Digital marketing for voice activated devices

Amazon is Google’s biggest rival for online Ad dollars. Over the past few years Amazon has ramped up its business of selling search and display ads on its own and others' sites, putting it in direct competition with Google's ad business. According to eMarketer, Amazon will pull in just over $1 billion in online ad revenue in 2017 in the U.S.. Contrast that with Snapchat, which is expected to generate $800 million next year in the U.S. Google’s U.S. ad revenue in 2017 is expected to approach $34 billion, while Facebook’s U.S. revenue should be north of $15 billion.

While Amazon continues to build out its advertising services and tools for its own network on the Web and by using voice-activated searches on its artificial intelligence-powered device, Echo, it also purchases advertising on Google shopping to broaden the reach for advertisers.

While it might seem that Amazon is far behind Google and Facebook in advertising, it could legitimately challenge the behemoths. How? One word – data! The data Amazon collects from a variety of services is mind blowing. Shoppers use Google to search for information, but they use Amazon to search for product information to make a purchase, including groceries. Currently Amazon’s voice activated device is more popular and accurate then Apple and Google’s voice activated devices. Amazon’s Alexa not only gives information but can also order products, groceries and communicate with other connected devices in the home. This has enabled Amazon to build a database of information on the way people shop and use its services such as Amazon Prime, which gives the company insight into the ways that people watch television and view movies.

What does this mean for digital marketers? To quote prof Kagan  - “you have to go where the consumers are”,  digital marketers will have to go where the consumers are; and consumers are increasingly going to Amazon. As Amazon becomes the primary marketplace for consumers not just to buy products but also for searching information using Alexa, digital marketers will have to think about advertising thru Alexa; when Alexa responds to a consumer’s request, you need to make sure your product is the one Alexa recommends.