Crypto Ad Spending Slowdown Contributes to Google’s Soft Quarter

Google reported its softest advertising growth in nine years late Tuesday, with company management taking note of softer crypto ad spending as contributing to the weak numbers.

"We did see a pullback in spend by some advertisers in certain areas in search,” Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said on a call with analysts after the company reported earnings. “We saw a pullback in the insurance, loan, mortgage and crypto subcategories.”

Overall ad growth of 6% in the third quarter was the softest since 2013, CNBC reported, with YouTube ad revenue slipping to $7.1 billion from $7.2 billion from the third quarter a year ago.

“While travel and retail were again the largest contributors to growth, Google did see a pullback in spend in the financial-services vertical from insurance, loan, mortgage and crypto advertisers,” Canaccord Genuity analyst Maria Ripps wrote in a note to clients.

“Network and YouTube also faced difficult comps and FX headwinds, with management adding that the pull back in spend from brands due to broader macroeconomic uncertainty that started in Q2 increased during Q3," she added.

Shares of Alphabet (GOOGL), Google's parent company, were down 7.5% on Wednesday morning.

Read more: Google Partners With Coinbase to Accept Crypto Payments for Cloud Services