Amazon Product Search: A Challenge for the GOOG
November 18, 2019
Amazon is gaining ground in the search-based advertising arena. ZDNet reports, “Amazon Search Ad Business to Whittle Away at Google Market Share Through 2021, Says eMarketer.” Citing a recent eMarketer report, writer Larry Dignan tells us that, though Google will remain top dog by a wide margin for the foreseeable future, Amazon is positioned to increase its share. He writes:
“The report finds that Google will continue to dominate search advertising, but its share will fall over time. Amazon is expected to show search ad revenue growth of 29.5% in 2019, 30.7% in 2020 and 26.2% in 2021. Amazon’s advertising business has surged past Microsoft to be No. 2 behind Google, which has 73.1% of the search ad market. Amazon will end 2019 with 12.9%, followed by Microsoft at 6.5%. Verizon Media and Yelp round out the top five with market share of about 2%.In addition, Amazon’s advertising business is closely watched among Wall Street analysts. The search ad business falls into Amazon’s ‘other’ revenue category and many analysts expect it to be a break out business like Amazon Web Services. Google’s market share in the search advertising market is expected to drop to 70.5% by 2021, according to eMarketer estimates.”
Amazon, you see, has a unique advantage—many active shoppers begin their product searches there, so they are already poised to make a purchase. Dignan adds that other retail sites like Wal-Mart, Target, and eBay are also nipping at Google’s search-ad market share.
Cynthia Murrell, November 18, 2019