What Has Become a Two Horse Race

The Race Is On to Challenge Google-Facebook ‘Duopoly’ in Digital Advertising

Google and Facebook, Facebook and Google. With the meteoric rise of these two companies, digital advertising has really become a two horse race. Google and Facebook together collect nearly half of global spending. In the U.S. alone last year, the online advertising market expanded by nearly $12 billion and these two companies accounted for over 77% of that spending growth. Pardon this bloggers choice of words, I am utterly blown away, but those are stupid numbers…unfathomable really.

The question is, and will remain for the foreseeable future, what company can grow to capture enough market share to become a legitimate third horse in the race.

My money is on Amazon.

I think that the combination of its large user base, deep pockets, management, track record, and (perhaps most importantly) data on its users put it squarely in the poll position. With its extensive data on its customers’ purchasing history and trends, Amazon is in a unique position to offer insights to advertisers that would allow them to better target their specific segmented demographic in a manner that, in my opinion, could/should provide a significantly higher return on marketing spend than Google and, to a lesser extent, Facebook. Additionally, Amazon’s penetration into its customers’ homes through Amazon Prime Video as well as Echo presents a unique offering to advertisers as they have another medium to get in front of the target audience. Imagine if Alexa would make paid recommendations on items to purchase / download / view based on potential advertiser messaging. 

I don’t know about you all, but this blogger thinks it is only a matter of time until Amazon closes the gap and makes this a three horse race. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes #2…behind Google – what an impenetrable duopoly that would be!