Google Outperforms Meta by 36.3% Over Past Year

Over the past year, Google and Meta have shown a significant divergence in their performance. According to data ending on September 24, 2026, Google returned 38.7% against Meta's 2.4% in the same digital advertising market.

This gap has cost investors $3,633 over the course of a year, highlighting that the two companies are not always interchangeable bets on online advertising spending.

While Google was able to hold its gains throughout the period, Meta only approached breakeven late in the year. This discrepancy suggests that investors may need to rethink their approach to benchmarking the digital-ads duopoly.