2023: Google Ads, PPC, and SEO Statistics [New Studies]

PPC advertising continues to be one of the most successful forms of digital marketing. This is mainly because PPC ads are cost-effective and offer accurate targeting. 

Google Ads drives qualified traffic to your site when people search for the type of products or services your business provides.

However, SEO is equally important when it comes to building long-term success as an industry authority.

When used together, they help you create a comprehensive and well-rounded search marketing strategy for your brand.

We have compiled the latest Google Ads, PPC, and SEO statistics to cite from studies and research published no earlier than 2021-2022.

Google Ads Statistics

Google is the most visited website in September 2022 with 82.6 billion visits. YouTube comes in second with 32.1 visits, followed by Facebook with 18.8 billion visits. (First Site, 2022)

The amount of ad revenue generated from Google Ads was $209.49 billion in 2021. (Statista, 2021)

65% of people click on Google Ads when looking to make a purchase. (The Social Shepherd, 2022)

Google generates 61.4% of all core search queries in the U.S. (Statista, 2022)

PPC campaigns on Google in the U.S increased by 34% in the third quarter of  2021. Similarly, the cost-per-click of paid advertising increased by 25%. (Statista, 2021)

Google, Facebook, and Amazon accounted for 13% of digital ad impressions generated in the U.S. (Statista, 2021)

Google also generates more than 80% of desktop search traffic globally, ahead of other search engine platforms such as Bing and Yahoo. This makes it the biggest provider of search advertising. (Statista, 2022)

Google gets an average of 107,246 searches every second of the day. (Internet Live Stats, 2022)

Paid clicks outnumber organic clicks as the top three paid ads get 46% of the clicks on a page. (WebFX, 2022)

Google garnered $147 billion in advertising revenue and is expected to reach $357 billion by 2026. (Statista, 2022)

New: Google Ads Data Hub, Clean Room

Using the new Data Hub, Google reported that Riot Games saw a $2 return for every $1 spent on Google ads. (eMarketer, 2022)

Desktop vs Mobile

As of January 2022, Google has a desktop market share of 85.6%, Bing comes second at 7.6%, and Yahoo has 2.9%. Google also takes the lead on mobile with a market share of 93.3%. (Statista, 2022)

As of the first quarter of 2021, mobile accounts for over two-thirds of total paid search clicks across the U.S. (Statista, 2021)

In the last quarter of 2021, 70% of Google search ad clicks came from mobile compared to 26% of bing ads. (ROI Revolution, 2022)

 28% of advertisers utilize automation in paid advertising. (ROI Revolution, 2022)

Responsive Search Ads have an adoption rate of 97% while Smart bidding by target CPA has an adoption rate of 95%. (True Clicks, 2022)

Google Ads on Mobile 

 70% of mobile users call businesses through a Google Ad. (Power Traffick, 2022)

Spend on mobile advertising is expected to reach $399.6 billion by 2024. (Statista, 2022)

US mobile ad spend is expected to reach $168.88 billion by 2026. (eMarketer, 2022)

 As of the first quarter of 2021, mobile accounted for 68% of paid search clicks. (Statista, 2022)

As of the first quarter of 2022, the average ad spend for mobile apps that target children was $2.66 compared to $0.80 on ad spending targeting adults. (Statista, 2022)

Adblocking and Click Fraud

Google blocked 3.4 billion ads in 2021 for violating its policies. It also disabled 652.1 million accounts for abusing the ad network. Furthermore, Google took action on 192.6 million pages for hate speech and calls to violence. (Statista, 2021)

Some advertisers reduced advertising spending on major platforms including Google, Facebook, Amazon, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter due to concerns about content supporting discrimination, hate, and child endangerment. (Statista, 2021)

Google Ads CPC Growth

The largest increase in paid search advertising spend on Google in the U.S was between 32% and 33% as seen during the first quarter of 2021 and the third quarter of 2021. (Statista, 2021)

The average cost-per-click for search ads ranged from $2 to $4 in 2022 across different industries. (Wordstream, 2022)

As of the third quarter of 2021, the beauty sector experienced a 41% year-over-year (YoY) rise in CPCs. On the other hand, home and garden recorded a rise of 33% while the electronics industry experienced a rise of 21%. (eMarketer, 2022)

Advertisers have increased their PPC campaign budgets when compared to the last 2 years as the economy recovered from COVID-19 and its effects. (eMarketer, 2022)

SEO Stats 2023

Google Ads and SEO may be different, but they complement each other perfectly to make a successful marketing strategy. 

Google Ads are better for quick traffic generation because they appear at the top of search results. On the other hand, SEO is great when your marketing budget is low and you want to build your brand authority.

Here are key SEO stats from the State of SEO Report based on research conducted by the Search Engine Journal this year.

B2B SEO Stats

The top three areas where SEO professionals spend the most time in 2022 included: technical SEO (15%), keyword research (13.5%), on-page SEO (12.9%), and SEO strategy (13.5%). (SEJ, 2023)

In-house SEO professionals prefer website (26%), Google search (22%), and Google Ads (14%) for finding new businesses, while SEO agencies prefer using the website (16%), network referrals (11.9%), and Google search (11.7%). (SEJ, 2023)

SEO professionals identified a lack of resources (15%), strategy issues (12%), and scaling processes (12%) as the key issues hindering SEO success. (SEJ, 2023)

The return on investment (ROI) from SEO can be as high as 12.2 times the marketing spend. (Terakeet, 2022)

When compared to digital advertising, SEO can reduce customer acquisition costs by 87.41%. (Terakeet, 2022)

SEO Success Metrics

In 2022, the top success metrics were keyword ranking at 15%, followed by pageviews at 12%, and conversions at 9%. (SEJ, 2023)

However, brand goals and how ROI gets measured are different. Keyword rankings are the top-ranked metric at 22%, yet it’s the third most requested service in the above graph. (SEJ, 2023)

Web traffic is the most requested SEO service, but pageviews take second place at 19% on the tracked metrics lists below. (SEJ, 2023)

As of June 2021, 32.8% of SEO professionals ranked on-page elements such as meta titles and descriptions as the most important factor impacting search rankings. (Statista, 2021)

Search Engine Trends

Many SEO professionals will focus their attention on AI/machine learning (19%), Google Updates like the performance max and GA4 (18%) as well as phasing out of third-party cookies (14%). (SEJ, 2023)

Visual Search

Younger users over-index in their visual search usage. (eMarketer, 2022)

22% of all users and 30% of those ages 18-34 said they’ve used visual search, up YoY from 15% and 24%, respectively. (eMarketer, 2022)

Ad Spend

US ad spend will rise at least 8% every year through 2024. (eMarketer, 2022)

By 2024, the amount of money spent on advertising on the US will be almost exactly 70% higher than it was in 2019. (eMarketer, 2022)

Next year, non-triopoly digital ad spend will surpass $100 billion, and traditional ad spending’s component parts continue to shrink. Traditional media’s share will fall to just 20.2% in 2026. (eMarketer, 2022)

In 2023, Google and Meta will account for less than half of all digital ad spend, 48.7% in 2023 and 47.7% in 2024. (eMarketer, 2022)

Amazon will take up 77.7% of ecommerce channel ad spend in 2022, with Walmart claiming 7.0% in a distant second place. No other company will claim more than 2% this year. (eMarketer, 2022)

Are Google Ads and SEO Worth the Investment?

Based on the data we’ve presented, paid search advertising spend on Google is still going strong. When it comes to effectiveness, you should consider using Google Ads and SEO together to maximize your marketing efforts.