Buyers say clients now question part of Google search spend

Jellyfish says its clients mostly keep the money inside Google, moving it to YouTube, Demand Gen, Performance Max and AI Max. At Tinuiti, branded cost per click rose 5 per cent in the third quarter, and Facebook spend among its US clients grew 16 per cent. The share under question is 10 to 20 per cent of the Google budget for Above the Bar Marketing’s clients, and 10 to 30 per cent according to Bryce Hamlin of Power Digital. Accuracast’s clients question about 10 per cent today, a figure it says could reach 20 to 30 per cent around Black Friday.

Last week Alphabet reported search ad revenue up 12 per cent, against 15 per cent a year earlier, and its chief business officer linked part of the gap to lower monetisation in AI Mode, Marketing Dive reported.

Meta is one of the places that money goes, and its generative ad tools come with a limit we recorded: Meta’s terms let the images and videos they make run only on Meta’s own platforms (our guide to those terms, checked 31 October 2026).

So a brand that moves part of its search budget to Meta and builds the new ads with Meta’s generators cannot, under the terms in force today, carry that creative back to YouTube or Demand Gen if Google wins the money back.