Google Ads vs Meta Ads for Ecommerce: Which Should You Scale First?

For most new ecommerce brands, I would scale Meta first. Once the product is proven and demand exists, I would bring Google in alongside it rather than choosing one platform permanently.

Meta and Google solve different acquisition problems.

Meta is usually the better platform for getting a product in front of people who were not actively looking for it. Google is strongest when people are already searching for the product, comparing alternatives or looking for the brand itself.

That distinction is why I don't see Google Ads vs Meta Ads as a question of which platform is better.

The better question is which platform should be doing which job at your current stage of growth?

We've worked with brands where Meta was already doing most of the acquisition and Google became the next major growth channel. We've also built Google accounts from almost nothing where existing search demand was strong enough for Google to become a major acquisition channel very quickly.

The answer depends on how customers discover the product.

TL;DR

If I were launching most ecommerce brands today:

Meta comes first when the product needs to be discovered, demonstrated or explained through creative.

Google comes first when customers already actively search for the product or solution.

Both should be running once the business has proven demand and enough budget to operate two acquisition channels properly.

The mistake is trying to make one platform perform the other's job.

Meta is exceptionally good at putting a product in front of new people.

Google is exceptionally good at meeting existing intent.

At scale, we want both.

Why does Meta usually make sense first for a new ecommerce brand?

Meta gives a new ecommerce brand access to customers before they know they want the product.

That matters enormously when you're launching something new.

If nobody knows your company exists, branded search volume is effectively zero. If you're selling a product people aren't regularly searching for, there isn't much high-intent demand for Google to capture either.

Meta doesn't have that constraint.

A strong ad can put the product in front of thousands of relevant people, demonstrate why it exists and give the brand immediate feedback on whether customers actually care.

This is why I've described Meta as the initial distribution channel for the vast majority of ecommerce brands.

One founder we spoke with had a very clear example of this.

The business launched a product and did roughly $50,000 in its first month, essentially around break-even while testing creative and trying to find product-market fit.

Then they found the Meta creatives and offers that worked.

Revenue moved to roughly $400,000.

That is exactly what Meta is good at.

The brand didn't need somebody to search for the product first. The creative went out, found an audience and proved there was a market.

Once that happens, the role of Google changes.

There is now something to capture.

People have seen the ads. They know the product exists. Some will search for the company later. Others will start comparing similar products or searching the category.

At that point, continuing to put every additional acquisition dollar into Meta becomes harder to justify.

Where does Google become more valuable than Meta?

Google becomes particularly valuable when the customer already knows what they want.

Someone searching for "bamboo underwear" is giving us information Meta doesn't have in the same way.

They are actively looking.

I actually searched that exact term while reviewing an ecommerce opportunity. The results were full of Shopping listings and competing products.

That tells us something useful before we've spent a dollar: people are already looking for this product category.

The same principle applies across ecommerce.

If somebody searches "linen bed sheets", "men's silver chain", "standing desk Australia" or a specific product category, we don't need to interrupt them and convince them to become interested in the category first.

The intent already exists.

Our job is to get the right product in front of them and give them a reason to choose it.

That's where Shopping and Search become incredibly valuable.

Google also becomes increasingly important as Meta itself creates demand.

A customer sees your Meta ad on Monday.

They don't purchase.

On Wednesday they remember the product and search for it on Google.

That journey is completely normal.

The platforms aren't working independently anymore.

Meta started the journey. Google finished it.

This is one reason I don't like conversations where businesses try to attribute every sale perfectly to one platform and then declare a winner.

Customer behaviour isn't that clean.

What happens when an ecommerce brand scales Meta but ignores Google?

This is probably the most common situation we see.

A founder gets good at Meta, scales the channel significantly and builds a real business without ever developing Google properly.

We've spoken with brands spending substantial amounts on Meta while Google remained almost untouched.

In one case, the business was spending approximately $67,500 per month on Meta while barely using Google.

Another founder was generating around $180,000 in monthly revenue while spending heavily on Meta and effectively ignoring Google.

These aren't businesses searching for product-market fit anymore.

The product works.

The advertising works.

Customers are buying.

At that point, the issue with ignoring Google is not simply that you're missing another advertising platform.

You're already creating demand that eventually appears on Google.

Someone sees the Meta campaign, remembers the company and searches for the brand later.

If you're absent from those results, another advertiser can sit above you.

I've looked at this with founders in real time.

In one conversation, we searched the brand and found another product appearing prominently above it in Shopping.

