Key Takeaways
- We tracked 31,731 ads across 101 luxury watch and jewelry retailers on Google and Meta. Ad volume is up 41.6% from March.
- 67% advertise on both platforms, but the Google-to-Meta ratio is 36:1. Meta is wide open.
- Brand co-op (mostly Rolex) accounts for 38% of all detected ads. General store promos are second at 22%. Everything else — events, service, pre-owned, lifestyle — is in the single digits.
- Only 15 of 101 retailers are running Mother's Day ads with the holiday two weeks away.
- Product catalog retargeting had the biggest adoption jump: 10 new retailers started using it this month.
- Video is 6.5% of all ads in an industry built on craftsmanship and visual beauty.
- The average active retailer runs 332 Google ads but just 9 on Meta.
This is the second month of a project we plan to run indefinitely.
Every month, we scrape the Google Ads Transparency Center and Meta Ad Library for 101 luxury watch and jewelry retailers across the US and Canada. We capture every visible ad — the creative, the copy, the advertiser, the format, the platform. Then we classify it, count it, compare it to last month, and publish what we find.
Last month we reviewed 22,408 ads. This month: 31,731. That is a 41.6% increase in detected ad volume across the same 101 retailers. The market is not slowing down. It is accelerating — and the gaps between the retailers who are investing and the ones who are not are getting wider.
This post is the data behind our paid advertising guide for luxury retailers. The guide tells you what to do. This tells you what everyone else is actually doing.
*Updated monthly. Last update: April 2026.*
The Mother's Day Problem
Mother's Day is two weeks away. Out of 101 retailers in our dataset, 15 are running Mother's Day ads.
Fifteen.
That is up from 10 in March — so the seasonal push is happening. But 86 retailers have zero Mother's Day advertising running right now. For a holiday that consistently ranks as one of the top jewelry-buying occasions of the year, that is a staggering amount of empty space.
Here is what the 15 are doing:
REEDS Jewelers is the most aggressive — 18 Mother's Day ads across Google, anchored by a "Mother's Day Gift Guide 2026" campaign that drives to a dedicated gift guide landing page. Multiple ad variants testing different angles: "Shop Now For Mother's Day," "Find A Gift," "The Mother's Day Gift Guide."
Borsheims is running 7 Meta ads with the strongest positioning of anyone in the dataset. Dedicated `/mothers-day-gifts` landing pages. Copy that leads with "Ships free | 90-day returns" — reducing purchase friction, not just promoting product. They are also running a LAGOS brand partnership angle: "Show your love with LAGOS this Mother's Day at Borsheims."
Smyth Jewelers takes a gift-guide approach: "Mom Deserves It All — Mother's Day Gift Guide." Karats is running a 25% off storewide promotion for the holiday. Lee Michaels has 8 ads with "Beautiful Gifts for Mom" copy driving to a dedicated Mother's Day URL.
The rest — Bhindi, Maison Birks, Moyer, Shreve, Albert's, and a handful of others — have one or two ads each.
If you are reading this and have nothing running for Mother's Day, here is the minimum viable version you can launch today:
- Pick 3-5 best-selling pieces under $500 that work as gifts. Photograph them on a clean background.
- Create a "Mother's Day Gifts" collection page on your site (even if it is just a filtered collection).
- Run 3 Meta image ads targeting women 25-54 and men 25-54 in your market. Budget: $300-500. CTA: "Shop Mother's Day Gifts" or "Find the Perfect Gift for Mom."
That puts you ahead of 86 of your competitors who are doing nothing.
Where Are They Advertising?
We tracked 101 retailers across Google Ads and Meta (Facebook and Instagram). Here is where they are showing up.
[TABLE: Category | Retailers | %]
That is up from March, when 61 retailers (60.4%) were on both platforms. Seven more retailers added Meta to their mix this month. Twelve retailers who previously had zero Meta presence now have active Meta ads — including razny.com, chpremier.com, maisonbirks.com, and longsjewelers.com.
The direction is clear: dual-platform adoption is growing. But the imbalance between the two platforms is enormous.
The 36-to-1 Ratio
[TABLE: Platform | Ads | % of Total]
The average active retailer runs 332 ads on Google. On Meta, that number is 9.
Part of this is structural. Brand co-op programs — especially Rolex — generate large volumes of Google Display and Search ads that inflate the Google count. Rolex alone accounts for 11,424 ads in this dataset, all on Google.
But even setting co-op aside, the ratio is extreme. Meta — the platform where your customers scroll through aspirational content every day, where luxury products are inherently visual, where a single well-shot carousel of a new collection can reach thousands of potential buyers — has 864 total ads across 101 retailers.
