Editor’s note: This article was first published in February 2012. The WordStream ranking and Google’s advertising revenue (more than 28,500 million) are from around 2011, when Google’s ad programme was still called AdWords; it was renamed Google Ads in 2018.
The consultancy WordStream has produced a report detailing Google’s 10 most profitable businesses, that is, the sectors that bring Google the most money through its Google AdWords programme. Tourism is not only opening up an era of new business opportunities for entrepreneurs in Spain; worldwide, tourism companies also spend large sums on advertising with the tech giant.
In first place is the finance and insurance sector, which has brought Google more than €3 billion in revenue. In second place is retail (small businesses that have advertised their products on AdWords), with more than €2.1 billion. In third place comes tourism (travel agencies, flights, hotels…), with a total of more than €1.8 billion.
Jobs and education come fourth with €1.65 billion, followed by home and garden with €1.58 billion. In sixth place is electronics, followed by vehicles, telecoms, business, and gifts and occasions.
Google has earned more than €28.5 billion from its advertising programme alone, and this ranking gives us an idea of which keywords would pay best in AdSense, or in other words, which keywords would have the highest cost per click for advertisers, since there is more competition for them.
Featured image: William Murphy, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