That customer has already been paid for somewhere else in the funnel. Losing them at the point where they're actively searching makes no sense.

This is why we still run branded Google campaigns.

There is a legitimate argument that someone searching your company was already going to buy. I understand that.

But competitors can bid on the same search.

As I've explained to clients, if someone searches for you and you're not at the top, you are going to lose some traffic.

The important part is separating that branded traffic from genuine new-customer acquisition so we don't pretend Google created demand that Meta actually generated.

Does Google eventually become a better scaling channel than Meta?

There isn't a universal crossover point where Google suddenly becomes better than Meta.

We've seen Google become an enormous acquisition channel for ecommerce brands, but its ceiling is determined by the market.

A product with huge search demand has far more room to scale through Google than an extremely niche product that nobody searches for.

Meta has a different constraint.

It can create demand rather than waiting for it, but scaling requires a continuous supply of creative capable of finding new audiences profitably.

This creates a useful relationship between the two.

Google captures the customers closest to purchase.

Meta keeps introducing more people to the brand.

As Google exhausts the obvious high-intent searches, we can also move further up the funnel inside Google's ecosystem.

Demand Gen is particularly interesting here because it behaves much more like paid social than traditional Search.

We've described Demand Gen as Google's closest equivalent to Meta, Instagram, TikTok and other top-of-funnel advertising because the objective is to reach new users rather than wait for them to search.

We don't normally need that immediately.

At lower spend, I'd rather capture the customers already showing intent.

Once the account has done that efficiently and needs more scale, creating additional demand starts to make sense.

That's when the distinction between "Meta creates demand and Google captures it" becomes less absolute.

At scale, both platforms can do both jobs.

They just have different strengths.

One of our best Google campaigns started with Meta creative

A good example of the relationship between the platforms came from an ecommerce account we built from almost zero on Google.

We initially built the high-intent side of the account.

Non-branded Shopping became the primary revenue driver, with Search and the rest of the structure supporting it.

Within the first 60 days, Google had generated approximately $266,000 in revenue, with 87% coming from non-branded terms.

That matters because there was very little existing brand demand for Google to hide behind.

We were acquiring customers who were searching for the product rather than simply searching for the company.

Eventually those campaigns started approaching the point where forcing more money into the same demand was becoming less efficient.

So we expanded.

Instead of creating an entirely new library of ads, we took video creative that had already worked on Meta and used it inside Google Demand Gen.

The campaigns launched at roughly $275 per day.

Within around two to three weeks, they became profitable and continued improving as they accumulated data.

By day 90, the Google account had generated approximately $369,000 in revenue.

I like this example because it shows why treating Google and Meta as rivals misses the point.

Meta had already helped identify creative people responded to.

We could take that learning and apply it somewhere else.

The creative didn't belong to Meta.

It belonged to the business.

Should you move budget from Meta to Google?

Not automatically.

If Meta is profitable, I don't see a reason to damage a working acquisition channel simply because Google has become available.

I'd rather prove Google independently.

That means allocating enough budget to establish whether Google can acquire additional customers at an acceptable cost while Meta continues doing what already works.

If Google proves itself, the business now has two acquisition engines.

That is much more valuable than simply moving the same budget between platforms and arguing about which dashboard has the better ROAS.

Diversification matters here as well.

We've spoken with established businesses that built a large percentage of their acquisition around one platform and eventually wanted another source of growth.

As I've explained in sales conversations, if you already have a really good foundation with Meta, Google gives you another channel that can diversify acquisition, reduce dependence on one platform and drive additional volume on top of what is already working.

That's how we prefer to think about the decision.

Not:

Should we stop Meta and use Google?

But rather:

Can Google add profitable customers that we aren't currently acquiring?

If it can, we keep scaling both.

How should you compare Meta ROAS with Google ROAS?

Very carefully.

A 5x ROAS on Google and a 3x ROAS on Meta does not automatically mean Google deserves the next dollar.

Google sits much closer to existing intent.

Meta can introduce the customer to the brand, then Google can receive the conversion when that same customer searches the company later.

If you only look at platform attribution, both systems have an incentive to take as much credit as possible.

This becomes particularly misleading when branded Google traffic is included in the headline ROAS.

We've seen branded searches convert at extremely high rates because these customers already know what they want.

That doesn't make branded Search bad.

We use it.

But we put guardrails around it.

