20 PPC Statistics For 2024 (Market Size + Growth)

What is the state of the pay-per-click advertising industry?

With increased competition and search engines like Google restricting visibility for organic search rankings, paid search is an important consideration for any marketing strategy.

In this post, we’re breaking down all of the PPC statistics that you need to know.

We’ll look at market size, growth, effectiveness, ad spend, data from specific verticals, and more.

Key PPC statistics

These PPC ad statistics will give you an idea of what the current state of PPC advertising looks like today.

How many brands see PPC as important for their businesses?

79% of brands said that PPC is a huge driver for their businesses. 

Source: PPC Hero

Are organic CTRs losing momentum?

This is the case for search queries in the e-commerce category where there are plenty of ads for almost every query. 

Research by Wayfair SEO (published on Moz) shows that organic CTR lost 25% share on desktop and 55% on mobile devices compared to results two years prior.

Source: Moz

How much do businesses pay for PPC ads?

Businesses will typically spend $9,000 to $10,000 a month on PPC campaigns. The average PPC cost is about $2.59 per click and $3.12 per 1,000 impressions.

Source: WebFX

Do search results pages prioritize paid ads?

In some cases, yes. 85% of above-the-fold pixels on search results pages are devoted to sponsored listings for queries with high commercial intent.

The top three ads for a commercial query take 41% of the clicks. Product ad listings take up another 20%. 

That means sponsored results are responsible for 65% of clicks versus 35% for organic results.

Source: WordStream

What’s the average click-through rate for ads on search results?

The average click-through rate (CTR) for ads placed on the first page of Google search results is 3.16%.

Ads placed on top of the results have a CTR of 8% — and the percentage drops the further down the ad is placed. Those at the bottom get a CTR of 0.2%.

Source: Accuracast

Can PPC ads increase brand awareness?

Yes. According to Google’s research, search ads provide an 80% lift in top-of-mind brand awareness among consumers.

Source: Google Blog

Which industry has the highest cost per action?

The legal industry has the highest cost per action (CPA) at $137.17.

Other industries that have a high CPA include health and medical ($126.29), employment services ($105.79), home goods ($86.68), and industrial services ($77.52).

Source: Search Engine Land

Google Ads statistics

Is Google Search a viable option for paid advertising? As these Google advertising statistics will show you, many marketers are still relying on the platform to promote businesses — and for good reason. 

How much does Alphabet earn from ad revenue?

Alphabet—Google’s parent company—announced revenue of $75 billion for Q4 2021. $61.2 billion of that figure came from Google advertising.

This is a 35% increase compared to the same quarter in 2020.

Alphabet’s revenue for 2021 was $257.6 billion which is a 41% increase from $182.5 billion in 2020.

Source: Search Engine Land

How many users click on Google Ad listings?

64.6% of users will click on a Google Ad if they are looking to buy an item online.

Source: WordStream

Is paid search gaining momentum?

Yes. In Q2 of 2019, CTR for Google Ads is at 4.14%. In comparison, searches with ad clicks were only 2.10% in Q1 of 2016 and have been growing every quarter since.

Meanwhile, searches with organic clicks are going down. From 54.01% in Q1 of 2016, it’s gone down to 46.12% in Q2 2019.

Source: SparkToro

Are people more trusting of Google Ads than those on other platforms?

People are 4x more likely to click on paid search ads on Google (63%) than on other search platforms like Amazon (15%), YouTube (9%), and Bing (6%).

Source: Clutch

Does Google provide ad grants to nonprofit organizations?

In 2020, Google gave away $1+ billion in free search ads to nonprofit organizations.

Source: Google Economic Impact Report 2020

What’s the average cost per action in Google AdWords?

The average cost per action (CPA) in Google AdWords across all industries is $59.18 for the search network and $60.76 for the display network.

Source: Search Engine Land

Bing Ads statistics

Bing often gets overlooked for PPC campaigns. But if these PPC advertising statistics are any indication, it just might be a good alternative to Google ads if you’re looking to explore a more cost-efficient option.

What’s the average click-through rate for Bing Ads?

The average click-through rate for Bing Ads across all industries is 2.83%.

More specifically, the click-through rates for each industry are: apparel and accessories (3.33%), auto (2.34%), B2B (3.01%), B2C (2.12%), careers and employment (3.53%), consumer electronics (2.88%), education (2.37%), financial services and insurance (3.51%), health and wellness (2.90%), home and garden (2.70%), home improvement and repair (2.92%), home services (2.55%), legal services (2.84%), real estate (2.20%), restaurants and food (2.60%), retail (3.06%), technology (2.40%), and travel and hospitality (2.83%).

Source: WordStream

What’s the average cost per click on Bing Ads?

The average cost-per-click on Bing is $1.54.

The cost-per-click for each industry are: apparel and accessories ($0.91), auto ($2.52), B2B ($1.16), B2C ($1.78), careers and employment ($0.75), consumer electronics ($1.22), education ($2.79), financial services and insurance ($1.82), health and wellness ($1.70), home and garden ($1.01), home improvement and repair ($2.54), home services ($1.50), legal services ($1.42), real estate ($2.88), restaurants and food ($1.69), retail ($1.24), technology ($1.95), and travel and hospitality ($1.17).

Source: WordStream

Related Reading: The Latest Microsoft Bing Statistics. 

Advertising statistics

The following statistics will tell you where PPC will go in the next couple of years. There’s also information here on how people interact with PPC advertising.

What does the global ad market look like in the coming years?

The global ad market will continue to bounce back from the 2020 downturn with a 9.1% growth in 2022. 

Zenith predicts that global ad spending will grow by 5.7% in 2023 and 7.4% in 2024.

In addition, Zenith sees a 14% growth in digital ad spending in 2022, 9% in 2023, and 10% in 2024.

Source: Zenith

What ad channels do marketing agencies want to push to their clients?

52% of marketing agencies want to push their clients to invest in Google ads. 40% wanted to focus on Bing ads. 27% said they want their clients to advertise on Amazon.

Other options include display (34%), programmatic (31%), native ads (17%), and social (53%).

Source: PPC Hero

How many people can recognize paid search ads?

77% of users are confident that they can spot a paid search advertisement if they come across one according to a Clutch survey.

In addition, 75% said that they click on paid search ads because these links help them find the information they’re after much faster.

33% click on paid search ads because it directly answers their search query.

Source: Clutch

Will people click on a paid ad if it mentions a brand they know?

It helps. 26% of people said they click on paid search ads that mention a brand that they’re familiar with. 33% also said that the main reason why they click on YouTube and Amazon search ads is that they mention brands that they already know.

Source: Clutch

Can ordinary people tell the difference between paid and organic ads?

60% of consumers said they don’t know the difference between paid and organic search results on Google. This is according to a survey of 1,000 internet users.

Source: Marketing Tech News

Sources

Final thoughts

That wraps up our roundup of PPC stats.

Hopefully this has given you a better insight and understanding into the realm of PPC ads and how it can impact your revenue.

If you found this roundup of statistics interesting, check out our other roundups such as: Sales Statistics, Local SEO Statistics, and Search Engine Statistics.

And if you’d like to use advertising to monetize your own site, read our post on ad networks for publishers for some help getting started.