Looking at the trends, it’s crystal clear that digital marketing is showing a strong, long-term growth line. According to multiple reports, digital marketing spending will eclipse $146 billion over the next three years. While “search” budgets may plateau, other forms of digital marketing are expected to continue to grow.Voice-based searches powered by Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, which were considered “nearly mainstream” just a few years ago, have now become nearly universal. For more and more people, traditional web search has been all but replaced by “Hey Siri,” or “Hey, Alexa…”
What does that mean for the digital marketing marketplace? Who will be the big winners and big losers? Impossible to say across the board, but there’s one thing pretty much everyone is certain about: Amazon is going to do very, very well. Already, thanks in part to Alexa, as well as the sheer number of products available through its site, Amazon is winning percentage points from Google in the race to monopolize online searches. A huge number of online users still Google queries, but many have begun to simply look on Amazon before they dive into the wider world of the web.
This has led to what some are describing as “skyrocketing” Amazon ad revenue growth. How fast is it growing? U.S. advertising business for Amazon is poised to hold nearly nine percent of the digital market, thanks to more than 50 percent overall growth.
Sure, Google’s ad revenue still accounts for more than one-third of the market, but traditional digital marketing campaign strategies are shifting, and this spells ongoing decline for the longtime big brands on the digital block. This trend line is expected to increase as more online shoppers start their searches at Amazon before (or rather than) checking Google.
Brands that, for years, depended solely or primarily on Google for online sales, have shifted their budgets to Facebook and Amazon and, as the consumer habits continue to shift, you can expect more brands to do the same, with greater percentages of their budgets.
The old adage rings true: “if you want to sell, go where the people are.” In this case, the people are spending more time on social media and direct-searching Amazon rather than cruising the entire web for whatever their heart desires.
That’s not to say paid Google search is dead, far from it. The vast majority of users, three out of four by some counts, still find paid search valuable and helpful. But trends are what they are, and Amazon has tremendous resources to keep things moving in that direction.
