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Industry Trends

Do Big Brands Spend Big Bucks On Google?

By September 10, 2010July 30th, 2023One Comment

Advertising Age got their hands on acquire internal documents from Google that show how much money is currently being spent by the top advertisers on Google AdWords in the U.S.A.

AT&T Mobility was at the top of the list with $8.08 million spent in the month of June. All of the top 10 companies have spent over $2 million on AdWords advertising that month.

It is understandable that AT&T went all out in that month as they had to promote the iPhone 4, for which they had the sole supplier rights in the U.S.

Some of the other companies in the top 10 list are Apollo Group, Expedia, Amazon, and eBay. While these companies have consistently spent large amounts on Google AdWords, the presence of BP in that list, with a spend of almost $3.6 million was quite surprising, as in the past they have spent only as little as $57,000 a month on Google AdWords.

The obvious reason for the sudden change in BP’s advertising policy was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which was big news at that time. BP obviously had to do all they could to protect their reputation, and buying several related keywords on Google AdWords was one of the best ways to do that.

While the document gives a clear indication of how important Google has become for businesses of all sizes, the big surprise here is that the top 10 spenders put together account for only about 5% of Google’s U.S. revenue in the month of June. Only 47 advertisers were found to have spent over $1 million in June, 71 spent between $500,000 and $1 million and 357 spent between $100,000 and $500,000.

The thousands of smaller advertisers, who use pay per click marketing on Google, still contribute to the lion’s share of Google’s $23 billion annual global revenue. While this is great news for small businesses, it also means that when more big brands start spending significant portions of their total marketing budgets on Google, the smaller businesses might just get squeezed out.