Choose Meta If, Choose TikTok If
Choose Meta if your buyers are over 35, if your product is considered rather than impulsive, if you need precise geographic targeting for a service area, or if you have no capacity to produce new video regularly. Meta is the default for Australian service businesses and it isn't close.
Choose TikTok if your buyers are under 35, if the product demonstrates well in fifteen seconds, if you sell something visual and impulsive, or if you already have someone who makes video comfortably. TikTok rewards volume of creative in a way Meta doesn't.
Run both only if you can feed both. The most common failure we see is a business splitting a budget that was already thin, then running identical creative on each.
The Numbers We Have
"TikTok ads cost" gets 70 searches a month in Australia at difficulty 40, and "tiktok ads australia" another 40 at difficulty 22, per the SE Ranking Australian database in October 2026. By comparison "facebook ads agency melbourne" sits at 170 and "facebook advertising melbourne" at 90.
That gap is the market in miniature. Australian businesses are searching for help with Meta several times more than for TikTok, which reflects where the spend actually is.
Neither platform publishes Australian benchmarks, and anyone quoting precise ones is extrapolating. What's reliable: TikTok cost per click generally runs below Meta's, cost per qualified lead often runs above it, and both move enormously by category. The number that matters is cost per enquiry you'd actually want, and you only learn that by running.
Where They Genuinely Differ
| Meta (Facebook and Instagram) | TikTok | |
|---|---|---|
| Australian audience skew | Broad, strongest 30–60 | Strongest 18–34, growing older |
| How targeting works now | Broad audience plus delivery optimisation | Interest and behaviour signals, less granular |
| Geographic precision | Strong: radius and locality | Weaker: city level only |
| Creative lifespan | Weeks | Days |
| Creative volume needed | 3–4 pieces monthly | 10+ monthly to sustain |
| Production style that wins | Real work, simply filmed | Native, trend-aware, fast |
| Tracking maturity | Mature, Conversions API available | Less mature |
| Best for | Service businesses, considered purchases | Visual products, impulse, younger buyers |
The row that decides it for most Australian SMEs is creative volume. TikTok burns through creative in days. If you can't produce ten pieces a month, the platform will keep showing the same thing to a bored audience and you'll conclude TikTok doesn't work, when what didn't work was the supply.
Geographic Targeting Is the Underrated Difference
This settles it for a lot of local businesses.
Meta lets you target a radius around a point, or specific localities. A Melbourne trades business servicing only the northern suburbs can target exactly that.
TikTok's geographic targeting in Australia is realistically city-level. For a business servicing greater Melbourne that's fine. For one servicing Preston, Reservoir and Thornbury, you'll pay to reach the entire metro area and waste most of it.
If your service area is tight, this alone usually makes Meta the answer regardless of audience age. Our guide to Facebook Ads for Melbourne businesses covers how to set that up and where it still goes wrong.
Creative: Two Different Crafts
The single biggest mistake is running the same asset on both. It performs poorly on at least one and usually both.
Meta creative can be produced and polished. A clean before-and-after, a thirty-second piece of real work, a testimonial filmed properly. It can run for weeks. It tolerates a slower opening because people are scrolling a feed where ads are expected.
TikTok creative has to look like the platform. Shot vertically on a phone, native pacing, no logo intro, captions always, and the hook has to land in the first second — not three. Polished advertising reads as advertising and gets scrolled.
For Australian trades and local services, there's an advantage hidden here: the thing that works on TikTok is cheap to make. A phone video of actual work, shot steadily with decent audio, is both what the platform wants and what you can produce on site. The barrier isn't budget, it's making it a habit.
What doesn't transfer either direction: a horizontal video, a corporate voiceover, or anything built for a 2019 Facebook feed.
Tracking, Which Isn't Equivalent
Meta's measurement stack is more mature, and the gap matters more than the targeting differences.
Since Apple's tracking changes and the spread of consent banners, browser-side pixel data undercounts on both platforms. Meta's answer is the Conversions API: server-side event sending, which restores most of the signal and takes about half a day to implement. TikTok has an events API too, and adoption among Australian SMEs is far lower.
Practical consequence: if you run TikTok without server-side tracking, you will see fewer conversions than actually happened, the platform's optimisation will work from worse data, and you'll likely conclude the channel failed. That's a measurement failure, not a channel failure, and it's common.
