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Infographic: Where Google Made Its Billions in 2011

Written on
Jan 23, 2012 
Author
Brian LaRue  |
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Infographic: Where Google Made Its Billions in 2011

ADOTASGoogle‘s earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011 were regarded as enough of a disappointment to send its stock tumbling about 8 percent after the numbers were announced on Thursday, but the search behemoth still pulled in $37.9 billion in revenue over the course of the year — 96 percent of which came from advertising, according to research conducted by search engine marketing software provider WordStream. WordStream released an infographic this morning detailing where those billions came from, based on its own analysis of the financial reports and the company’s own trillion-keyword database. By this study, 10 industries’ ad spending accounted for 60 percent of Google’s 2011 revenue, with finance and insurance topping the list at $4 billion in spending.

On the WordStream blog, CTO and founder Larry Kim pointed out this data indicates five things about the state of the U.S. economy. First, he posed the question, “Occupy Wall Street was right?,” concluding insurance and loan companies were on the hunt for new customers “because these industries make a killing off each new client.” Second, in spite of high unemployment, U.S. consumers still love buying things. Kim cites Amazon’s $55 million in spending on PPC ads on AdWords alone in 2011. Third, high unemployment has led to a lot of people deciding to extend their education and job training. “The University of Phoenix spent even more on AdWords than State Farm, the biggest spender in the Finance & Insurance industry,” Kim wrote. Fourth, Americans were more inclined in 2011 to spend money renovating or beautifying their current living spaces than they were to buy new homes. And fifth, businesses have been reluctant to invest money, though they seem to have it. ”Overall, from what I can see, a billion people are doing a billion searches on Google every day, looking to buy stuff, financial products, or to improve their skills,” Kim wrote. “So while I’m no economist, my own prediction is that the U.S. economy will be okay in 2012.”

Do you agree with that assessment? Feel free to chime in in the comments. Here’s the infographic below (click to enlarge), and, once more, on the WordStream blog.

 





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