Privacy-protecting browser Brave has published some encouraging results for its nascent search advertising business, as it continues its mission to chip away at Google’s dominance.
Brave, a free and open-source web browser that blocks third-party ads, launched its Search Ads product in January 2024 in the US, Canada, UK, France and Germany, and since then it has recorded a 1,500% growth in search advertising clicks. Organic search queries on Brave’s search engine also increased 80% over the same period (from 656 million in January to 1.19 billion in December).
To put that in perspective, Google handles around 8.5 billion searches per day, according to software company Semrush. But Brave says that it now counts over half of the world’s largest paid search among its customers, including Amazon, Booking.com, StubHub, and Wayfair. Gaming publishers Ubisoft and Supercell are also clients, as well as up-and-coming streaming platform, Kick.
The company claims: ‘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.’
Brave has deliberately targeted the top 1% of search advertisers, offering them the chance to ‘unlock additional reach’ beyond what Google Ads can offer. In some cases, Brave claims that its clients generate a ‘5% growth on total paid search spend while maintaining their target rate for return on ad spend.’
Brave launched in 2016 as the brainchild of Brendan Eich, one of the co-founders of the Mozilla project, the community behind the Firefox browser. By the end of 2021 Brave had passed 50 million monthly active users, doubling its users for the fifth year in a row.
In 2024 TechRadar reported that Brave’s monthly user base had increased to 78.95 million, thanks to its emphasis on privacy and ad-blocking tools — as well as its features which protect browser users from fingerprinting, phishing scams and malware attacks — which ‘appeal to both privacy purists looking to escape the clutches of Big Tech and casual users interested in putting a stop to annoying ads, trackers, and malware.’
Brave also rewards its users for watching ads with its Brave Attention Tokens (BAT), which can be exchanged for both fiat and crypto currencies, as well as donated to creators and other websites. It’s worth noting that whilst some users do make use of BAT, most don’t actively focus on them due to the relatively small amounts earned.
Writing on X on 4 February, CEO Brendan Eich shared Brave’s latest figures, saying that the browser had hit 80 million monthly active users in January on desktop and mobile and, with the acceleration of mobile, he expects to reach 100 million this year.
While Google remains by far the largest player in search advertising, its grip on the market has loosened, thanks to increased competition from other platforms, like Amazon, as well as the introduction of generative AI, and eMarketer has predicted that Google’s share of search advertising spend in the US in 2025 will drop below 50% for the first time in over a decade.
Featured image: Brave browser / Brave Software