Amazon to challenge FB, Google’s ad dominance

San Francisco, April 28: Amazon. com’s expanding business of selling space on its site to merchants helped it double profits on Thursday, and some see the move as a step toward taking advertising dollars from tech giants Google and Facebook.

With $ 2 billion or less of advertising revenue, Amazon is dwarfed by Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook, often called an internet duopoly, but it is growing fast, may be outselling ads on Twitter and Snapchat, and it has advantages that other contenders lack.

Amazon has users’ purchase data and knows what shoppers need, said Jason Damata, founder of Fabric Media, which advises companies on marketing and business strategy.

Google knows what people are searching for, while Facebook only knows “what you want your friends to think you like,” Mr Damata said.

Some of his clients began directing their ad budgets to get customers to buy their products on Amazon, Mr Damata said, and saw sales jump as a result.

Amazon does not break out ad sales alone. It says advertising sales are the ■ majority of its “other” section, which hit $ 2.0 billion in the first quarter. After adjusting for accounting changes, that is a 72 per cent increase from a year earlier, Amazon said.

CFO Brian Olsavsky called the ad sales business “a multibillion dollar program and growing very quickly.” Advertisers of all sizes were interested in sponsored product ads “to drive brand awareness, discovery or hopefully, purchase,” he said.

Internet research firm eMarketer last October forecast Amazon would hit $ 3.19 billion in net US digital ad revenues by 2019, or 3.0 per cent of digital ad spending.

Established advertising firms also have taken notice. Martin Sorrell, the founder of the advertising company WPP, who stepped down in midApril, last month saw Amazon in “head- to- head” competition with Google and Facebook. New Delhi, April 27: Complaints related to alleged violation of FDI norms by e- commerce players have been forwarded to the Enforcement Directorate ( ED) for appropriate action, a top government official said on Friday.

DIPP secretary Ramesh Abhishek said that all FDI policies are notified under the Foreign Exchange Management Act ( FEMA) and any infringement of the law or allegation is investigated by the ED. “So all the complaints that we receive in this regard or any violation of FEMA, we sent that to ED for appropriate action,” he told reporters here.

These remarks assume significance as certain industries and CAIT have time and again alleged violation of FDI norms for e- commerce by online retail firms.