⚠ Google and Meta Want the Same BudgetModerate threat
Allegro (ALE) — threat to the moat
Allegro sells intent and its rivals sell reach, and the merchant's budget is one pot.
Allegro's advertising business grew 29,7% to 1 411,0 million złoty1 by taking a share of Polish merchants' marketing budgets — budgets that Google and Meta have spent twenty years learning to take.
Allegro's advantage is intent: it shows an advertisement to somebody who has already opened a shopping app and typed a product name, which converts better than almost anything a search engine or a feed can offer. Its disadvantage is reach — a merchant wanting to find customers who are not yet shopping has to go elsewhere, and the elsewhere is very good at this.
The competitive pressure is disclosed rather than inferred. Allegro's own risk factors warn that intensifying competition may cause the group "to respond to new market entrants competing for share of voice on paid internet advertising channels by increasing Group's overall marketing spend"2 — Allegro is a buyer in this market as well as a seller, and its own marketing costs run at 2,07% of GMV3.
At 2,1% of GMV4 the business is well below what comparable marketplaces extract, which is the reason to think the runway is long.
Watch the growth rate rather than the level. Advertising growing well ahead of GMV means Allegro is still taking share of the merchant's budget. Growth converging on GMV growth would mean it has taken what intent alone can win.
- ReportedAllegro's advertising business grew 29,7% to 1 411,0 million złoty by taking a share of Polish merchants' marketing budgets — budgets that Google and Meta have spent twenty years learning to take.Allegro.eu Annual Consolidated Report 2025 - management report, financial review (revenue of 11 458,1m złoty by line, cost of delivery of 3 578,9m up 26,2% with its decomposition and the InPost pricing headwind under an agreement expiring in 2027, the other cost lines, EBITDA of 3 276,6m and capital expenditure of 470,4m) — FY2025 · publ. March 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedAllegro's own risk factors warn that intensifying competition may cause the group "to respond to new market entrants competing for share of voice on paid internet advertising channels by increasing Group's overall marketing spend" —...Allegro.eu Annual Consolidated Report 2025 - risk and control environment (the named competitor set including Amazon, Temu, Shein, Vinted and Zalando, Amazon's Prime ecosystem and Polish logistics footprint, Temu's June 2023 entry via Pinduoduo, and the warning that the shift toward sourcing from local merchants directly challenges Allegro's core value proposition of delivery speed and selection relevancy) — FY2025 · publ. March 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedAllegro's own risk factors warn that intensifying competition may cause the group "to respond to new market entrants competing for share of voice on paid internet advertising channels by increasing Group's overall marketing spend" —...Allegro.eu Annual Consolidated Report 2025 - risk and control environment (the named competitor set including Amazon, Temu, Shein, Vinted and Zalando, Amazon's Prime ecosystem and Polish logistics footprint, Temu's June 2023 entry via Pinduoduo, and the warning that the shift toward sourcing from local merchants directly challenges Allegro's core value proposition of delivery speed and selection relevancy) — FY2025 · publ. March 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedAt 2,1% of GMV the business is well below what comparable marketplaces extract, which is the reason to think the runway is long.Allegro.eu Annual Consolidated Report 2025 - management report, financial review (revenue of 11 458,1m złoty by line, cost of delivery of 3 578,9m up 26,2% with its decomposition and the InPost pricing headwind under an agreement expiring in 2027, the other cost lines, EBITDA of 3 276,6m and capital expenditure of 470,4m) — FY2025 · publ. March 2026 · source ↗