Google makes one third of all global online ad revenue, but there's trouble ahead

New figures released by Statista have shown just how huge advertising is to Google. The search giant officially earned one third of all digital advertising revenue globally in 2015: that’s 33.3% on the nose. Want to know just how much that equals? A cool $67.39 billion. But beneath this shiny surface, the facts tell a slightly different story.

Looking at the data released by Statista, you can see that Google’s online advertising revenue is growing at an increasingly slower rate: up 16.9% in 2013, 14.3% in 2014 and 11.5% in 2015. Given it’s current rate of decline, Google’s revenue growth with flatline in just four years. While the revenue graph still looks pretty great, Google’s slice of the global market is also on the slide.

Google’s percentage net share of total global digital advertising revenue is actually down to 33.3% in 2015 from 34.6% in 2014. Statista is predicting a further decline in 2016 to just 30.9% of global online advertising revenue. So who else is making money hand over fist? And are they doing it better than Google?

Well, Facebook is a good example. While Facebook isn’t making anywhere near the amount of money as Google, the social platform is enjoying fantastic growth, with four times the revenue in 2015 as it made in 2012. To compare growth with growth, Facebook’s advertising revenue grew 38.8% in 2013, 39.2% in 2014 and 32.7% in 2015. That’s three times the rate of growth Google enjoyed last year.

With global online marketing expenditure projected to cross the quarter-trillion dollar threshold in 2018, there’s reason to be envious of Facebook’s growth. As a percentage of advertising expenditure generally, online accounts for one third of it, but it too is on the rise, as more and more advertisers look beyond traditional television advertising.

Where do you think the future of online marketing lies? Is it more effective than TV?