Google’s Pain Is Amazon’s Gain

They say downturns provide opportunities for those ready to seize them. And to see how, look no further than Amazon’s very healthy ads business. 

In the most recent quarter, when marketers pulled back from Google, Meta and just about everywhere else, Amazon grew its advertising business 25%. It’s now at an annualized run rate of almost $40 billion, or about one-third that of Meta and one-sixth that of Google, which Alphabet owns. 

The ad growth is impressive in light of Meta’s and Google’s anemic ad growth. There is no doubt marketers are pulling back—but not yet on formats and platforms that are working really well. And while I don’t know which segments of Amazon’s ad business are doing especially well, the growth is driven by the success of those sponsored product ads that seem to be all over every Amazon search I make these days. To that end, Amazon’s 7% growth in its online shopping business—an improvement from last quarter’s decline—didn’t hurt.