It’s earnings season baby and eCommerce media rocks! – eCommerce news – April 2019

by David Snow|30 Apr

Who will soon reach $1B from Promoted Listings, who is losing ads to eCommerce, who serves more ads and what is going on in Australia? (Hint: not much).

Here are all the latest eCommerce media news you have to know!

eBay Sets Sights On $1B In Revenue From Advertising
by Laurie Sullivan, Media post, April 24, 2019

eBay has been shifting its advertising efforts away from non-strategic third-party ad placements toward the company’s first-party Promoted Listings product, and it seems to be paying off.

Revenue from Sponsored Products rose 110% to $65 million in the quarter.

eBay, which is reducing the amount of third-party ads it uses across the marketplace, grew its promoted listings placements during the first quarter of 2019.

More than 800,000 active sellers participated to promote listings, promoting more than 200 million listings. This drove more than $65 million of revenue in the quarter, up nearly 110% year-over-year.

U.S. sellers now see an average boost in visibility of 36% when using the first-party advertising offering, according to the company.

Read the article here: https://www.mediapost.com

Here are some highlight from Devin Wenig, President and CEO – eBay
Q1 2019 Results Conference Call April 23, 2019

“While our GMV is down slightly year-on-year, our revenue is growing, and the gap between GMV and revenue will likely continue. This growth was partly driven by Promoted Listings, where more sellers are opting to invest to grow their business. In Q1, we had more than $800,000 active sellers promote over 200 million listings. This helped drive over $65 million of revenue this quarter, up nearly a 110%.

As we’ve mentioned previously, as this business scales, we’re reducing third party ads, which are not accretive to our ecosystem. We’re very pleased with our progress and remain on track towards a $1 billion advertising revenue opportunity.”

Read the full transcript: https://seekingalpha.com

Thanks to Amazon, more retailer sites will bombard you with ads
By Ben Fox Rubin, CNET, April 29, 2019

There’s a ton of money to be made in digital ads, and retailers are trying to get in on the action.

The hottest new thing e-retailers are now selling isn’t some foldable phone or fancy service — it’s ads.

It may seem a little counterintuitive, but most retailers have largely avoided putting ads on their sites and mobile apps for fear of annoying their customers or distracting them away from actually buying stuff. That’s now starting to change thanks to — you guessed it — Amazon.

Those gobs of cash have motivated other major online sellers, including eBay, Walmart and Target, to get into the game and try to snag a piece of a new ad market opening up to them.

“It’s been one of the most successful new products we’ve rolled out, from a seller perspective, ever,” eBay CEO Devin Wenig said during an earnings call last week about new promoted listings, which let sellers pay for better placements on eBay.

“It’s such easy money, I’m sure advertisers are willing to pay a lot because you’ve got consumers right where you want them,” said eMarketer analyst Andrew Lipsman.

For online stores, the benefits are obvious. Retail is so competitive that prices stay low to attract customers, but stores end up making little money on each sale. Advertising, on the other hand, is way more profitable.

Advertisers, meanwhile, are looking for new venues where they can park their ads so they don’t have to rely as much on Google and Facebook. Major retail sites are a solid option, since they bring in tons of visitors who are already thinking about spending money. Plus, unlike with ads on radio or television, retailers can easily show advertisers whether their ads are boosting sales.

This perfect storm is sure to result in more ads on retail sites in the near future, Lipsman said.

Read the article here: https://www.cnet.com

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Adverts on eBay and Amazon – Which site has the most?
By Chris Dawson, Tamebay, April 29, 2019

An interesting comparison between eBay and Amazon.
Before reading please answer this question first: How many ads are you serving on your product pages?

Now see how many ads they are serving: tamebay.com.

Google ad revenue growth slows, as competition from Amazon heats up
AdAge, April 29 2019

Alphabet subsidiary Google isn’t growing at the same pace as it once used to

Alphabet’s first-quarter revenue missed analysts’ estimates, sparking concern that advertisers are shifting some spending from Alphabet’s Google subsidiary to digital rivals.

Google is usually the first place consumers go when searching for new products, letting the internet giant charge premium prices to retailers and other advertisers looking to reach customers online. But people have been increasingly going straight to Amazon to hunt for products, and the e-commerce giant has been grabbing a larger share of the digital ad market, chipping away at Google’s lead.

Read the article: https://adage.com

Merkle Q1 2019 Digital Marketing Report Released
By Mark Ballard, Merkle, April 23

Here are few of the insights included in the report pulled from the executive summary:

* Facebook spend growth excluding Instagram dipped into negative territory for the first time in the history of this report, declining by 2% Y/Y.

* Amazon advertisers saw sales attributed to both Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands more than double Y/Y, as spend grew 19% and 77% for those formats respectively.

* Sponsored Products accounted for 85% of all Amazon spend, with over half of spend on the format coming from placements other than the top of search results.

* While Sponsored Brands (formerly Headline Search Ads) are featured in more placements than last year, spend share for the format has held roughly steady.

Get the report: https://www.merkleinc.com

Commentary

Amazon Takes Search Budgets From Google, Bing, Yahoo, Data Suggests
By Laurie Sullivan , Mediapost, April 24, 2019

“Merkle’s Q1 2019 Digital Marketing Report, released Monday, suggests that Amazon Sponsored Products contributed 85% to total markets spend on Amazon for advertising. The ad placements on product details pages accounted for 41% of all Sponsored Products clicks, while the top-of-search results accounted for 33%.

Brand keywords accounted for about a quarter of all Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products clicks and about half of sales, with spend share roughly in line with click share.

And as Amazon’s ad business continues to grow, marketers are spending less on paid-search advertising on Google, Bing and Yahoo, marking the fifth straight quarter of declines.”

Read the full article: www.mediapost.com

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Commentary

Amazon Advertising continues to grow but slower

In Q1 Amazon generated ~$2.7B from selling ads. That’s a 34% increase compared to Q1 2018 but a 24% decrease compared to Q4 2018.

When asked about the decrease Amazon said: “What we’re focused on right now is driving relevancy, ensuring that we service the most useful ad as possible… So it’s more right now about tools and making better recommendations, making it easier to use our Amazon demand-side platform, things like that, operational improvements.”

That doesn’t really answer the question.
So what could be the reasons for the decrease?

(1) Q4 is the quarter of the holiday shopping season (Black Friday etc) and usually attracts many advertisers and sellers. The decrease in Q1 happened also to Google Shopping ads.

But the more interesting reason can be this one:

(2) Advertisers and sellers are promoting their products in alternative marketplaces and online stores such as Walmart eCommerce, Target, eBay etc, shifting some of their eCommerce media budget from Google and Amazon as recently mentioned in eMarketer: “Amazon isn’t the only marketplace for retail advertisers, though; 68% said they also sell on other marketplaces.“

Read more: https://marketingland.com
Read the transcript: https://seekingalpha.com

Amazon Advertising launches products in Australia
By Danielle Long, The Drum, 10 April 2019

Amazon has launched its Amazon Advertising product in Australia giving local advertisers and agencies access to its full suite of products.

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