Google Ads vs Amazon Ads for ecommerce: which drives more sales?
By Ahmed Imran · Updated June 2026 · 7 min read
If you sell on Amazon, Amazon Ads capture shoppers at the moment of purchase inside the marketplace, while Google Ads drive traffic to your own store and build a brand, a customer list, and margin you own. Amazon wins for marketplace sellers defending listings. Google wins for direct to consumer brands that want to own the customer, the data, and the margin. Many serious brands run both.
I run Google Ads for the US market as an independent specialist, and the question I get most from ecommerce founders is whether they should be spending on Amazon Ads instead. It is the wrong framing. These two platforms do different jobs. One rents you shelf space inside a marketplace where the shopper already has a wallet out. The other sends buyers to a store you own, where you keep the email, the retargeting audience, and the margin. This article lays out exactly where each one wins so you can decide based on your business, not a headline.
What is the difference between Google Ads and Amazon Ads?
The core difference is where the sale happens and who owns what comes after it. Amazon is a closed marketplace where you rent shelf space and pay a referral fee on every sale, and the buyer stays Amazon's customer. Google Ads send traffic to a store you own, where you control the checkout, the customer data, and every dollar of margin after ad cost. Amazon Ads compete for placement on a results page inside Amazon. Google Ads, through Shopping and Performance Max, compete for placement across Google Search, the Shopping tab, YouTube, and the wider Google network, then hand the click to your website.
The table below compares the two on the five things that actually decide which platform fits your business.
| Factor | Amazon Ads | Google Ads (owned store) |
|---|---|---|
| Where the sale happens | Inside the Amazon marketplace | On your own website |
| Who owns the customer and data | Amazon keeps the email and buyer relationship | You keep the email, retargeting audience, and first party data |
| Cost model | Ad spend plus a referral fee of roughly 8 to 15 percent on every sale | Ad spend only, measured on ROAS on your store |
| Buyer intent | Very high, shopper is inside Amazon ready to buy | High on Search and Shopping, spanning discovery to purchase |
| Best use | Defend listings and capture in market shoppers on the marketplace | Build a brand, own the customer, and protect margin |
Who owns the customer and the data?
On Amazon the customer belongs to Amazon, and on your own store the customer belongs to you. This is the single strategic difference that outlasts any campaign. When someone buys your product through a Sponsored Products ad on Amazon, you get the sale and a payout, but you do not get their email, you cannot build a retargeting audience from them, and you cannot easily bring them back for a second purchase without paying Amazon again. Amazon sits between you and every buyer by design.
When the same person buys through a Google Shopping ad on your own store, the relationship is yours. You capture the email at checkout, you can add them to a retargeting audience, you can email them a launch or a refill offer at no media cost, and their purchase feeds your conversion data so Google's bidding gets smarter for the next shopper. Over a year, that owned customer list and that first party data compound into an asset. On Amazon, the same volume of sales builds Amazon's asset, not yours. Amazon controls roughly half of US ecommerce and around 300 million active accounts, which is exactly why that gatekeeping position is so valuable to them and so costly to you.
Amazon Ads rent you shelf space in someone else's store. Google Ads on your own site build a store, a customer list, and a brand that you own. Rent buys sales today. Ownership compounds.
What does each one cost?
Amazon costs you ad spend plus a referral fee on every sale, while Google costs you ad spend measured against revenue on your own store. On Amazon, performance is tracked as ACOS, advertising cost of sale, which is ad spend divided by ad revenue. Across the marketplace the average ACOS sat near 30 percent in 2025, with a profitable target range closer to 15 to 25 percent, per Ad Badger and Xnurta benchmark data. Amazon cost per click climbed to about $1.12 in 2025, up more than 15 percent year over year.
The cost people forget is the referral fee. Amazon takes a referral fee on every sale, typically 8 to 15 percent depending on category, and higher in a few categories, per Amazon Seller Central. Amazon froze these fees for 2025 and 2026, so the rates are stable, but they still stack on top of your ad spend. If your ACOS is 25 percent and your referral fee is 15 percent, roughly 40 cents of every ad driven dollar is gone before you cover the product, shipping, and fulfillment. That is the real math of selling on a marketplace.
Google Shopping and Performance Max are measured differently, on ROAS on your own store, with no marketplace fee skimmed off the top. Google Shopping cost per click averaged about $0.66 in 2025, per WordStream benchmarks, far below Amazon's $1.12, though a Shopping click lands on your site rather than inside a marketplace, so your product page and offer have to do the closing. When the store and feed are set up well, the returns are strong. On the accounts I run, product Shopping campaigns and Performance Max have carried the bulk of revenue at healthy multiples on the brand's own store, which I break down in the next section.
When does Amazon Ads win?
Amazon Ads win when the shopper is already inside Amazon with a wallet out. If a buyer opens the Amazon app and searches for your product category, they are far down the funnel and ready to buy, and a Sponsored Products placement puts you in front of them at that exact moment. Google cannot reach that person inside Amazon. This is Amazon's genuine advantage and I credit it honestly: intent inside the marketplace is as high as it gets, which is a large part of why Amazon holds around half of US ecommerce.
