Pay-per-click advertisements were the original search advertising method; later, in 1998, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin introduced an auction-based PPC model. The highest bidders would appear at the top of the search results, and lower bidders would appear further down. The method later turned into the approach that marketers use most frequently today. There are currently six major search engines, four of which are international: Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and DuckDuckGo. Yandex focuses on nations that speak Russian, while Baidu focuses on nations that speak Chinese. Due to its massive user base and effective internal advertising network, Google is by far the most popular among advertisers.
The development of the internet infrastructure and the decreasing prices of internet-enabled devices such as PCs and smartphones are the main causes for the growth in search advertising. The internet infrastructure has seen tremendous transformation in the past ten years and is now quicker and cheaper. Because internet-enabled devices have become more affordable, allowing more people to purchase them and use them daily, search advertising is expected to grow significantly.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, search advertising was showing signs of steady and consistent development. However, the pandemic has accelerated digital adoption, resulting in exponential growth in search advertising, especially search advertising on marketplace platforms. Even though data privacy regulations have been tightened globally and search engine platforms have taken steps to emphasize the importance of privacy, these platforms have already found a way to collect data in a more ethical and consent-based manner. In the coming years, we anticipate steady growth in search advertising across search engine and marketplace platforms.
Data coverage:
Data encompasses enterprises (B2B). Figures are based on search advertising spending and exclude agency commissions, rebates, production costs, and taxes. The market covers search advertising that is displayed on search result pages or next to organic search results.Modeling approach:
A combined top-down and bottom-up approach determines the market size. Starting with the top-down approach, we calculate global search advertising by aggregating advertising revenues from key players (Alphabet (Google), Microsoft (Bing), Baidu, Amazon, Alibaba, etc.). This is followed by the bottom-up approach to calculate and identify relevant key market indicators such as web traffic, the number of app downloads, GDP, and digital consumer spending by country. We can estimate global search advertising and then distribute it to each country individually with relevant indicators by combining the two approaches.Forecasts:
We use a variety of forecasting techniques, depending on the behavior of the market. For instance, the S-curve function is well suited to forecast digital products due to the non-linear growth of technology adoption, whereas exponential trend smoothing (ETS) is more suited for projecting steady growth in traditional advertising markets.Additional notes:
Data is modeled using current exchange rates. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war are considered at a country-specific level. The market is updated twice per year in case market dynamics change.
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