Amazon’s aggressive push into digital ad space has earned it third place in the latest US ad forecast by eMarketer, only behind Google and Facebook when it comes to digital ad platforms.
Amazon has thus for the first time overtaken Oath and Microsoft for the first time, just weeks after the businesses market capitalization was calculated to have surpassed the psychologically significant $1tn mark.
Attributing its new-found confidence in Amazon to strong organic ad revenues and accounting changes which now label some advertising services as revenues as opposed to cost of sales, eMarketer projects that Amazon will generate $4.61bn in US ad revenues for 2018, far higher than the $2.89bn predicted as recently as March, TheDrum reports.
Amazon could thus command 4.15% slice of the entire US digital ad market.
Monica Peart, eMarketer’s senior director of forecasting, said: “Its strong handle on consumer purchase behavior sets it apart from Google and Facebook in the digital ad market, which has made the company an attractive option for advertisers. That increased search traffic gives third-party sellers a reason to increase bids for keywords on Amazon.”
In 2018 Google and Facebook are expected to control 57.7% of combined US digital ad revenues, down from 59.1% last year.