Whichever you run, set up server-side tracking before judging the results. Auditing your own ad account covers the same principle on the Google side.
What About LinkedIn?
Worth a line, since it's the third option people ask about. "LinkedIn ads cost" gets 50 searches a month at difficulty 50 in Australia.
LinkedIn makes sense when your buyer is identifiable by job title and company size, and when a single customer is worth four figures or more. The cost per click is high enough that consumer or low-value B2B doesn't work. For most Melbourne service businesses selling to other small businesses, it's expensive relative to what it returns.
The Test We'd Run
If you genuinely don't know which, spend a month finding out rather than arguing about it.
Run Meta properly for four weeks with three creative pieces and a working conversion signal. Record cost per enquiry and, more importantly, how many of those enquiries were worth having.
Then run TikTok for four weeks with ten creative pieces and the same conversion setup. Same measurement.
Do not run them simultaneously on a small budget. You'll under-fund both, neither will exit its learning phase, and you'll learn nothing except that advertising is expensive.
Our Meta Ads page covers how we run paid social, and the free audit includes a look at existing accounts on either platform.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I use Facebook ads or TikTok ads for my Australian business?
Meta if your buyers are over 35, your product is considered rather than impulsive, you need tight geographic targeting, or you can't produce video regularly. TikTok if your buyers are under 35, the product demonstrates in fifteen seconds, and you can make ten pieces of creative a month. For most Australian service businesses, Meta is the default.
How much do TikTok ads cost in Australia?
Neither platform publishes Australian benchmarks and precise figures are extrapolation. What holds reliably is that TikTok's cost per click generally runs below Meta's while cost per qualified lead often runs above it, because the traffic is colder. The only number that matters is cost per enquiry you'd actually want, which takes four weeks of running to learn.
Can I use the same ad creative on Facebook and TikTok?
No, and it's the most common mistake. Meta tolerates produced, polished creative with a slower opening and a lifespan of weeks. TikTok needs vertical phone-shot video with native pacing, no logo intro, captions, and a hook in the first second. Running one asset on both usually underperforms on both.
Which platform has better geographic targeting in Australia?
Meta, clearly. It supports radius targeting around a point and specific localities, so a business servicing only Melbourne's northern suburbs can target exactly that. TikTok's Australian geographic targeting is realistically city-level, which wastes budget for any business with a tight service area.
How much creative do I need for TikTok ads?
Ten or more pieces a month to sustain a campaign, against three or four for Meta. TikTok burns through creative in days rather than weeks. Businesses that can't supply that volume end up showing the same asset to a bored audience and conclude the platform doesn't work, when the supply was the problem.
Do I need server-side tracking for TikTok ads?
Yes, and it's less commonly implemented than Meta's equivalent. Browser-side pixel data undercounts on both platforms since Apple's tracking changes and the spread of consent banners. Without server-side events the platform optimises on incomplete data and you'll see fewer conversions than actually occurred — a measurement failure that reads as a channel failure.
Is TikTok only for young audiences in Australia?
The audience skews 18 to 34 but has been broadening. The more practical constraint isn't age, it's whether your product demonstrates well in a short vertical video and whether you can produce enough of them. A business selling to over-35s with strong visual content can work on TikTok; one with no video capacity can't, at any age bracket.
Should I run Meta and TikTok at the same time?
Only if you can fund and feed both. The common failure is splitting an already thin budget, running identical creative on each, and under-funding both so neither exits its learning phase. Run one properly for four weeks, measure, then run the other for four weeks with the same setup.
What about LinkedIn ads for an Australian business?
LinkedIn works when your buyer is identifiable by job title and company size and a customer is worth four figures or more. Cost per click is high enough that consumer and low-value B2B don't make the numbers work. For most Melbourne businesses selling to other small businesses it's expensive relative to the return.
How long before paid social produces results?
Clicks start immediately; useful data takes two to four weeks. Meta needs roughly 50 conversions per ad set per week to optimise reliably, which low-volume service businesses won't hit at the enquiry level — optimise for an earlier event and judge enquiries manually. Treat any promise of optimised performance in the first fortnight as describing something that isn't possible.