A document leaked to Advertising Age in the United States reveals how much money was spent during the month of June 2010 by top Google advertisers.
At the height of the Oil crises, BP is listed as going from a $57,000 a month spender to becoming one of Google’s top advertisers, spending nearly $3.6 million in the month of June alone.
That pushed BP into the same league as Expedia, which spent at least $5.9 million in June, Amazon, which spent at least $5.8 million, and eBay, which spent at least $4.2 million.
This is a significant outlay even for BP, which spent $94 million on advertising throughout 2009, and $78.7 million in the first six months of 2010 alone according to Kantar Media.
Because it controls 65% of U.S. web searches, Google now determines more than any other factor what information is surfaced on the web.
Google keeps a tight lid on its technology to keep people from gaming the system. Similarly, search ads are a black box; anyone can buy an ad on Google, but it is very hard to know how much anyone, let alone corporate America, spends there.
The exception to that is when Google starts its sales pitch. “The primary tactic Google uses to increase ad budgets is to show them what others in their category are spending compared to what they’re spending,” said Kevin Ryan, CEO of Motivity Marketing, a digital marketing consultancy.
During June, AT&T Mobile spent more than $8 million on AdWords, which was supporting the launch of the iPhone 4.
The data obtained by Ad Age includes other huge brands such as GM, Walt Disney, Eastman Kodak and BMW, which appear to have spent less than $500,000 in June. Apple spent just under $1 million on search during the month, as did chip maker Intel.
Among Google’s biggest spenders are businesses that depend on search traffic, including those that resell AdWords or simply buy Google traffic to resell to their own advertisers, including Hungry Machine, which does business under the name Living Social, which spent $2.4 million in June, and Yellowpages.com, which spent $1.2 million.
The document shows 47 advertisers that spent more than $1 million in June; 71 that spent between $500,000 and $1 million, and 357 that spent between $100,000 and $500,000.
These are direct-billed customers only, not the many thousands of small advertisers that make up the bulk of Google’s clients and a key component in its $23 billion global annual revenue.
