IAC Earnings: Rising Google Lifts All Search Partners

IAC’s media and advertising revenues enjoyed a Q1 boost thanks to the company’s renewed ad partnership with Google. Ask.com improved both its revenue per query and overall revenues during the period, “even excluding the benefits of the renewed contract.” However it’s clear from IAC’s statement that the company’s buddy up in Mountain View deserves much credit for its solid search performance, especially considering total queries were down. A reduced marketing budget also helped profits.

Meanwhile, there was predictable pain over in IAC’s Lending Tree unit, which is set to be spun off along with other non-advertising businesses. The company noted it had lowered its marketing investment for lending products, which translates to reduced spending on online lead generation. Again, no surprise there.

IAC’s not the only Google partner sitting pretty today. Another party to benefit greatly from its relationship with the borg is TW’s AOL, which today reported strength in search advertising thanks in part to the relationship. Meanwhile display advertising revenue on its own sites shrank — largely due to anticipated factors, it should be said.