Amazon Ads also win in two specific situations. The first is defending your listings. If competitors are bidding on your branded terms or crowding your category page, ads keep you at the top of your own listings so you do not lose sales you would have won anyway. The second is products that sell on price and reviews rather than brand story. Commodity style items where the buyer compares a few options on a results page and picks the best rated one at the best price convert well on Amazon, where the review count and the buy box do the persuading. If your product lives or dies on being present in that comparison, Amazon is where that comparison happens.
- ›Shoppers already inside Amazon with clear intent to buy your category
- ›Defending your own listings from competitors bidding on your terms
- ›Commodity products that sell on price and review count, not brand
- ›Sellers whose primary channel is the marketplace itself
When does Google Ads win?
Google Ads win when you want to own the customer, the data, and the margin. For a direct to consumer brand, Google Shopping and Performance Max drive buyers to a store you control, where you cut out the marketplace referral fee, keep the full margin, capture the email, and build a first party audience you can market to again for free. You are not renting a slot on someone else's page. You are building demand for a brand you own, on properties you can measure end to end.
The results back this up. Every number here is from the brand's own store through Google Shopping and Performance Max. Autobuffy did $1.5M in 8 months at 6.89x. Aliava reached $1.88M at 8.49x, with branded search converting at a 27 percent click through rate at 8.5x, product Shopping at 7.15x, and Performance Max at 9.91x. Aura Displays went from zero to $944K at 15.02x in about 7 months. SwimOutlet spent $344K in 30 days at 3.39x, verified in Northbeam. Pure Sims went from zero to 4x in four months. Texas Hill Country Olive Co did $467K at 5.36x. None of that revenue paid a marketplace fee, and every buyer became a customer of the brand, not of a platform.
Google also wins on reach and on stage of funnel. Amazon can only show your ad to someone already shopping on Amazon. Google can reach a buyer researching on Search, watching on YouTube, or browsing the Shopping tab, then retarget them on your terms. If your goal is to grow a brand and an audience rather than defend a listing, that full funnel reach is the point.
Should you run both?
For many brands, yes, and the two play distinct roles. Run Amazon Ads to capture in market shoppers who are already inside the marketplace ready to buy, and run Google Ads to build the brand, drive traffic to a store you own, and keep the customer and the data. Amazon becomes an additional distribution channel that converts high intent marketplace traffic. Google becomes the engine that grows demand, protects margin, and compounds a first party audience you own.
The practical split is to let Amazon defend and convert on the marketplace while Google does the brand building and owns the relationship. A shopper might discover you through a Google Shopping ad, buy on your site once, and later repurchase on Amazon out of habit, or the reverse. Running both means you are present wherever the buyer decides to shop, without conceding the customer relationship entirely to Amazon. The mistake is treating it as either or. The brands that scale hardest use Amazon for what it does best, capturing intent inside the marketplace, and use owned store Google Ads to build the asset that keeps paying after the click.
If you are unsure which side deserves your next dollar, start from what you are trying to build. Chasing sales this quarter and defending a listing points to Amazon. Building a brand, a margin structure, and a customer list you own points to Google. If you want a second set of eyes on where your budget should go on the Google side, a focused audit will show you exactly where the owned store opportunity is.
Neither is universally better because they do different jobs. Amazon Ads are better for capturing shoppers already inside the Amazon marketplace with intent to buy, and for defending your listings. Google Ads are better for direct to consumer brands that want to drive traffic to a store they own, cut the marketplace referral fee, and keep the customer email and first party data. Many serious brands run both, using Amazon to convert marketplace intent and Google to build the brand and own the customer.
On cost per click alone, Google Shopping is usually cheaper. Google Shopping cost per click averaged about $0.66 in 2025 per WordStream, while Amazon cost per click reached about $1.12. But Amazon also charges a referral fee of roughly 8 to 15 percent on every sale on top of ad spend, which Google does not. So the true cost of a marketplace sale is ad spend plus that fee, and Amazon is often more expensive on total cost per dollar of revenue even when the click looks cheap in isolation.
A direct to consumer brand can use Amazon Ads, but it should be clear about the trade off. Amazon captures high intent marketplace shoppers and can add real volume, but every sale pays a referral fee and the customer stays Amazon's, so you do not keep the email or the retargeting audience. For most direct to consumer brands the core engine should be owned store Google Ads, which protect margin and build a first party customer list, with Amazon as a secondary distribution channel rather than the foundation.
Yes, and for many brands that is the strongest setup. Run Amazon Ads to capture shoppers already inside the marketplace, and run Google Ads through Shopping and Performance Max to drive traffic to your own store, build the brand, and own the customer and data. The two do not cannibalize each other because they reach buyers at different moments and on different properties. The mistake is treating it as either or rather than assigning each platform the job it does best.
Google Ads build a brand and an owned audience in a way Amazon Ads cannot. On your own store you capture the email, build a retargeting audience, keep the margin, and control the full experience, so every sale compounds into a first party asset you own. On Amazon the customer belongs to Amazon, so the sales build Amazon's asset, not yours. If brand building and owning the customer relationship are the goal, owned store Google Ads are the channel that gets you there.
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