Google and Facebook are loosening their grips on online advertising.
The web giants will command $61 billion in US digital-advertising spending in 2018, eMarketer predicts. Yet, their combined share of the total US digital-advertising market is expected to dip to 56.8%, from 58.5% last year, and keep declining.
There’s no one competitor snapping up the spending. Smaller players like Amazon and Snapchat are growing faster than expected, with Amazon singled out by industry leaders as the next big force in advertising. It’s projected to bring in more than $2 billion in US online-ad revenue for the first time this year, accounting for 2.7% of the total share. Snapchat, which is expected to capture 82% more in ad spending than it did last year, is also projected to cross the $1 billion mark in 2018.
Meanwhile, the two biggest players behind Google and Facebook, Microsoft, which bought LinkedIn in 2016, and Oath—a combination of Verizon’s AOL and Yahoo—are expected to lose share in 2018, even as digital ad spending rises overall.
Total spending on digital ads is projected to grow to $107.3 billion from $90.4 billion in 2017.