Commentary

No Surprise: Google, Facebook Lose Ad Dollars To Amazon And Snapchat

It should not be a huge surprise to search marketers that Google and Facebook are losing ad and marketing budgets to Amazon and Snapchat. But this is the first time eMarketer predicts they will lose budgets to rivals.

Some of the signs in the past six months involve advertising agencies like Merkle and iProspect pouring big bucks and resources into business practices that support search and other types of advertising through Amazon. They also are paying more attention to sites like Pinterest, which on Monday expanded its Shopping Ads program for retailers.

Now eMarketer estimates that Google and Facebook will lose market share to Amazon and Snapchat. In fact, Google and Facebook's share of new digital ad dollars is declining as well. This year, they will garner nearly 48% of new payments, down from about 73% in 2016.

eMarketer also values Amazon’s ad business at nearly 3% of the market in 2018, up from 2% last year -- reaching $2.9 billion in ad revenue. Snap’s share of the advertising market is estimated to reach 1% this year, up from 0.6% last year.

Google’s and Facebook’s decline isn’t all for one and one for all, but rather regional. For example, eMarketer estimates that Facebook will generate $21.00 billion in U.S. digital ad revenue this year -- up 16.9% from 2017, but its share of the country's digital ad market will dip to 19.6%, down from 19.9% last year.

Instagram, owned by Facebook, will contribute about $5.48 billion in ad revenue, accounting for about 5% of the U.S. digital ad market. The company’s share of mobile ad revenue should reach 7.3% this year, accounting for 28.2% of Facebook’s U.S. mobile revenue.

Google’s take will total about $39.92 billion in the U.S. -- up 14.5% from 2017 -- but the company’s share of digital ad market will decline slightly to 37.2% in 2018 from last year's total of 38.6%.

1 comment about "No Surprise: Google, Facebook Lose Ad Dollars To Amazon And Snapchat".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, March 20, 2018 at 11:29 a.m.

    Laurie, while the headline would have us thinking that FB and Google's ad revenues are in decline, the actual estimates of ad revenues shows both scoring healthy gains. So what is happening is that there are more players suddenly competing for ad dollars and FB/Google are losing in share---which is to be expected. In the same vein, Netflix once controlled 65% or more of SVOD viewing but now its share is down to about 40%---yet Netflix has more subs than ever. In short,we don't know from the figures who is losing ad dollars to whom---only that the FB/Google shares of spending are changing. I doubt that eirther FB or Google is, as yet, panicky about this---maybe later, though?

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