What Business Ad Spend Reveals About Platform Mix, Industry Strategy, and Paid Growth
Aggregated business spend shows that advertising strategy is not moving in one uniform direction. Meta still dominates total ad dollars, but platform mix varies sharply by industry, smaller channels are gaining normalized momentum in specific pockets, and different ad platforms create very different transaction patterns.
Methodology
This analysis uses aggregated, anonymized Slash card transaction data across tracked ad platforms including Meta, Google, Google Ads, TikTok, AppLovin, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Reddit, and X/Twitter.¹
The analysis compares May 2026 vs April 2026, the latest complete-month period available. To avoid overstating trends caused by customer growth, new entrants, or a few large accounts, we use normalization, same-store checks, and concentration analysis in the background. The findings below focus on platform mix, relative movement, and representative behavior — not raw dollar volume.
Key takeaways
- Meta remains the center of gravity. It represented 86.7% of total tracked ad spend in May.
- The fastest-growing platforms were smaller channels. Snapchat grew 158.5% MoM, Google Ads 47.9%, AppLovin 19.0%, TikTok 12.1%, and Facebook 5.3%. Google declined 9.6%.
- Platform mix shifted modestly away from Meta in May. Meta’s share of tracked ad-platform spend fell 1.3 percentage points, while Google Ads gained 1.1pp, AppLovin gained 0.4pp, Snapchat gained 0.2pp, and TikTok gained 0.1pp.
- Industry mix varies sharply. Agencies were overwhelmingly Meta-led, with 91.4% of tracked ad spend going to it. Contractors were much more search-oriented, with 66.8% going to Google and 21.1% to Google Ads. Startups split almost evenly between Meta and TikTok.
- Same-store company trends were more measured than raw category swings. Contractors and Software showed the largest median increases in ad intensity, while larger categories like Agencies and Ecommerce were comparatively stable on a median-company basis.
- Payment behavior differs by platform. Meta behaves like a high-frequency, low-ticket channel. AppLovin is the opposite: far fewer charges, but an average charge size roughly 100x larger than Meta’s.
1. Meta dominates paid acquisition spend
Meta remained the largest tracked advertising platform by a wide margin in May. Tracked May ad spend by platform:
The market overall is extremely concentrated, but concentration does not mean the market is static. Meta remains the largest channel, while several smaller platforms showed stronger month-over-month movement.
2. May’s fastest growth came from smaller platforms
From April to May, the strongest percentage growth came outside Meta. Month-over-month platform growth:
Incremental growth was distributed across several non-Meta channels: Google Ads for web/search performance, AppLovin for app-install/performance spend, and Snapchat for social and video-driven acquisition.
The distributed growth was also corroborated by share movement. Meta’s share of tracked ad-platform spend fell 1.3 percentage points (pp) from April to May, while Google Ads gained 1.1pp, AppLovin gained 0.4pp, Snapchat gained 0.2pp, and TikTok gained 0.1pp.
3. Platform mix looks completely different by industry
The overall market is Meta-heavy, but that average hides very different acquisition strategies by business type. The platform mix for an agency looks nothing like the platform mix for a contractor, startup, software company, or travel agency. In May:
- Agencies were overwhelmingly Meta-led: 91.4% Meta, with Google Ads, TikTok, AppLovin, and Google each representing much smaller shares.
- Ecommerce was still Meta-led, but more diversified: 74.4% Meta, 13.9% AppLovin, with Google / Google Ads also contributing meaningful share.
- Healthcare leaned primarily toward Meta, but search was more important than in agencies: 75.9% Meta, with Google and Google Ads together representing 23.9%.
- Startups were nearly split between Meta and TikTok: 52.3% Meta and 47.1% TikTok.
- Contractors were search-heavy: 66.8% Google, 21.1% Google Ads, and only 12.1% Meta.
- Travel Agencies split spend between Meta and Google, with Meta at 48.0% and Google at 45.1%.
- Software was more fragmented: 51.3% Google Ads, 17.7% Meta, 12.5% Google, 11.1% TikTok, and 3.3% AppLovin.
Agencies and ecommerce are Meta-led. Contractors and travel agencies lean much more heavily on search. Startups show much higher TikTok concentration. Software is spread across several channels. For benchmarking, the overall average is less useful than the industry-specific mix.
4. Same-store trends show which industries are increasing ad spend
Raw industry-level spend can move for reasons that are not representative of the typical advertiser: a single large advertiser can shift budgets, a new company can begin heavily spending in a category, a small category can swing dramatically from a modest change.
To separate broad-based behavior from outliers, we looked at same-store companies: businesses active in both April and May, measured by the median change in the share of spend going to ads. On that basis, the biggest median increases were:
Contractors and software showed the clearest median-company increases in ad intensity. Large categories like agencies and ecommerce remained comparatively stable, even though they represented most total dollars.
5. Payment behavior varies widely by platform
The payment pattern behind ad spend is another way platforms differ. Channels with lower ticket sizes or more continuous billing can create a long tail of small transactions, while platforms with different billing thresholds or campaign structures can produce fewer, larger charges:
Meta looks like an always-on channel: extremely high transaction count, very small average charge size. AppLovin looks like the opposite: fewer transactions, much larger average charges. Google Ads, TikTok, Google, and Snapchat fall between the two.
A business spending heavily with Meta has to manage frequent small charges. A business spending on AppLovin or Snapchat may be more exposed to larger, less frequent campaign charges. The cash-flow and card-management implications are different even when total ad spend is similar.
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