Because Google controls 65% of U.S. web searches, Google’s complex algorithms determine 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.

Our review of $574 million of Google’s U.S. billings over the first half of 2010 shows plenty of global corporations spending millions each month on search advertising, as well as a great many huge corporations that spend very little, if anything, at all on search.

At the time of the rig explosion in April, BP barely registered on Google, but neither did its big-oil peers; Exxon Mobile, the world’s largest corporation by market cap, spent just $43,000 on search ads in June.

By comparison, one of Google’s top advertisers that month, AT&T Mobile, spent more than $8 million on AdWords in June, a big month for the company, which was supporting the launch of iPhone 4. (AT&T is the third-largest U.S. advertiser, according to Ad Age DataCenter; it spent $2.8 billion on measured media — almost $1.3 billion on TV alone — in 2009. The company declined to comment on its search spending.) Other big June spenders included Apollo Group, the company behind The University of Phoenix, online travel site Expedia, eBay and Amazon, which all spent over $5 million apiece on search.

The data obtained by Ad Age includes huge brands such as GM, Walt Disney, Eastman Kodak and BMW, which appear to have spent less than $500,000 in June. Tech rival 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.

As a snapshot, it’s also remarkable that Google’s biggest advertisers, big monthly spenders like AT&T, Apollo Group and Amazon, individually accounted for less than 1% of Google’s U.S. revenue in June. The top 10 advertisers in the document collectively accounted for just 5% of Google’s U.S. revenue during the month.

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