Chinese-owned ecommerce platform Temu—once a dominant force in the U.S. digital ad space—has sharply scaled back its presence on Google Shopping. The company’s share of impressions in Google’s shopping auctions dropped to 0% in the past week, and its social ad spend has dipped as well, according to four separate data sources.
The dramatic retreat comes as President Trump tightens trade rules with China. With tariffs on Chinese goods rising to 125%, companies like Temu—whose model depends on shipping low-cost items directly from Chinese suppliers—are racing to overhaul their supply chains. The platform had previously benefited from a tariff exemption for goods under $800, but growing political pressure to close that loophole has cast uncertainty over its U.S. strategy.
Data from performance marketing firm Tinuiti found that 19% of U.S. Google Shopping ad impressions were bought by Temu as recently as March 31.
That means the platform won the impression 19% of the time when both Temu and Tinuiti’s clients were eligible to serve an ad, said Mark Ballard, the agency’s director of digital marketing research and analysis.
By April 12, that figure had dropped to zero, a strong signal that Temu is no longer aggressively bidding for visibility on Google, a key indicator of advertising intensity in the space, Ballard said.
“They’ve made a pretty big strategic change as a result of tariffs in the U.S. marketplace,” he added.
Figures from Tubular Labs, a social video intelligence firm, show sponsored TikTok videos from Temu’s U.S. operations have fallen from two on April 1st to zero. This stands in contrast to the same time last year when Temu sponsored several videos on the platform each week of April.