Meta, Google, and Amazon just posted Q2 2026 earnings — and the numbers reveal exactly where ad costs are headed next for advertisers. Plus: Shein's IPO filing shows what happens when ad dependency meets a broken profit model.
Chris and Mike break down all four Q2 earnings calls that matter for anyone running paid search or social budgets right now. Meta's ad revenue jumped roughly 27% year-over-year, but almost none of that growth is coming from new users — it's coming from higher ad load and rising frequency on existing accounts, which is why per-unit ad costs are climbing even as impressions go up. CapEx grew 55% year-over-year and net income actually dropped 14%, which is part of why the stock got punished despite the growth headline.
Google/Alphabet told a different story: search ad revenue is up 17% to over $60 billion, even as growth decelerated for the first time in years — still one of the strongest showings of any company this size. Cloud revenue is up 80%, and Google tied its ad growth directly to AI Max, which the company says is monetizing "billions" of net-new search terms that weren't served by ad inventory before. Chris and Mike table the "how does AI Max actually work" deep-dive for next week's episode — subscribe so you don't miss it.
Amazon's ad business grew 26% to roughly $19.8 billion, led by sponsored products, with no signs of slowing. And Shein's newly filed IPO prospectus reveals a business that's almost entirely dependent on paid advertising — 95% of its 2025 marketing budget (around $6 billion) went to ads, growth has stalled since the U.S. de minimis exemption ended, and the company isn't hitting the "Rule of 40/50" profitability-plus-growth benchmark institutional investors look for.
This is a market-earnings recap for PPC managers, in-house ecommerce marketers, and agencies who need to know what's actually driving ad costs and platform strategy this quarter — not just headline numbers.
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