Oligopoly? Not so fast

Maybe I got out of the wrong side of the bed today, but I see opportunities to call B.S. everywhere, on indiscretions large and small.

So I’ll start with a small one. I’ve been seeing Google, Facebook and Amazon referred to as an “oligopoly.” It’s not. Yes, marketers are spending 43% of their budgets with those three properties, but the distribution of spending allocated to Google/Facebook/Amazon is dramatically different.

The truth is that just over 2% of digital ad spend is going to Amazon. That doesn’t qualify for membership into the oligopoly in my book.

I could even argue that characterizing the market as a duopoly isn’t even accurate, with Facebook only accounting for 11.7% of digital ad spend. Whether Google’s share of over 29% makes it a monopoly is a discussion for another day.

My point; let’s not get carried away. Amazon’s growth is impressive and expected to continue accelerating. But it’s a small (though not insignificant) part of the digital advertising landscape.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Chris Elwell

Chris Elwell, CEO and partner at Third Door Media, has more than 20 years interactive media and marketing experience in management, product development, marketing and editorial positions. From 1997 to 2006, Chris was Vice President & General Manager of JupiterWeb, the online publishing division of what is now Jupitermedia Corporation (NASDAQ: JUPM). In that role, he was responsible for sales, marketing, editorial and production of JupiterWeb’s more than 100 websites.