As a result, Amazon’s “other” business unit, which is made up almost entirely of its ads business, is growing faster than its retail, cloud computing and Prime subscription divisions.
“We still expect solid, if not strong growth, by traditional standards for Google in both 2020 and 2021 — but increasingly Amazon is eating into that growth.” Heller noted several studies had shown that people were increasingly searching for things to buy directly on Amazon, rather than on Google. For marketers, Heller said, it was the difference in reaching the person searching for “athlete’s foot cream” rather than “why does my foot hurt?”
Just over one in 10 clicks will on average result in a buy, according to Marketplace Pulse, an e-commerce research firm. Sponsored posts are a source of continual friction between Amazon and major brands because it allows competitors to pay to appear above rivals, even if a customer has searched for a specific brand name. A recent query for “Sennheiser headphones”, for example, presented an unknown Chinese headphone brand, a drum kit and a rival Japanese brand — Audio-Technica — before any Sennheiser products.
The company told investors that 2021 will see it step up sales of display ads outside of Amazon’s main website, on its games streaming platform Twitch or via devices such as the Fire tablets and TV stick, or Kindle ereader.
Does this business really need another plug?
Because North America is deliberately killing small businesses.