We Analyzed 20,946 Ads From 99 Jewelry Retailers. Here's Who's Winning and What They're Doing Differently.

You know what your competitors' stores look like. You've seen their window displays. You might even know what brands they carry.

But do you know what their ads look like? How many they're running? What platforms they're on? What they're spending their own money on versus what brands are paying for?

We do. We just pulled 20,946 active ads from 99 luxury watch and jewelry retailers across North America — from Google, Facebook, and Instagram — and broke them apart.

What we found isn't what we expected.

Only Half Are Advertising on Both Platforms

Of the 99 retailers we tracked, just 50.5% are running ads on both Google and Meta (Facebook and Instagram). Another 33% are Google-only. And 15% aren't advertising anywhere at all.

The retailers on both platforms have an advantage most don't think about. Google captures people searching with intent — "Rolex dealer near me." Meta works differently. It captures people before they're searching and while they're shopping.

Here's why that matters: when a customer starts engaging with jewelry ads on Instagram — clicking, saving, browsing — Meta's algorithm starts showing them more jewelry ads. One retailer's retargeting campaign becomes another retailer's prospecting opportunity. If a competitor is retargeting someone who visited their site, and you're not on Meta at all, their ad spend is warming up customers you'll never see.

The 33% who are Google-only are capturing existing demand but invisible in the feed where demand gets created — and where their competitors' retargeting is doing the prospecting for them.

12 Retailers Dominate the Entire Ad Landscape

The second thing the data reveals is how concentrated the competition really is.

Just 12 unique retailers occupy the dominant tier across both platforms — 9 on Google, 6 on Meta, with some appearing on both. These retailers run more ads than 90% of the field. Some maintain hundreds of active ads at a time. Meanwhile, dozens of retailers at the bottom run fewer than five.

This isn't a crowded market. It's a handful of retailers with serious programs and a long tail that's barely trying.

The question isn't whether you can compete. It's whether you realize how few retailers you're actually competing against.

The full report breaks down who these dominant retailers are, what they're running, and what strategies they use that the rest of the field doesn't.

5.4% of Ads Use Video. In an Industry That Sells Beauty.

This is the stat we keep coming back to.

68% of all ads are static images. Another 25% are text-only (Google Search). Video — the format that gets more distribution and cheaper cost-per-view on both platforms — accounts for 5.4% of everything.

Both Google and Meta reward video with lower costs and broader reach. The algorithm favors it. Engagement rates are higher. And in this dataset, almost nobody is using it — which means less competition for that cheaper distribution. The retailers who start running video now will get more reach for less money than the ones who wait.

On Meta, the mix is slightly more diverse — carousel ads, dynamic product ads, and some video. But even there, static images dominate.

Here's another way to think about it: 58.8% of all ads in this dataset have no extractable text at all. They're silent image banners — no headline, no body copy, just a visual. In a feed full of mute images, a video or a piece of educational content would be the loudest thing in the room.

What Are They Promoting?

We classified every ad by strategy. The breakdown reveals where the money goes — and where it doesn't.

A significant share of ads are run by brands, not retailers

One of the more interesting patterns in the data: a large portion of ads are run by brands — Rolex, Breitling, Cartier, Richemont — under their own advertiser accounts, driving traffic to their authorized dealers' websites.

This Google Display ad is run by Cartier's own account, pointing traffic to an authorized dealer's site.

That's only what we can see from the outside. We can confirm when a brand is the advertiser of record — but we can't see backend arrangements. Many retailers run ads under their own name and get reimbursed by brands after the fact, which looks identical to fully self-funded advertising in this data. The real number of brand-supported ads is likely higher than what shows up here.

The scale difference is striking: authorized dealers in this dataset average 278 Google ads compared to 36 for independent retailers. Much of that volume gap is driven by brand-funded advertising. Authorized dealers have access to a distribution engine that independents don't.

The takeaway for authorized dealers: it's worth knowing what your brands are running on your behalf, and what co-op programs are available to you. The landscape varies by brand and by dealer agreement.

The rest is mostly "shop our collection"

Strip away the brand-funded ads and you see what retailers spend their own money on. Most of it falls into general store promotion — "shop our collection," "explore new arrivals." Safe. Generic. The kind of ad that blends into a feed and gets scrolled past.

The retailers who stand out are the ones running something different:

Wempe's Meta campaign. Aspirational imagery that sells the brand story, not a product grid.

Ben Bridge promoting Certified Pre-Owned on Google — leading with trust and authenticity.

Certified Pre-Owned is growing fast, especially with the Rolex CPO program now available to most authorized dealers. And event campaigns — trunk shows, wedding band events, seasonal sales — create urgency in a category where purchases get deferred indefinitely.

Northeastern Fine Jewelry running a month-long BOGO on Meta. Time pressure works.

The strategies nobody is using

The biggest opportunities are the emptiest categories:

• Service and repair: 0.1% of all ads. Your competitors have master watchmakers on staff and aren't telling anyone. Customers searching "watch repair near me" are high-intent, high-value, and virtually uncontested.
• Product-specific ads: Almost nobody names a model. "See the new Submariner in person at [your store]" is a better ad than "Shop our collection" — and no one is running it.
• Educational content: Zero. No buying guides, no brand histories, no "how to choose your first luxury watch." Customers spend weeks researching a five-figure purchase. The retailer who shows up during that research earns the visit.

One Ad Has Been Running for 1,597 Days. That's Not an Accident.

When a retailer keeps paying for the same ad month after month — for over four years — that ad is making money.

We identified every long-running ad in the dataset. The "proven winners." The campaigns retailers refuse to turn off because they keep generating returns.

The full report breaks these down: what they look like, what formats they use, what they're promoting, and what they have in common. It's the closest thing to seeing your competitors' playbook without logging into their ad accounts.