It doesn’t look like things are improving for Google’s core search advertising business. There have been major concerns about it for a while now, and while Google’s latest earnings report doesn’t look too shabby on the surface, its growth rate is on a steady downward trajectory.
BI Intelligence released this chart illustrating the decline in year-over-year growth over the course of three years.
It doesn’t look good.
Google did manage to post 12% year-over-year revenue growth at $17.3 billion for the quarter, while missing expectations.
“Excluding the net impact of foreign currency headwinds, revenue grew a healthy 17% year on year,” said outgoing CFO Patrick Pichette. “We continue to see great momentum in our mobile advertising business and opportunities with brand advertisers.”
Aggregate paid clicks were up 1% quarter-over-quarter and 13% year-over-year. Paid clicks on Google sites were up 25% year-over-year, while paid clicks on network sites were up 12%.
Average cost-per-click increased 7% year-over-year and 5% quarter-over-quarter. On Google sites it was up 13% year-over-year and 3% quarter-over-quarter. On network sites it was up 2% year-over-year and 11% quarter-over-quarter.
Desktop search revenues accounted for 38% of the U.S. digital ad sales in 2014, according to a recent IAB report.
Image via Google