Meta ad revenue closed on Google Search & other in the third quarter of 2026. Meta reported $63.06 billion in advertising, against $63.35 billion for Alphabet’s Google Search & other line, in FourWeekMBA’s tally of earnings releases filed with the SEC between 21 and 29 October. Meta also supplied most of the new ad dollars among Google, Meta and Amazon.
Key Takeaways
- Meta reported $63.06 billion in Q3 ads, against $63.35 billion for Google Search.
- Meta added about 57% of the $22.7 billion combined ad-dollar increase.
- Philipp Schindler said AI Mode queries monetized lower in the quarter.
- Amazon ads rose about 10.9%; Reddit ads grew 54% as search referrals fell.
Meta Ad Revenue Versus the Search Line
On the filing millions FourWeekMBA cites, Meta advertising was $63,061 million, up from $50,082 million a year earlier. Google Search & other was $63,350 million, up from $56,567 million. Minotaur Capital’s comparison of the same releases says Meta’s stated advertising growth in Q3 2026 was 26%, matching its ex-FX rate. Alphabet does not give constant-currency growth for its advertising lines in the releases Minotaur used.
Alphabet’s stated Search & other growth was 17%, 19%, 17% and 12% from Q4 2025 through Q3 2026, which reconciles with Minotaur’s recomputation from the reported figures. Alphabet put Google advertising at $82,012 million, against $74,182 million, with YouTube ads at $11,207 million versus $10,261 million and Google Network at $7,455 million versus $7,354 million.
Who Took the Combined Ad-Dollar Growth
On FourWeekMBA’s arithmetic, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon together reported $164.7 billion of advertising revenue and added $22.7 billion year on year. Meta added $13.0 billion, about 57.1% of the increase, while holding about 38.3% of the combined total. Google added $7.8 billion, about 34.4%, and held about 49.8%. Amazon added $1.9 billion, about 8.5%, on about 11.9% of the revenue.
| Line | Q3 2026 | Year earlier | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta advertising | $63,061 million | $50,082 million | About 25.9% |
| Google Search & other | $63,350 million | $56,567 million | 12.0% |
| Google advertising | $82,012 million | $74,182 million | About 10.6% |
| Amazon advertising services | $19,637 million | $17,703 million | About 10.9% |
Meta’s dollar increase was about 1.66 times Google’s $7.8 billion. By that arithmetic, growth was about 25.9% at Meta, about 10.6% for Google advertising and about 10.9% at Amazon — or 12% excluding currency, Amazon’s release said. The three lines together grew about 16%.
What the Companies Say AI Is Doing
None of the releases splits revenue by whether an ad ran through an AI product. Meta’s CFO outlook commentary said: “Our AI investments are already delivering substantial incremental advertising revenue through stronger engagement, better recommendations, and more efficient monetization”.
On Alphabet’s call, chief business officer Philipp Schindler said “FX … was the single largest driver of search deceleration relative to Q2”, and that “the strong growth in AI Mode queries had an impact because of the lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode”. He also said “the majority of AI Mode queries are incremental”. See our earlier look at Alphabet’s AI Mode search-ad lag.
Amazon’s release describes Amazon Ads Agent as “bringing together Amazon’s full offering under a single, AI-first platform”, and Full-Funnel Campaigns this way: “Advertisers provide initial inputs, then Amazon’s AI plans, executes, and continuously optimizes the rest”. FourWeekMBA notes that Amazon ties the quarter’s ads slowdown to Prime Day timing.
As FourWeekMBA reads the filings and the call, the companies name three different effects: incremental yield at Meta, automated campaign running at Amazon, and queries in AI Mode that Schindler said monetized lower, with FX the larger drag on Search versus Q2.
Smaller Sellers, and the Limit of 57%
- Reddit’s shareholder letter reported advertising revenue of $847 million, up 54% year over year, and said “Our search referral traffic was down meaningfully in Q3, with the decline accelerating later in the quarter”.
- Pinterest reported revenue of $1,173.9 million, up 12% from $1,049.2 million.
- Microsoft’s 10-Q listed Search and advertising revenue of $6,554 million, against $5,942 million, up about 10.3%, or $612 million. The filing says the line includes Bing, Microsoft Edge, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions and Premium Subscriptions, third-party affiliates and MSN, so it mixes subscriptions with advertising. FourWeekMBA left it out of the shares. Excluding traffic acquisition costs, it grew 12%.
Amazon’s $19,637 million of advertising services is about 3.0 times Microsoft’s mixed line. The 57% share also excludes Reddit, Pinterest and every other seller. Google advertising bundles Search, YouTube and Network; Meta reports one advertising line; Amazon reports advertising services. Combining them is FourWeekMBA’s arithmetic, not a market-size estimate.
Google advertising is still the larger advertising line. The incremental dollar across the three skewed to Meta, while Search & other grew at 12%.