For any retailer willing to show up on Instagram and Facebook with decent creative, you are entering a market with almost no competition. That is not an exaggeration. It is what the data shows.
> *For the full paid advertising strategy on each platform, read our Google Ads guide and Meta Ads guide.*
What Are They Advertising?
Platform tells you where they show up. Strategy tells you what they are actually saying. We classified every ad in the dataset by its messaging strategy — what the ad is trying to accomplish, not just where it runs.
[TABLE: Strategy | Ads | % of Total | vs. March]
*Note: 8,176 ads (25.8%) are visual display ads with no extractable text — typically brand co-op image banners. They are excluded from strategy classification.*
What This Tells You
Brand co-op dominates. More than a third of all advertising in this space is funded by the brands themselves — primarily Rolex. If you are an authorized dealer, these ads are running on your behalf whether you asked for them or not. If you are an independent, you are competing against subsidized advertising. That does not mean you cannot win. It means your strategy needs to be different.
General store promos are the default. "Visit our store." "Shop our collection." "Discover our jewelry." This is where most self-funded advertising lives. It works. But it does not differentiate you from the 89 other retailers running the same message. The question is whether you can say something more specific.
Product-specific ads are a wide-open opportunity. Only 74 retailers name actual models — Submariner, Seamaster, Santos, Nautilus — in their advertising. If you carry these pieces and are not calling them out by name, you are missing high-intent searches from buyers who already know what they want.
The bottom four strategies are almost empty. Events and seasonal promotions: 0.6%. Service and repair: 0.8%. Buy/sell/trade: 0.6%. Lifestyle and aspirational: 1.0%. These are not small because they do not work. They are small because almost nobody is trying them. That is a gap you can walk right into.
Who Started What This Month
The strategy table shows ad counts. This table shows how many retailers are using each strategy — and how that changed from March.
[TABLE: Strategy | March | April | New Retailers]
Product catalog retargeting had the biggest jump — 10 new retailers set up dynamic product ads this month. These are ads that automatically show people the exact items they browsed on your site. Once the product feed is connected, they largely run themselves.
Events and seasonal ads added 9 new retailers, driven by Mother's Day ramp-up.
Certified Pre-Owned added 7 — likely driven by the expanding Rolex CPO program.
The trend line here is clear. The retailers who were only running general store promos are branching out. If your advertising is still "Visit us" and nothing else, you are falling behind the pace of your own competitors.
> *This data is from our monthly advertising audit. For the strategy behind it — how to actually build and run these campaigns — read our Paid Advertising Guide for Luxury Retailers.*
The Biggest Movers
Which retailers scaled their advertising the most from March to April?
[TABLE: Retailer | March | April | Change | Google Δ | Meta Δ]
Wempe leads with a +2,458 increase — almost entirely Google. As a brand that operates its own retail locations, their ad volume reflects corporate-level media buying across multiple entities (Gerhard D. Wempe GmbH, American Wempe Corporation, Wempe France).
Bachendorf's had the most dramatic shift — going from 305 ads to 2,339. That is a 7x increase in one month. Nearly all Google. They also added five new strategy types this month: buy/sell/trade, certified pre-owned, events and seasonal, lifestyle, and product catalog retargeting. That is a retailer that flipped a switch.
Exquisite Timepieces went from 50 to 890 — a pre-owned specialist going aggressive on Google. Bob's Watches made a similar move (242 to 856), also on Google. The pre-owned segment is investing heavily in paid search right now.
One new entrant: safajewelers.com appeared for the first time with 10 ads. One exit: westime.com went from 4 ads to zero.
Of the 101 retailers tracked, 71 grew their ad volume, 11 shrank, and 19 were unchanged.
Brand Co-Op: What the Brands Are Doing for You
When we say "brand co-op," we mean ads where the brand itself — not the retailer — is the advertiser of record. We can confirm this when the advertiser name in the transparency data belongs to a recognized brand entity.
[TABLE: Brand Advertiser | Ads]
Rolex is in a different category. 11,424 ads — that is more than a third of the entire dataset, from a single brand. They run Google Search and Display ads pointing to authorized dealers' websites at a scale no other brand matches.
If you are a Rolex authorized dealer, those ads are running right now, driving traffic to your site. It is worth knowing exactly what they are running and where it is pointing. Contact your Rolex rep and ask.
