Amazon Joins Google, Facebook as Largest Online Ad Companies

Google, Facebook, and Amazon are the three biggest online advertisement companies in 2018, with Amazon quickly gaining on the other two companies but still representing just 4 percent of the market, according to a report.

In third place, Amazon is expected to take in $4.61 billion this year, after declaring its intentions just last year to take on the Google and Facebook duopoly in online advertising.

“While Amazon will still only make up 4.15 percent of total U.S. digital ad revenue, it’s growing while the other two digital advertising giants are decreasing,” reported CNBC. “Emarketer expects the two will make up 57.7 percent of U.S. digital ad revenue (37.1 percent and 20.6 percent, respectively), down from 59.1 percent in 2017.”

“The increase is partially due to more people starting their online product searches on Amazon, rather than Google,” CNBC explained.

Last year, it was reported that Amazon wanted to challenge the Facebook and Google duopoly of online advertising in 2018, while a 2017 report claimed Google generates as much advertising revenue as the entire global print advertising market.

This year, Facebook has faced heavy criticism for allowing advertisers to exclude or focus on certain demographics, including sex, race, and age — a system which has reportedly been used to discriminate against certain groups during hiring campaigns.

President Trump has repeatedly criticized Amazon for putting American retailers out of business, and in July he even raised the possibility of an anti-trust case against the company which was reported to be approaching 50 percent of the e-commerce market in the United States.