The Meta-vs-Google budget question gets answered wrong in about 80 percent of B2B accounts. Most teams default to a near-even split because it feels balanced. Balanced is not the goal. The goal is to put the next dollar where it returns the next dollar.
Meta and Google do different jobs. Meta creates demand. Google captures it. If you split evenly without first deciding whether your bottleneck is creating demand or capturing it, you're optimising for the wrong layer.
How to decide. Look at your branded search volume. If your brand name gets fewer than 500 searches a month in your category, you have a demand-creation problem. People don't know to look for you yet. Skew the budget heavily toward Meta and TikTok where the platform pushes you in front of people who weren't searching. Aim for a 70-30 split toward demand creation.
If your brand gets 500 to 5,000 monthly searches, you're in the middle. Both layers matter. Lead with a 60-40 toward demand creation, monitor branded search velocity, and rebalance toward Google as branded search grows.
If your brand gets more than 5,000 monthly searches, you have a capture problem. People are looking for you. Don't let competitors bid on your name and steal the click. Skew 60 percent toward Google brand defence + non-brand high-intent keywords, 40 percent to Meta to keep the demand engine running.
The mistake B2B accounts make is treating Google as the primary channel forever, because the ROAS in the dashboard always looks better. It looks better because Google captures the demand other channels created. Pause the Meta and TikTok layer for a month and watch what happens to your Google numbers. They drop. The lift is downstream.
The other mistake is treating Meta as the only channel forever. The B2B audience does eventually search. If your Google brand defence is missing, every prospect Meta warmed up gets stolen by competitors at the moment of search intent.
Run the channels together. Skew the split based on your stage. Re-evaluate every quarter. The right answer changes as your brand grows.