What this does not show: Many co-op arrangements work through backend reimbursement — the retailer runs ads under their own name and submits proof-of-performance for partial refund. That model is invisible in transparency data. The actual level of brand-supported advertising across this dataset is higher than what appears here. If your brand partners are not listed above, it does not mean co-op is unavailable — it may mean the ads are running under your account, not the brand's.
The Copy and Messaging Gap
Beyond what strategy an ad uses, we also classified the messaging themes — what emotional or functional lever the copy pulls.
[TABLE: Theme | Ads]
Product and trust messaging dominate. That makes sense — you are selling expensive items where authenticity and expertise matter. But the gaps tell a more interesting story.
Almost nobody runs educational content as advertising. No buying guides. No brand histories. No "How to Choose Your First Luxury Watch" articles promoted as ads. A customer considering a five-figure purchase spends weeks researching. The retailer who shows up with helpful content during that research window earns the visit. Right now, that space is empty.
The CTA problem. "Shop now" is the default call-to-action across the dataset. For an industry where 81% of luxury watch sales happen in-store, "Shop now" often sends someone to an e-commerce page when what they actually want is to try it on. "Book an appointment," "Visit our showroom," "Schedule a consultation" — these CTAs barely exist in the data.
Video at 6.5%. In an industry that sells craftsmanship, finishing, and the way light catches a dial — video accounts for 2,070 of 31,731 ads. A 15-second close-up of a movement finishing does something a static image banner never will. The retailers who start using short-form video now will look like the dominant players in their local market within six months.
Five Things to Focus on in May
Based on the gaps in this data, here is what you should be setting up in the next 30 days.
1. Build Your Summer Campaign Now
Mother's Day will be over by the time you read this next month. But wedding season, graduation, and Father's Day are right behind it. The data shows that seasonal advertising starts ramping just 2-4 weeks before the event — and most retailers never start at all. Get your June creative brief done in May. Landing pages built. Campaigns scheduled. When graduation weekend hits, you want to be running, not scrambling.
2. Connect Your Product Catalog to Meta
Ten new retailers started running product catalog retargeting this month — the biggest adoption jump of any strategy. If someone browses an Omega Seamaster on your site, they should see that exact watch in their Instagram feed the next day. The product feed setup takes a few hours. After that, these campaigns largely run themselves.
3. Launch a Service Campaign on Google Search
258 ads in the entire dataset. 0.8% of all advertising. "Watch repair near me," "jewelry appraisal [your city]," "ring resizing" — these searches happen every day with virtually zero paid competition. A service customer today is a five-figure buyer tomorrow. Get a Google Search campaign targeting service queries live in your market this month.
4. Name the Models
74 of 101 retailers run product-specific ads. If you carry Submariner, Seamaster, Santos, or Royal Oak and are not calling them out by name in your advertising, you are missing buyers who already know what they want. These are the highest-intent searches in the category. Create ad groups for your top 5 models this month.
5. Record Three Videos
2,070 video ads out of 31,731 total. Your phone, a clean display case, 15 seconds. A watch dial catching the light. A bracelet clasp closing. A diamond under the loupe. Post them as Instagram Reels, boost the best one for $50. You do not need a production crew. You need to start.
How We Collect This Data
Every month, we scrape the Google Ads Transparency Center and the Meta Ad Library for 101 luxury watch and jewelry retailers across the US and Canada. We use network request interception to capture the raw API responses — the same data the platforms return to their own interfaces.
For each ad, we capture the advertiser name, creative format, headline, body copy, call-to-action, landing URL, start date, and platform placement. We then classify each ad by strategy type and messaging theme using keyword analysis and advertiser attribution.
A few caveats worth noting:
- Google ad counts include co-op. Rolex alone accounts for 11,424 ads. This inflates the Google total relative to Meta, where co-op programs are less common.
- Text extraction is imperfect. Many Google ads are display banners captured as screenshots. Our OCR extraction captures most text, but some ads are classified as "uncategorized" because no text could be extracted.
- Meta API returns are capped. The Ad Library may not return every ad for high-volume advertisers. Our Meta counts are likely conservative.
- Local Inventory Ads are invisible. Google LIA does not appear in the Transparency Center, but it is one of the most relevant formats for brick-and-mortar retailers.
This data is a snapshot of what is visible through public transparency tools — not internal performance data. We cannot see spend, impressions, clicks, or conversions. What we can see is what your competitors are choosing to run, where they are running it, and what they are saying.
We publish this analysis every month. Next update: May 2026.
Want to know where your store stands in this data? We track 101 retailers every month. If you are one of them — or want to benchmark against them — book a strategy call and we will walk through your competitive position.
