While Google remains way ahead in terms of audience share, Yahoo has been slowly catching up the search engine behemoth, perhaps partly as a result of the revenues generated by their most recent acquisitions.

RBC and SearchIgnite’s joint white paper, entitled “Summer Heats up Yahoo”, found that advertisers increased their spending on Google by just 0.8 percent from Q2 to Q3, whereas their spending on Yahoo increased by 7.8 percent over the same period.

"The data suggests that Yahoo's platform improvements are taking hold at some level,” said Jordan Rohan, managing director and Internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “This news should be encouraging to marketers hoping for a more balanced competitive landscape in the paid search space."