Snap’s advertising revenue grew 4% in the third quarter, its investor letter says. In the same quarter, Meta’s advertising revenue grew 26% and Reddit’s ad revenue 54%, according to their results releases. YouTube ads grew about 9.2%, by our arithmetic on Alphabet’s release.
In dollars, Reddit added about $297 million of ad revenue from a year earlier, about five times Snap’s roughly $56 million, by our arithmetic. Snap’s advertising business is about 1.6 times the size of Reddit’s, also by our arithmetic.
Business Pill · Incrementality
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on incrementality in advertising. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Snap or its peers.
The key insight: Snap’s advertising revenue grew 4% in the third quarter, against 26% at Meta, 54% at Reddit and about 9.2% for YouTube ads; Reddit added about $297 million of ad revenue, about five times Snap’s roughly $56 million, while Snap’s advertising business is about 1.6 times the size of Reddit’s, by our arithmetic.
Alphabet’s release puts YouTube ads at $11,207 million, against $10,261 million, and Google advertising at $82,012 million, against $74,182 million. That is growth of about 9.2% and about 10.6%, by our arithmetic.
Pinterest reports total revenue rather than an advertising line. Its release gives third-quarter revenue of $1,174 million, an increase of 12%.
Year-over-year growth in advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2026, from the results releases of Reddit, Meta, Alphabet and Pinterest and Snap’s investor letter. YouTube ads and Google advertising growth are our arithmetic from Alphabet’s dollar figures; Pinterest reports total revenue only.
Where Snap Sits
Snap’s letter gives advertising growth as a percentage, not a dollar figure. From its stated 84% growth in Other Revenue and its 2025 10-Q, our 4 November arithmetic put third-quarter advertising revenue at about $1,373 million, up about $56 million.
That is down from about 9% advertising growth in the second quarter, by the same arithmetic on Snap’s 10-Qs. The letter names one cause: “upper funnel brand advertising declined year-over-year, weighing on our overall growth.”
What Each Company Credits to AI
Snap’s letter says: “AI is helping us extend that progress through innovations like Dynamic Product Ads Generative Retrieval and Agentic Recommendations.”
Meta’s release says: “Our AI investments are already delivering substantial incremental advertising revenue through stronger engagement, better recommendations, and more efficient monetization.”
Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google and Alphabet, said in its release: “Our AI investments are driving overall Search query growth, including commercial queries.”
Pinterest chief executive Bill Ready said: “Our differentiated AI-driven visual search and shopping experiences are making Pinterest increasingly valuable for users and advertisers alike.”
Go deeper, 5 Nov, 11:31Z: our evergreen analysis, Meta Ads Rose 26%, Snap 4%: What Each Platform Credits to AI, sets out what ad platforms say AI does for their businesses. Third-quarter ad growth ran from 4% at Snap to 26% at Meta and 54% at Reddit, and Snap’s chief commercial officer said its AI ad tools contributed to an over 2.5% increase in pixel purchase conversions.
As we read the releases, Snap, Meta, Alphabet and Pinterest each credit AI for part of their performance, yet their growth rates range from 4% at Snap to 26% at Meta.
As we read Snap’s letter, the company ties its slower growth to brand advertising: upper funnel brand advertising declined while it reports AI-driven gains in performance ads.
As we read the dollar figures, Snap’s third quarter added fewer ad dollars than Reddit’s even though Snap’s advertising business is the larger of the two.
Snap Q3 2026 investor letter
“While advertising revenuegrowth remains below our ambitions, advertisers are seeing the benefits of our performance improvements.”
Three Implications
FOR SNAP Its letter says Other Revenue grew 84% and it surpassed 30 million paid subscribers across Snapchat+, Memories Storage, and Lens+.
FOR THE COMPARISON Meta’s advertising revenue rose $12,979 million year over year, by our arithmetic, more than Snap’s entire quarterly revenue of about $1.72 billion.
FOR YOUTUBE Alphabet’s release puts YouTube ads at $11,207 million, up about 9.2%, by our arithmetic.
The framework says: “The first is what your underlying technology can do. The second is what your users can actually do with it.”
As we read it, Snap and Meta both credit AI with improving their ads, and their advertising grew 4% and 26%. The framework does not discuss Snap or its peers.
What Is Not Established
Snap’s third-quarter 10-Q was not yet on the SEC’s filing list when we checked on 5 November, so its advertising figure here is our estimate from the stated 84% Other Revenue growth. Reddit’s added ad dollars are derived from its rounded 54%, so the $297 million and the five times are approximate. The companies define advertising differently, and none of the releases says how much of its ad growth came from AI.
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In the third quarter, Snap’s advertising revenue grew 4%, against 26% at Meta, 54% at Reddit and about 9.2% for YouTube ads. Reddit added about five times Snap’s ad dollars from a smaller base, by our arithmetic.
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A note on sourcing. Figures are from the third-quarter 2026 results releases of Reddit, Meta, Alphabet and Pinterest, Snap’s investor letter and Snap’s 10-Qs. Snap’s advertising dollars, Reddit’s added ad dollars, YouTube and Googlegrowth rates and the comparisons are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
