The battle for online ad market share may be heating up, as Amazon is reportedly planning to develop its own keyword-based text ad platform. This would give marketers another option for targeting web users on a large scale, in addition to ad giants Google and Facebook. The WSJ was first to report the news late last week.
The new platform, reportedly called Amazon Sponsored Links, would allow marketers to directly reach Amazon’s 250 million active users across its various sites, namely Amazon.com. Currently, marketers can advertise on Amazon sites through text-based keyword ads powered by Google and other third parties. Additionally, Amazon has its own display ad network, showing customers display ads that align with their searches across Amazon.com, IMDb.com and Quidsi properties (which include Soap.com).
Though it’s just speculation at this point, some believe Amazon’s ad platform would closely resemble Google’s AdWords, which is the core revenue-driver for Google’s $50 billion per year ad business.
Perhaps it’s only fair that Amazon should challenge Google’s stronghold on the online ad market, as Google has stepped on Amazon’s e-commerce toes by introducing product listing ads and Google Shopping Express.
Neither Amazon nor Google have commented so far. Stay tuned for more.
Further reading:
- ‘Amazon Prepares Online Advertising Program’ via WSJ
- ‘Amazon Prepping Ad Challenge to Google’ via CMO Today (blogs.wsj.com)
- ‘Report: Amazon Preparing to Tackle Google AdWords’ via Mashable
-Posted by Elizabeth Pace–
aspiringCMO 