The chart above displays the traffic acquisition costs of Google from 2012 to 2022 in billions. Google has continued to increase its investment in acquiring traffic each year at a significant rate. In 2022, its TAC increased by around $3.4 billion compared to the prior year. The search giant spent $48.95 billion on traffic acquisition in 2022 compared to $45.56 billion in the prior year (7.4% yoy growth).
Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC) of Google 2012 – 2022
Amounts are in millions.
| Year | TAC (millions) |
| 2022 | $48,955 |
| 2021 | $45,566 |
| 2020 | $32,778 |
| 2019 | $30,089 |
| 2018 | $ 26,726 |
| 2017 | $ 21,672 |
| 2016 | $16,793 |
| 2015 | $14,343 |
| 2014 | $ 13,497 |
| 2013 | $ 12,258 |
| 2012 | $ 10,956 |
Google’s traffic acquisition costs (TAC) have grown sharply in 2021 compared to the previous year. Its TAC for 2021 was $45.6 billion compared to $32.8 billion in 2020 (yoy growth of around 39%.
Alphabet (the parent company of Google) experienced solid revenue growth in 2021 compared to the previous year. The total net revenues of alphabet grew to $257.64 billion (highest in its history) in 2021 from $182.53 billion in the previous year. Most of the growth was driven by solid rise across advertising and cloud services categories. The company also spent significantly higher on traffic acquisition as well as research and development in 2021 compared to the last year.
Google’s Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC) grew to $30.1 billion in 2019, rising from $26.73 billion in 2018.
Google’s traffic acquisition costs grew to $26.73 Billion in 2018 rising from $21.67 Billion in 2017. TAC grew to 23% of Google’s advertising revenues in 2018 from 22.7% in 2017.
About Google:
Google is the leading search engine in the world with the largest market share. Its core source of revenue is digital advertising where it leads the industry. The parent company of Google is Alphabet which also operates other businesses (collectively termed as other bets) apart from Google. Google is the largest business segment of Alphabet which has enjoyed revenue growth from cloud as well as YouTube ads in recent years. The company has its headquarters in Mountain View, California, United States. The CEO of Alphabet is Sundar Pichai. Google was founded on 4th September, 1998 at Menlo Park, California, United States. The head office of Google at Mountainview, California, is known as Googleplex.