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

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

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not the case. The Google machine includes: Google Analytics, Adwords/Adsense, Doubleclick network, Android and store, Chrome Browser, Chrome OS, Maps/Streetview, Gmail, G-Suite, Youtube, Google Play, Google Fiber, Google Fi, Public DNS, all the various websites with 1st party cookies, connections to Salesforce CRM, and the recently announced Mastercard purchase data. Facebook and Amazon are nowhere close t…

All of that data is still just based on Google trying to “infer” interests which is not as accurate as people telling them about themselves. For instance, Facebook knows your relationship status as soon as it changes because most people tell them . Facebook knows where people like to eat because people check in. They know which events you are going to that are advertised on FB because you tell them “that you are inte…

What's Google known for? Search.

This means people tell it exactly what they want. Who cares what your relationship status is when I can see you type in "wedding ring" into a search box? Who cares where you like to eat in the past when you searched for "chinese food" on maps, and potentially even clicked on an ad for a restaurant?

This is called "intent" and it's incredibly powerful because you can advertise for exactly what a person is actually looking for at that moment. Inference (like Facebook likes and profile details) will never be as good for real-time targeting.

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

#122
post #11

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,…

Google is better able to capture 'intent' IMHO. It also makes it possible to find users who are at different specific stages of the buying process. That's way more powerful than what FB or Amazon offer.

If I want to target a demographic for top of the funnel advertising, I can target a lot better with a Facebook. If I want to target people who are buying now, why not go to the source - Amazon, Zillow, Priceline, EBay, etc.?

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

#123
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has a display network similar to DoubleClick, called Audience Network. In my experience it pays publishers a lot better than DoubleClick. For advertisers, they're able to target on more demographic categories (for now, the CA scandal has done a lot to reduce targeting options).

Also people tend to forget that advertising on Google’s own properties represents the vast majority of its ad revenue.

A significant chunk of that ~4 Billion or ~5% of total global online advertising is because Google also owns YouTube, which captures a large chunk total advertising spending independent of search.

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

#125
post #93
post #9

Amazon ad revenue alone ($2.2 billion) for Q2 was already around 15% of Facebook's total Q2 revenue ($13 billion). That is nuts, if they have any room to grow that further, since ads isn't even Amazon's specialty. For reference, Snapchat did $290 million in the same timeframe, Twitter $660 million.

If it wasn't obvious already: > For reference, Snapchat did $290 million in the same timeframe, Twitter $660 million. Just goes to show how much potential Amazon has in the Ad Market. Does anyone else think Amazon could overtake one or both of Amazon's biggest competitors in the market (Facebook or Google)?

Amazon will overtake everyone once they overcome working conditions problem.

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

#126

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,…

Sure but if you have a SaaS product then Google seems like a better fit because you can target keywords instead of humans since you don't really know if there are any similar characteristics to your buyers.

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

#127
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it wasn't obvious already: > For reference, Snapchat did $290 million in the same timeframe, Twitter $660 million. Just goes to show how much potential Amazon has in the Ad Market. Does anyone else think Amazon could overtake one or both of Amazon's biggest competitors in the market (Facebook or Google)?

Amazon is most like Facebook in that the ads are only displayed on its own property rather than all across the whole internet on any site that displays 3rd party ads. That, combined with the fact that Amazon also has a ton of data on its users just like Facebook makes them very alike (not that Google doesn't as well). What separates Google from Amazon is that their paid ads can be displayed on any 3rd party site that…

Amazon is starting to roll out their ad network - we're currently getting ready to roll out an update to my $dayjob's app with Amazon ads in it.

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

#128
post #56

I've been long amazed at how bad Amazon's web ads are, as if the department was authorized to get rid of money as fast as possible. Besides the times -- because of one click through to a joke product like $10K ultrapremium audio cables -- that I would get followed by weeks with absurd ads, my favorite example is getting barraged by Battlestar Galactica season 3 ads right after I bought the damn thing . OTOH, perhaps…

Those ads are mostly on Amazon's automatic remarketing systems. They only recently opened up control over the bidding and targeting of those to sellers and brands. Eventually considering how well that ad system tends to work in the right hands, I would expect it to be less intrusive and more effective over time.

Amazon's remarketing tends to be paid for by Amazon and it behaves like any remarketing system run by other companies if you don't change anything from the defaults, set a very high frequency cap, and don't pay attention to whether or not the person converts.

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

#129
post #22

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,…

If we're talking about data I think Google wins. Email is the activity stream of all your online purchases. Google analytics has the users' clickstream data. Google messenger and google+ gets the relationships the user has. Youtube gets entertainment data. Search is what is relevant to the custom at the moment of time. If I was Amazon, i'd look at buying mint from intuit to get all the banking data from users.

Amazon stopped including full invoices in customer emails to prevent email providers from using them to reconstruct users' purchase histories.

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

#130
post #53

Seeing ads in Amazon search results has substantially reduced my perceived trust in Amazon brand, since as a buyer I no longer feel like Amazon is on my side. I feel like I am Amazon's product. That it's me, who is for sale.

Probably a bigger issue for Amazon is that a large part of the ad market is competitors or potential competitors. Walmart, Safeway, and Azure won't be advertising on Amazon. Does P&G want Amazon to control more of the retail market? Not if it has any brains. Amazon has it's own branded home speaker systems and will not sell Google's. If Amazon brought out a shampoo brand, would it sell head and shoulders?

Why would other big retailers pay for ads on Amazon's website? Brands are the ones who pay and already do. P&G already places a ton of advertising on Amazon for its various products. Search 'Tide' and look at the headline ad spot.

That's P&G paying for that placement.

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