Expedia, Google’s fourth biggest advertiser in 2011

December 12, 2011 | Online Travel

Plenty of corporations spend in the tens of millions on Google search advertising each year and several spend in the hundreds of millions: Expedia and Priceline being one of them, bidding on expensive travel-related keywords. Albeit profitable, with the high margins they getting from hotels.

The top spenders have huge consumer businesses based significantly, if not entirely, on their ability to perform in search. The top spender is IAC/InterActiveCorp, owner of Ask.com, Match.com, Citysearch and other companies that depend on buying long-tail search terms in bulk. Ask, in particular, buys lots of cheap keywords and remarkets them to advertisers bidding on like keywords.

IAC declined to comment on its search spending, but in its public filings says "a substantial portion" of its revenue is "attributable to a paid listing supply agreement with Google."

Other advertisers in the top 10, such as Amazon and eBay, buy massive amounts of keywords to direct traffic to specific items for sale or bid. Expedia and Priceline bid on expensive travel-related keywords. Microsoft Corp.is a big advertiser for many products and services, including its own search engine, Bing.

Get the full story at Advertising Age

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