Webtise Blog

Great article from Econsulatancy. Apparently it has been publicly disclosed which companies are spending the most money on Adwords Advertising.

Google generates billions of dollars in revenue every quarter, and big brands are known to be some of the most prolific spenders.

But just how much are specific brands spending? That’s not information that Google has publicly disclosed before, but AdAge claims to have obtained a document detailing just how much major brands spent in June.

According to the document, which Google has not yet confirmed or denied the authenticity of, AT&T Mobile spent a whopping $8.08m on AdWords in June. Other big spenders included University of Phoenix-operator Apollo Group ($6.67m), Expedia ($5.85m) Amazon ($5.85m) and eBay ($4.25m).

One of the fastest rising spenders in June was a company battling perhaps the greatest PR crisis in memory: BP. The oil giant went from spending five-figures per month on AdWords to over $3.5m in June, highlighting the fact that when you need to get a message out and a message out fast, the internet and search engines are at the top of the list.

Certainly, it’s interesting to see just how much Google’s best customers are spending on AdWords, but perhaps more interesting are the amounts being spent by brands that aren’t pouring so much in.

Recognizable names such as BMW and Walt Disney, for instance, spent less than $500,000 on Google ads in June. And they’re the rule, not the exception. According to AdAge’s document, only 47 of the brands listed spent over $1m in June whereas 357 spent somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000.Assuming the document AdAge has obtained is authentic and the numbers are accurate, Google investors, analysts and pundits have new insight into the company’s health. A couple of key takeaways:

While Google, as a company, is highly-dependent on a single revenue stream (AdWords), its customer base, even at the high-end, is arguably quite diversified. As AdAge notes, the top ten advertisers in its document “collectively accounted for just 5% of Google’s U.S. revenue during the month.”

Google still likely has the opportunity to see increased spend from major brands. The sub-$500,000 per month spend seen with major brands like BMW and Walt Disney is a drop in the bucket for these companies, and it’s hard to imagine a future in which some of these budgets won’t grow substantially, especially as consumers in the key demographics these brands target are increasingly found online.