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The Rise of Amazon Advertising: What It Means for Businesses

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Amazon has slowly but surely been growing the ad business side of the overall business, and is set to really take the fight to Google and Facebook that currently dominate the online advertising space.

A CNBC survey recently showed that many advertising professionals are moving advertising budget over to Amazon. And there’s a number of reasons why this is.

The rise of Amazon Advertising

Amazon reported $2 billion last year from advertising, but this is still 1/10 of Google’s ad revenues.

However, as everyone is already advertising on Google, this means Amazon offers a more unique opportunity to be there before the competition.

Differences between Amazon Ads and other platforms such as Google Ads

Google manages to marry up search intent with ads that helps with lead generation or fuelling online sales.

However, with Amazon they can advertise to those with purchase intent, with purchasing directly available on the same platform.

Google has long been attempting to offer a similar approach, by shortening the journey to purchase by purchasing directly on Google, but many people are familiar with purchasing on Amazon. And this is a huge bonus.

What are Amazon Ads?

Amazon offers Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands are essentially product search ads.

Amazon has recently rebranded its ads to Amazon Advertising, to get rid of Amazon Media Group, Marketing Services and the Advertising Platform. The automated ad buying platform is now called the advertising console, with the ad platform being Amazon DSP.

Google also simplified its ad platforms from Google AdWords to Ads, so it’s a similar change across the 2 platforms. Ultimately, both companies aim to make it simpler for advertisers and businesses to understand the platforms and how to make the best use of what they have to offer.

Amazon is getting a larger market share of the global ad market, and in the US is estimated to take a 4.5% share by 2020. This puts it 3rd ahead of Microsoft and Oath.

Amazon offers:

  • Sponsored ads

Sponsored advertisements to reach Amazon customers with pay-per-click ads for your products.

  • Display ads

Deliver messages on Amazon sites, apps, devices and third-party sites.

  • Video ads

Engaging your audience on and off Amazon.

  • Stores

Multi-page websites on Amazon for your brand.

For most businesses, the PPC product ads are the most obvious choice. Sponsored ads allow you to reach people shopping on Amazon as they shop, research, or discover products. The ads will appear in the search results and on product pages that are deemed relevant. This helps take customers to your product page so they can make a purchase.

These are targeted by keywords, products, and product categories. This helps with how the ads are placed on Amazon. You only pay when someone clicks on your ads, and your targeting is customisable based on keywords and products which are similar to yours.


Of course, if you aren’t selling on Amazon, then it might be best to stick to Google Ads or other social platforms for your online advertising needs. However, if you are currently selling on Amazon, it’s worthwhile looking into how Amazon Ads could impact how much you sell through the platform, and how you can make more people aware of your brand and products.