Here's The List Of Google's Biggest Advertisers

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Jinho.Jung / Flickr, CC

Google's revenues were $37.9 billion last year and 96 percent of that came from advertising. It's less clear, however, who Google's biggest advertisers are.

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Search engine marketing company Wordstream has compiled a database of information on Google's advertisers based on its trillion-keyword database and its Google Keyword Tool. It determined the top 10 million search queries of 2011, as well as their average cost-per-click prices as paid by advertisers who bought space next to those results.

The company then, naturally, made an infographic to display its results.

Google's biggest advertiser is Lowe's, the home improvement chain, which spent $59.1 million on ads with the search engine last year.

Its second biggest is Amazon, which spent $55.2 million.

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The Top 10 industry categories

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Robert Scoble / Flickr, CC

Sixty percent of Google's ad revenues from these 10 sectors:

  1. Finance & Insurance – $4.0 Billion (example keywords in this industry include: “self employed health insurance”, “cheap car insurance”, “credit cards for bad credit”)
  2. Retailers & General Merchandise – $2.8 Billion (example keywords in this industry include “zumba dance dvd”, “proform treadmill”, “weber grill accessories”)
  3. Travel & Tourism – $2.4 Billion (e.g. “new york hotels”, “plane tickets”, “rental car deals”)
  4. Jobs & Education – $2.2 Billion (e.g. “accredited online college degrees”, “online certificate programs”, “unemployment benefits”)
  5. Home & Garden — $2.1 Billion (e.g. “replacement windows cost”, “appliance repair”, “cabinet refacing”)
  6. Computer & Consumer Electronics – $2.0 Billion (“ink cartridges discount”, “pc memory”, “online video conferencing software”)
  7. Vehicles – $2.0 Billion (e.g “cheap hybrid cars”, “certified used cars”, “bridgestone tires”)
  8. Internet & Telecommunications – $1.7 Billion (“pre paid cell phones”, “domain registration”, “cable internet providers”)
  9. Business & Industrial – $1.6 Billion (“custom business cards”, “cheap office supplies”, “foam packing”)
  10. Occasions & Gifts – $1.2 Billion ("funeral flowers arrangements", "flower delivery", "wedding gift registry")
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Google's top category of advertisers is finance and insurers

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Interestingly, that dovetails with Facebook. The finance sector also dominates the social network's non-game ad revenue.

Google gets $43.39 per click for searches related to "self-employed health insurance."

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Google and Amazon are the best of frenemies

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Amazon is one of Google's biggest advertising clients, which is awkward for Google because there's some evidence that more people are turning directly to Amazon for their web shopping needs rather than searching first in Google.

If that were true, it would mean that the more Amazon spends advertising on Google, and the more successful that advertising is, the more shopping traffic it will eventually steal from Google.

What the heck is Booking.com?

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It's basically Priceline's European operations.

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Yes, the University of Phoenix is everywhere

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It's not just you. Everyone else sees ads for the online school all the time as well.

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Hello, Lighting Universe!

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The biggest four home improvement advertisers on this list aren't too surprising. But who knew lamp specialist Lighting Universe was such a big deal on Google?

Lowe's purchase of LU in December now makes a lot more sense.

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No surprises here

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Computer makers advertise a lot on the internet.

Note that Apple and Microsoft -- two companies that compete against Google in a number of different ways (i.e. in email and mobile devices) -- are also spending millions to be inside Google's environment.

Car sales sites are more important than car company sites

google advertisers

This chart says something interesting about how people buy cars: Three of the top five auto advertisers are not automaker brands. Firestone is a tire brand. Only Chevrolet actually makes cars.

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AT&T hugely outspends its rivals

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Ma Bell's adspend is nearly twice that of Verizon, its nearest competitor on Google.

Uline really is that big!

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Most people have never heard of Uline, but if you're an office manager you'll already be drooling at the thought of its fat new workplace supplies catalog landing on your desk. Uline sells everything from paperclips to forklift hand trucks.

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A huge part of Google's business is ... flowers?

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Wow. Four of the top five gift category advertisers are flower delivery services. Don't underestimate the power of weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs.

Now check out how Vanity Fair's ad pages predict the stock market ...

vanity fair ad pages dow jones
Jon Terbush / Business Insider

... They signal boom and bust in the Dow Jones>>

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

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