Google Text Ad Click Share Surges in Select Verticals

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Text Ads Are Eating Click Share — Not Just AI Overviews

An analysis of 16,000 U.S. search queries found that text ads captured 7–13 percentage points of click share between January 2025 and January 2026.

SEO consultant Aleyda Solis used Similarweb clickstream data to measure click share across classic organic results, SERP features, text ads, PLAs, and zero-click behavior. She also tracked how often AI Overviews (AIOs) appeared, though the data doesn’t directly measure clicks from AIOs.

Key Findings

Text Ads Gain Share Across Verticals

  • Headphones (top 5,000 queries):

    • Organic clicks fell 73% → 50%

    • Text ads grew 3% → 16%

    • PLAs grew 13% → 20%

    • Combined paid share: 36%, up from 16%

  • Jeans: Organic fell 73% → 56%, combined paid rose 18% → 34%

  • Online games: Text ads quadrupled 3% → 13%, even in a historically low-ad category

  • Greeting cards: Organic dropped 88% → 75%, with text ads nearly doubling

AI Overview Presence Is Rising

  • Headphones: 2.28% → 32.76% of SERPs

  • Online games: 0.38% → 29.80%

Note: AIO presence measures how often it appeared on the page, not actual clicks or prevented clicks.

Why This Matters

Solis noted:

“Text ads and organic SERP features—not just AI Overviews—are significant culprits behind declining organic clicks. Text ads gained 7–13 points of click share in every vertical, making them the single biggest measurable driver of the organic decline.”

Other data supports this trend:

  • Tinuiti Q4 2025 report: Google text ad clicks hit a 19-quarter high, +9% YoY.

  • Alphabet Q3 2025: Search ad revenue hit $56.6B, with CEO Sundar Pichai citing AI features as expanding total query volume, including commercial queries.

More queries with commercial intent mean more ad inventory and more clicks shifting to paid placements.

Actionable Takeaways

  1. Don’t assume AI Overviews alone are causing organic declines.

  2. Track SERP composition in your vertical, not just rankings.

  3. Monitor paid vs. organic click share, especially in high-advertiser categories.

Whether Google is increasing ad placements or advertisers are bidding more aggressively is unclear—but the shift in click behavior is measurable now.