The internet has been a buzz this week with discussion of Facebook’s IPO, and rightfully so. It seems like we have all been try to guess when and if it was finally going to happen. But, the loudest rumblings about the social media giant going public have been about the value of the company. There are lots of questions about the validity of the company’s worth, especially in regards to its advertising revenue source. While many stand by Facebook’s advertising offerings, I wondered if they were truly valuable and how they compared to the global internet leader Google.

Below is a great infographic that breaks down the advantages and disadvantages of the two biggest internet giants: Facebook and Google.

Who Brings the Most Value to the Table? Facebook vs. Google

In the Battle for Best Online Display Advertising Network

To determine which company offers the most value, they were judge on five categories: advertising reach, revenues/growth, advertising performance, ad targeting options, and ad formats. The following are a few takeaways from the competition:

• While both companies have extensive reaches, Google’s network (including YouTube and Blogger) offers advertisers the ability to reach over 90% of the entire online audience
• Every month, Facebook gets over 1 trillion pageviews
• On average, Google ads have a click through rate 10 times higher than that of Facebook ads (sometimes even 36 times higher!!!!!)
• Only Facebook offers targeting options for customer interests, education, likes, and work
• Facebook and Google both offer demographic and location-based targeting for advertising campaigns
• Facebook does not currently offer any mobile advertising options; however, Google does offer mobile advertising
• Google offers advertisers multiple ad types and sizes, including text, image, video, and mobile game ads
• Facebook ad’s are a “one-size-fits-all” format with a very limited number of characters

And the winner of the title for most valuable online display advertising network is……….

Really you had to ask?

Google wins this competition by a landslide. In all actuality, after reading these facts, I can’t help but wonder if Facebook wants to be a real competitor in the online display advertising network. Because it doesn’t really seem like it.

Do you think Facebook could even be a strong competitor to Google’s ad network? Have you done a Facebook ad campaign before, and if so did you see positive results?