistically pay, set the account country to Nigeria, set the currency to naira, and choose the manual method during setup.
What Google Ads costs a Nigerian account that most people miss
Google supports the naira as an account currency, and Google sets that currency permanently when the account is created. It cannot be changed afterwards, because Google uses it to determine how you are billed. The only way out is a new account, exactly as with Meta.
There is also a charge that applies to naira accounts and to very few others. Google publishes that from 1 January 2024, accounts using the Nigerian naira as payment currency are subject to operating charges if ads are served to users outside Nigeria. The charge applies only to the spend that came from impressions or clicks outside the country, it is added on top of your budget, and it appears monthly on your invoice.
The percentage is small, and we are not going to print a figure here because it has changed once already and you should read it from Google's page rather than from ours. What matters is the behaviour it should produce. If you are running a naira account for a Lagos business, tighten your location targeting to Nigeria. You wanted that anyway, because impressions in other countries were never going to walk into your shop, and now there is a second reason.
On minimum spend, the two platforms genuinely differ
Google states plainly that there is no minimum ad spend. What Google does document is two ceilings rather than a floor: on most campaigns it will not spend more than twice your average daily budget on any given day, and not more than 30.4 times your average daily budget in a month, 30.4 being the average number of days in a month.
Meta does require a minimum, but does not publish a naira figure. Meta says it considers your business vertical, budget type, buying type, bid strategy, optimisation, currency and schedule when setting minimum budget requirements, and its page carries an explicit note that the figures shown are in US dollars and that minimums may vary by country and objective. In practice Ads Manager will tell you when your budget is too low. Do not trust any article that quotes you a naira minimum, because Meta has not published one.
Do you need a website to run ads?
On Meta, no, but you do need a Facebook Page. Meta documents ads that click to WhatsApp, which send people who click straight into a conversation with your business on WhatsApp, and these run across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. The technical requirement is a Page, and the destination is WhatsApp rather than a website. Meta also documents lead forms that open on the platform itself and are pre-filled with information the person already gave Facebook.
On Google, mostly yes. Google's destination policy requires that destinations work on common browsers and devices, that they can be crawled, and that they are reachable in the locations you are targeting. There are two documented ways around it. A call campaign can run with the Final URL left blank, so the ad only allows clicks to call, though Google still asks for a verification page that displays your phone number. And a Smart campaign can use your Google Business Profile as the destination instead of a website.
If you have neither a website nor a Google Business Profile, Meta is the only one of the two you can realistically start on this week.
Verification, and the document that trips Nigerian businesses up
Google states that all advertisers will eventually be required to complete advertiser verification. For a Nigerian organisation, Google's published requirement is a registration document, meaning a certificate of incorporation or registration, together with photo identification for the authorised representative. For an individual, a Nigerian government-issued photo ID, including a passport, National ID card, driver's licence, or a voter's card.
Google requires that the documents match the payments profile. Not resemble. Match. If your CAC certificate reads one way and you typed the business name into Google slightly differently, that is where verification fails, and a suspended account cannot be appealed until verification is complete. Copy the name from the certificate character for character before you submit anything.
Two things the market believes that are simply wrong
Alcohol is not banned on Meta in Nigeria. Meta publishes a list of countries where alcohol ads are prohibited and a separate list setting higher minimum ages. Nigeria appears on neither, which puts it under Meta's catch-all: advertisers may promote alcohol products as long as they comply with local law and target people who are at least 18 years old. For a lounge or a drinks brand advertising into December, that is a workable position rather than a wall.
Betting is not banned on Google in Nigeria either, though it is tightly drawn. Google permits ads for online gambling content licensed by the appropriate state gambling authority in an eligible state, and its published list of eligible Nigerian states is Cross River, Ekiti, Lagos and Oyo. Certification from Google is required first. Lagos is on the list. Check the policy page before acting on this, because state lists change.
Alcohol on Google is a different matter and we are not going to guess at it. Google restricts alcohol ads to locations explicitly allowed to show them and keeps that list on a separate page. Read that list before you run alcohol ads on Google, rather than taking anybody's word for it, including ours.
So, which first
Start with Google if people are already searching for what you sell, and start with Meta if they are not. That is the whole rule, and the rest is execution.
Whichever you choose, expect an unstable first stretch. Google describes bid strategies taking one to two conversion cycles to calibrate. Meta describes ad sets leaving the learning phase after about fifty results in the week following the last significant change, and says that while an ad set is learning its performance is less stable and its results are not necessarily indicative of what comes later. Judging either platform in the first few days is judging noise.