Choosing between Google and Meta for a 1.5 lakh monthly budget
We get this question regularly, usually from founders or marketing managers with a budget that feels substantial to them but is genuinely limited in the context of what both Google and Meta can absorb. One and a half lakh a month is approximately eighteen lakh a year. That is a serious commitment. It also means you probably cannot do both platforms well simultaneously, and the decision of where to start matters more than many clients expect.
The answer depends on one question more than any other: does your customer know they need what you sell? If yes, Google Search is almost certainly the right first investment. If no, you have to create the need before you can capture it, and Meta is better at that job.
When search intent is already there
For a client selling services in a category people search for, local accounting, home renovation, software tools with named categories, Google Search delivers something Meta cannot: people who are actively looking, right now, for exactly what you offer. That intent is worth paying for. The conversion rates on well-structured Search campaigns are typically higher than equivalent spend on Meta for intent-driven categories.
At one and a half lakh a month, a focused Search campaign with proper negative keyword management and well-structured landing pages can produce a consistent volume of qualified leads without being spread too thin. We would rather manage one platform well than two platforms adequately.
When you need to create demand
If the product is new, if the category is underdeveloped, or if the target customer would not know what to search for, Meta gives you the targeting precision to reach the right person with a message that introduces the need. This is expensive in a different way: you are paying for education upstream of conversion, and the payback timeline is longer.
For a one and a half lakh budget, Meta demand-generation needs to be very tightly targeted. Generic interest targeting at that budget produces reach and little else. Account-based approaches, lookalike audiences built from actual customer data, and retargeting of engaged website visitors are where the budget earns its keep.
Our current default
When we are onboarding a new client at this budget level with an intent-driven product, we start with Google Search for three months. We want to see what the actual conversion economics look like before we layer in additional channels. Too many clients split the budget before they know what a lead actually costs them, which means they have no baseline to optimise against. Start with one channel, learn the numbers, then expand.