The mistake we repeatedly see is businesses allowing branded traffic to consume a large share of Google spend, mixing it with new-customer performance and then concluding Google has an incredible ROAS.

At that point you've already paid for those people through Meta or another acquisition channel and you're effectively paying twice.

Our priority is incremental revenue.

If Google can acquire a new customer profitably at a lower reported ROAS than branded Search, that customer can be far more valuable to the growth of the business.

So I don't compare the platforms purely by asking which has the biggest number.

I want to know what each platform contributed to acquiring the customer.

When should Google Ads come first?

There are ecommerce businesses where I would prioritise Google immediately.

The clearest case is a product with strong existing search demand.

If customers already know the product category, actively search for it and have obvious purchase intent, Google gives us direct access to those buyers.

You don't need to manufacture demand that already exists.

This is particularly attractive when Shopping results are strong and the product is visually competitive on the results page.

Google can also work without Meta.

We have built Google acquisition systems where the business had very little Meta spend supporting them.

Our $369,000 ecommerce case is a good example. The business had some early Meta activity, but branded search demand was minimal when we started. Google still became a significant acquisition channel because customers were searching for the type of product being sold.

So the rule isn't "always start Meta."

The rule is:

Look at how the customer naturally discovers and buys the product.

If the product needs to be introduced, demonstrated and explained, Meta has the advantage.

If customers are already looking for it, Google becomes much more attractive.

When should Meta stay the priority?

Meta should stay the priority when creative is the main mechanism driving customer acquisition and there is limited existing search demand to capture.

Some products are difficult to search for before you know they exist.

A new fashion concept, unusual household product or visually demonstrated solution can perform extremely well in-feed because the customer understands the value as soon as they see it.

Trying to force that business through Search can be expensive because there simply aren't enough people typing the right thing into Google.

That's a real limitation.

Google cannot capture search demand that doesn't exist.

In that situation, I'd rather keep funding the channel that is creating customers and use Google selectively where genuine intent starts appearing.

As Meta grows the brand, Google becomes more useful naturally.

More people search the company.

More people search the category.

More customers compare alternatives.

Eventually, the channel mix starts to change.

Our recommendation

For most ecommerce brands, I wouldn't choose between Google and Meta.

I'd combine them.

If you're still proving the product and customers need creative to discover why they should care, Meta is usually the better place to establish demand.

Once the product works, look at Google.

Not because Meta has failed.

Because the business has earned another acquisition channel.

If customers are already searching heavily for the category, I would test Google earlier. There is no reason to ignore high-intent demand while waiting to hit an arbitrary Meta spend threshold.

Then measure the two platforms based on the role they're actually performing.

Meta should be judged on its ability to create customers and demand profitably.

Google should be judged on whether it can capture existing intent and acquire incremental customers beyond the demand the brand already owns.

As the business grows, the lines become less rigid. Meta continues finding new audiences while Google's Demand Gen and YouTube campaigns can also move higher up the funnel.

That's when the acquisition system becomes far more interesting.

Final takeaway

If I were forced to give one answer to Google Ads vs Meta Ads for ecommerce, it would be:

Meta is usually where I would prove and initially distribute a new ecommerce product. Google is where I would capture the intent that exists once people are actively looking for the product, category or brand.

But I wouldn't keep them separated for long once the business has proven demand.

Some of the strongest ecommerce businesses we speak with have already scaled Meta significantly before they take Google seriously.

That's an opportunity.

The product has been validated.

The creative has been tested.

The business understands its customers.

And there is now demand Google can capture.

At that point, the goal isn't to replace Meta.

It's to build a second acquisition engine beside it.

FAQ

Is Google Ads or Meta Ads better for ecommerce?

Neither is universally better. Meta has an advantage when the product needs to be discovered through creative, while Google is particularly strong when customers are already searching for the product, category or brand.

Should an ecommerce brand start with Meta or Google Ads?

For most new ecommerce brands, we would prioritise Meta when the product needs demand created around it. If the product already has substantial search demand, Google can make sense immediately.

Should I stop scaling Meta to start Google Ads?

No. If Meta is profitable, we prefer to test whether Google can add incremental customers alongside it. The objective is to build another profitable acquisition channel rather than replace one that already works.

Can Google Ads work without Meta Ads?

Yes. Google can work independently when sufficient search demand exists. We've built ecommerce Google Ads accounts with very little existing branded demand where non-branded Shopping became the primary revenue driver.

Written by Max Crakanthorp, Founder of Kraken Digital