Last year, digital ad spend totalled $209 billion worldwide, at last surpassing TV, although in the UK digital had already passed TV.
That’s great news for the industry’s big two – Google and Facebook – who accounted for about 60% of that revenue. However as e-commerce and paid search become closer the shopping colossus Amazon is becoming a big threat to the leading duopoly and is set to rise from its current 5th place.
Desktop to Mobile
With an increasing switch from desktop to mobile, most search traffic comes from mobile with commerce close to overtaking desktop, it’s become even more important to be visible on the smaller mobile screens. 85% of shoppers have started a purchase on one device and finished on another.
Where paid advertising comes into this is the stat that 47% of clicks went to the top three links, which for the most competitive terms are very likely to be paid. On a mobile screen it’s harder to get past the paid search and shopping ads to the unpaid natural listings than on desktop
Amazon as a search engine
Amazon is rapidly becoming as much a search engine as it is a shopping platform, for the past few years it has had more product searches than Google. Increasingly shoppers don’t look elsewhere and go straight to the company, a survey of 22,000 people across the world found that 14% of buyers shop exclusively on Amazon. A big worry for Google and Facebook.
As 2018 progresses online retailers in the UK and worldwide are going to have to consider whether to add Amazon to their PPC campaigns alongside Google AdWords ( and Bing ) and social media websites to ensure they’re keeping their products in front of their customers.