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Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

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71–80 of 239 posts

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#71

This is my bear case for Google. Google offers the least precise targeting compared to Facebook and Amazon. Facebook knows more about its users because users tell it about themselves and Amazon knows more about purchasing habits of its users because of thier purchase and search history. If I’m searching for something with the intention on buying it, I am going to go to the specific site - like Priceline, hotels.com,…

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Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#72

This is my bear case for Google. Google offers the least precise targeting compared to Facebook and Amazon. Facebook knows more about its users because users tell it about themselves and Amazon knows more about purchasing habits of its users because of thier purchase and search history. If I’m searching for something with the intention on buying it, I am going to go to the specific site - like Priceline, hotels.com,…

We tell google about the purchases on our site 3 times. For AdWords, GA and Trusted Store reviews. They the have plenty of data on what is likely to convert.

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#74
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. Google is still way ahead. > Google’s U.S. ad revenue is expected to rise $5 billion this year to $39.9 billion, while Facebook could rise $3 billion this year to $21 billion, according to eMarketer. Adwords is just so effective to find your customers. You won't beat `buy new headphones` type traffic on Amazon or Facebook.

To speak to this from data: 3 out of 4 people searching "buy new headphones" will buy a product on amazon.com On Google ads, you're lucky if one quarter of your clicks convert into anything. Advertisers are choosing amazon because people on amazon are 1 click away from transacting. Google just can't compete there for eCommerce. Now, on home services and virtually everything else Amazon falls short, but for direct to…

Yup. Amazon also has the advantage of dark UI patterns; they put sponsored listings inline with normal product results in the exact same style. I'm the (probably atypical) sort of person who will deliberately not click on a sponsored listing even if it seems the most relevant, and I still regularly click sponsored items on Amazon by accident. I back out if I notice this, but I'm sure I've bought a few products this way. These seem like very effective ads to me.

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#75

It's worth noting that Amazon showing ads on amazon.com is more like a "slotting fee" or "slotting allowance" than a display ad. Given that you're at amazon.com because you want to buy something, it's no surprise that online slotting fees can be lucrative. But it doesn't mean Amazon has much room to grow that beyond their overall growth.

It probably depends on the value funnel. As you get closer in rellavance to the target the ability to influence ought to be most valuable. I question if they are monetizing the ad value funnel fully.

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#76
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. Google is still way ahead. > Google’s U.S. ad revenue is expected to rise $5 billion this year to $39.9 billion, while Facebook could rise $3 billion this year to $21 billion, according to eMarketer. Adwords is just so effective to find your customers. You won't beat `buy new headphones` type traffic on Amazon or Facebook.

If I’m looking for headphones, wouldn’t it be more logical to start on Amazon? It’s not like Amazon is a site that people haven’t heard of. It’s the 4th most trafficked site in the US.

As long as your happy paying a premium in many cases for consistency. Certainly a lot of the marketplace stuff can be found outside of Amazon for cheaper as the merchant has an extra 15% to play with gong direct.

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#77
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true, but as a potential advertiser you don't really get to use all that targeting when placing ads. Although to be fair that's mostly based on my experience with AdWords. On Facebook I can advertise to people in a well-defined geographical area, who are interested in a scarily well-defined set of things. On Google it's more of a just-in-time approach; catching people who are searching for something in a certain…

>as a potential advertiser you don't really get to use all that targeting when placing ads. you don't need to. since google is interested in providing you cheap relevant clicks, it will deliver them to you without exposing all the targetings. all the data available wil be utilized in choosing the right audience anyway.

But the initial intent still has to be there. If I sell shampoo noone's gonna see my shampoo PPC ad just because they email a friend to say they've got dry hair. They have to search for a shampoo-related keyword I'm targeting.

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#78
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. Google is still way ahead. > Google’s U.S. ad revenue is expected to rise $5 billion this year to $39.9 billion, while Facebook could rise $3 billion this year to $21 billion, according to eMarketer. Adwords is just so effective to find your customers. You won't beat `buy new headphones` type traffic on Amazon or Facebook.

To speak to this from data: 3 out of 4 people searching "buy new headphones" will buy a product on amazon.com On Google ads, you're lucky if one quarter of your clicks convert into anything. Advertisers are choosing amazon because people on amazon are 1 click away from transacting. Google just can't compete there for eCommerce. Now, on home services and virtually everything else Amazon falls short, but for direct to…

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Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I perform a google search for something with no adblocker on, 'sponsored results' show up -- google ads, on google's website. Adblockers hide these. How is this different from fb or amazon aads?

The majority of users are using FB on mobile and the FB app is one of the most popular. Ad Blockers that most people are using on mobile - either via the built in content blocking framework on iOS or by using another browser on Android, don’t work on FB. FB uses “native ads” and “boosted content” that are indistinguishable from regular posts.

Even on desktop FB's ads are unblocked (or were when I used to have a FB account). They use a significant amount of obfuscation to make it impossible to use typical adblock techniques (url filter, css selectors, simple heuristics) without breaking the rest of the site. So far as I can tell most of the filter maintainers leave Facebook's native ads alone.

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#80
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has terrible targeting. They might collect lots of data but they truly suck at utilizing it. It is pathetic. Google is fairly mediocre. Literally nothing in the quality of online advertising has changed since 1999. Sidenote, adblockers work with Amazon and Facebook.

Facebook has better interest based targeting than anyone else on the web. Google is the king of intent based targeting. Source: I've managed and tested $10 million+ of ad spend that needed provable ROI across a wide variety of platforms.

Honestly in my experience they don't. The low quality ads is a major reason I have ramped down my Facebook usage. Google is sort of ok. The targeting on every platform is still 1999 quality. There literally has been zero change to the end user despite all the data collection. At the end of the day, it's low quality advertising.
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