Last year we launched Brave Search Ads in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Today we share an update on our rapidly growing advertising business on Brave’s independent and privacy-preserving search engine, and preview our plans for expansion in the coming year.
From January to December of 2024, Brave grew search advertising clicks by 15x alongside organic search query growth of 80% (656 million in January to 1.19 billion in December). This initial customer success is the result of targeting the top 1% of paid search advertisers in our primary target regions. These are brands that are hitting the limit of efficiency with Google Ads, and who see Brave Search as a means to unlock additional reach. In most cases, the added conversion volume is in line with Brave’s market share in the region, but in some cases brands see as high as 5% growth on total paid search spend while maintaining their target rate for return on ad spend (ROAS).
Today, over half of the top 20 largest paid search advertisers worldwide are customers of Brave Search Ads, including Amazon Ads Sponsored Products, B&H Photo, Booking.com, CompareCredit, Nerdwallet, Stubhub, and Wayfair. Partnering with these leaders in paid search has been of tremendous value to the development of Brave Search Ads. With their help, we’re discovering new ways to achieve scale and improve the effectiveness of our advertising platform.
Our customers have been overwhelmingly supportive of our entry into the paid search market. Brands unanimously agree there should be more competition. At 90% of market share, Google wields pricing power that their customers have no choice but to accept. Our customers know that by buying on Brave Search, they are contributing directly to the development of a more competitive and fair search advertising market, and reaching engaged users and tech early-adopters who value privacy and independence. Importantly, first-movers on Brave Search Ads have benefited from category exclusivity in what is otherwise a highly saturated market, giving them an edge over competitors who exclusively buy Google Ads.
Overall, Brave Search advertisers are extremely satisfied with their experience; 9 out of 10 customers who started Brave Search Ads campaigns in 2024 have continued to advertise in consecutive months.
The two key forces behind our success in 2024 were the continued growth of the Brave browser (where in most regions Brave Search is the default), and the effectiveness of search engine advertising for all kinds of businesses.
Brave browser and Brave Search are growing at a sustained pace each month. In January, the Brave browser counted 80 million active users worldwide, and 1.29 billion Brave Search queries. The latest numbers are shared regularly to the public by our CEO Brendan Eich.
Search advertising is a well-established market where ads help users find products they show clear intent for with their search keywords. Advertisers on Brave Search are seeing available keyword volume passively increase each month, with conversion rates remaining steady at 100, 1,000 or 10,000 monthly clicks. Brave Search has achieved a predictable and gradually-growing stream of new Web traffic, and thus conversion volume for advertisers. For the first time since Bing, there’s an independent search engine with high-quality search results that convert customers as well as or better than Google Ads.
While the formula itself is simple—a growing search engine plus good ads equals more advertisers—Brave Search didn’t appear overnight. The project began nearly two decades ago with Cliqz, which became Brave Search with a 2021 acquisition, and that tremendous effort is now bearing fruit. We’re very optimistic for the future given Brave Search’s global growth as well as its new features that make it hugely popular with users, such as Answer with AI, the answer engine with an integrated chatbot, and ReRank, which enables users to customize their search rankings.
Brave builds a suite of tools—starting with the Brave browser and Brave Search—that give people better choices online with leading privacy and security protections, independence from Big Tech, tools to reduce distractions, and access to innovative features like generative AI.
Search Ads are sponsored results on the Brave Search results page. They are currently available to select advertisers in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, and Germany. To learn more and inquire about advertising on Brave Search, visit brave.com/brave-ads/search or email us at adsales@brave.com.
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