Google Search Advertising Continues Growth

Photo of Paul Ausick
By Paul Ausick Updated Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

The_Googleplex
Wikimedia Commons (Lee-Sean Huang)
Ahead of the company’s second quarter earnings report after the bell on Thursday, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) continued to dominate the search market with a 78% of a three-country market and 78% of the U.S. market in the second quarter. Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) combine for the other 22% of search in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany.

The data comes from Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) and is based on data from Adobe’s own customers which spend more than $2 billion annually on search advertising and generate more than 2 billion ad impressions.

Using the second quarter of 2013 as a baseline, U.S. search spending rose 9% in the second quarter of this year, 10% in the U.K., and 6% in Germany. Google’s market share by country in the second quarter was 78% in the U.S., 91% in the U.K., and 96% in Germany. Google’s hegemony in Europe is one reason that the European Union takes such a hard line against the company.

According to the Adobe data, 70% of U.S. paid search goes to desktops, down from 78% in the same quarter a year ago. Mobile phones and tablets account for 30%, but Adobe anticipates that the mobile portion will rise to 60% by the end of this year. In the U.K., mobile and desktop already claim 44% of paid search while Germany lags with just 27%.

In the U.S. tablet and mobile spending is about equal, with tablets getting 14.5% of the market and mobile phones getting 15.1%. Tablets are take nearly 25% of the U.K. search spending and just over 17% of Germany’s. Mobile phones get about 19% in the U.K. and 9.5% in Germany.

Adobe noted:

Adver­tis­ers are intent on reach­ing the right peo­ple at the right time with the right mes­sage at the opti­mum bid price to drive ROI/revenue. We expect to see a sec­u­lar shift from key­words to audi­ences in the future where adver­tis­ers will be able to tar­get audi­ences with per­son­al­ized mes­sages, with levers extend­ing beyond key­words as a mea­sure of intent.

The research team also expects paid search spending to increase 10% to 12% for the rest of this year and the mobile/tablet share combined to reach 35% in 2014.

ALSO READ: Will Microsoft Exit Search?

Photo of Paul Ausick
About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for a673b.bigscoots-temp.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

Our $500K AI Portfolio

See us invest in our favorite AI stock ideas for free

Our Investment Portfolio

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618