Most-Used Advertising by UK Companies (2026)
Detected advertising-system usage across 14,902 of 2,038,592 trading UK companies, with Google Ads leading at 61.0% of detections.
Across 2,038,592 trading UK companies, 14,902 have a detectable Advertising system, with 17 systems identified. Google Ads accounts for 61.0% of that market, covering 9,087 companies, while LinkedIn Ads follows at 34.9% (5,199) and Google AdSense reaches 7.5% (1,120).
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Google Ads ranks first in every employee band: 61.1% of the 9,850 companies under 10 employees, 61.2% of the 4,426 companies with 10–50 employees, and 57.2% of the 626 companies over 50 employees. That points to a market where paid-search infrastructure is common across company sizes rather than confined to one part of the market.
The long tail is relatively thin. X Ads (2.1%, 319), Adverticum (2.0%, 297), The Trade Desk (1.1%, 169), Google Publisher Tag (1.1%, 161) and Simpli.fi (1.0%, 152) sit above 9 further systems covering 298 companies.
14,490
Companies with detected Advertising
Of 2,066,481 UK companies
0.7%
Detection rate
2026
20
Systems detected
In this category
62.7%
Leader share
Google Ads
UK companies Advertising market share
Share of the 14,490 UK companies with a detectable system. As of June 2026.
Advertising compared
| System | UK companies | Share | Median headcount | London share | Typical profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | 9,071 | 62.6% | 6 | 21.9% | Six-person median, 61.0% share |
| LinkedIn Ads | 5,213 | 36% | 6 | 29.3% | Six-person median, 34.9% share |
| Google AdSense | 1,118 | 7.7% | 6 | 24.7% | Six-person median, 7.5% share |
| X Ads | 318 | 2.2% | 5 | 38.2% | Five-person median, 38.6% London |
| Adverticum | 297 | 2% | 5 | 26.8% | Six-person median, 27.6% London |
| ClickCease | 244 | 1.7% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Google Publisher Tag | 229 | 1.6% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| The Trade Desk | 173 | 1.2% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Simpli.fi | 152 | 1% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Quantcast | 132 | 0.9% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Taboola | 123 | 0.8% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| StackAdapt | 110 | 0.8% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Amazon Advertising | 108 | 0.7% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| App Holdings | 102 | 0.7% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Outbrain | 99 | 0.7% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Magnite | 83 | 0.6% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Adtrak | 77 | 0.5% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| i-Promote | 64 | 0.4% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Snap Pixel | 57 | 0.4% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| AdsWizz | 51 | 0.4% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
Systems detected below the page threshold appear with counts only; their full lists are available in the Firmbase app.
Market leader by size
The leading Advertising system shifts with company size: among UK companies with under 10 employees, Google Ads leads at 62.5% of the 9,647 with a detectable system; among UK companies with 10–50 employees, Google Ads leads at 63.5% of the 4,253 with a detectable system; and among UK companies with over 50 employees, Google Ads leads at 60.5% of the 590 with a detectable system.
Under 10 employees
62.5% of band
Under 10 employees is the largest band, with 9,850 companies and Google Ads at 61.1%. The band is small-team heavy, but usage still spreads across the 17 Advertising systems identified across UK companies.
10–50 employees
63.5% of band
10–50 employees contains 4,426 companies, and Google Ads is almost level with the smallest band at 61.2%. LinkedIn Ads is the main named alternative across the wider market, with 34.9% usage among detected companies.
Over 50 employees
60.5% of band
Over 50 employees is much smaller at 626 companies, and Google Ads still ranks first at 57.2%. Its lower share than in the two smaller bands leaves more room for systems such as LinkedIn Ads, Google AdSense, The Trade Desk and Google Publisher Tag.
How Advertising usage is detected
Company data
Detected companies are joined to UK Companies House records and XBRL accounts data. Revenue and headcount figures come from the most recent filed accounts; where the company has not filed, values are estimated using a model trained on filed history and peer benchmarks and are labelled as estimates.
Detection
Firmbase crawls the public website of actively-trading UK companies and fingerprints the technologies present: tracking scripts, embedded forms, chat widgets, CMS markers and similar signatures. A company is included in this list when one or more of the technology's signatures are found on its site; closely-related variants of the same product are grouped under one name. Detection covers what is visible on the public web — a company using the technology purely internally, with no website footprint, will not appear. Counts are therefore a conservative floor, not a ceiling.
Freshness
Websites are re-crawled on a rolling basis and the underlying company data is refreshed from Companies House continuously; filings appear within days of submission. The list and its statistics are regenerated when the detected cohort moves meaningfully. You can see the last-updated timestamp near the top of the page.
All product names are trademarks of their respective owners. Firmbase is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any trademark owner.
UK companies by Advertising
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Frequently asked questions
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