Meta and Google Ad Duopoly
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Sean Frank, CEO of Ridge, on the state of ecommerce post-COVID
it's a duopoly for a reason. Facebook will still get the majority of our spend. Google will still get the second-largest bucket of spend
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This ad budget split shows that scaled ecommerce still runs on two machines, Facebook for creating demand and Google for catching demand that already exists. Facebook and Instagram let Ridge put a wallet or ring in front of millions of people who were not actively shopping. Google then captures the people who search Ridge, Ridge wallet, or close substitutes after seeing that ad or hearing about the brand elsewhere.
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Meta remains the biggest pure commerce ad platform. Online commerce was the largest contributor to Meta ad revenue growth in 2023, and Meta generated $131.9B of ad revenue that year. That scale gives brands dense targeting, huge inventory, and fast feedback loops that smaller channels still struggle to match.
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Google stays second because it monetizes intent, not interruption. In 2024, Google advertising revenue reached $264.6B, including $198.1B from Search and $36.1B from YouTube ads. For a brand like Ridge, that means paying to win the moment a shopper types a product query, brand name, or competitor comparison.
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The long tail matters, but mostly as a supplement. Ridge describes TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat, and X as third tier channels, and also notes that TikTok was still far from Facebook as a paid acquisition engine. Ridge built a separate eight person influencer workflow because creator deals work differently from click based ad buying.
The next step is not the end of the duopoly, but a more layered version of it. Big consumer brands will keep using Meta and Google as the core buying systems, then add Amazon, creator deals, and measurement tools around them. The brands that win will be the ones with enough gross margin to keep feeding those channels profitably.