Amazon Is Going After Advertisers In A Bigger Way

Amazon has realized the value of its gathered insights into how consumers spend their money. As a result, the eCommerce giant is revamping the way it targets advertisers.

According to a recent Bloomberg report, while Amazon has long focused on highlighted search results and banner ads, it is increasingly honing advertising options such as coupons, buttons embedded into ad items and wish lists, and even its shipping boxes. Some of the advertising services, noted the report, are offered to brands that aren’t selling products on the eCommerce platform.

While Amazon has traditionally remained quiet in terms of reported ad sales, market research company eMarketer estimates ad revenue will come in at $1.5 billion in 2017 and hit $2.4 billion by 2019. Last year, multinational technology company Google, a leader in online ads, reported ad sales exceeding $79 billion. Social media mogul Facebook took second place with ad sales worth $27 billion. Amazon declined to comment on the story, but Brian Olsavsky, chief financial officer, spoke on the topic during the company’s earnings conference call in late April.

“We’re happy with the growth,” Oslavsky said of Amazon’s advertising, according to the report.

“They’re going to be a force,” said Martin Sorrell, chief executive officer of British public relations company WPP. “When it comes down to Amazon, you’ve got a sale.”

Customers of WPP’s GroupM ad buying unit — which represents Colgate and Unilever — are spending 10 to 15 times more on paid Amazon search ads each month in 2017 than a year ago, noted the Bloomberg report. According to Edward Foster, global head of search at GroupM, Amazon advertising is “absolutely exploding” as money shifts from paid searches at Google and Microsoft’s Bing.