Social Media Spends Rising as Product Ads Boom

Pay-per-click product ads have longed formed an integral part of e-commerce platforms, with Amazon especially being shown to dominate the paid ad landscape. In fact, it has been reported that almost three quarters of all Amazon users click on products ads while browsing the online store. However, there is now a growing trend for product ads to extend beyond the likes of Amazon, and venture into social media.A newly published report by cross channel intelligence network Kenshoo confirms that product ads now make up nearly 40% of all social spending by businesses as brands begin to take advantage of the benefits of ‘targeting’ customers during their journey.

A New Method of Marketing In a Search Engine Land opinion piece, Editor Ginny Marvin claims that this increased spending could be one of the first signs that product ads will become their own distinct category underneath the digital marketing umbrella in the near future, with dedicated budgets being created for this particular form of campaign. Many networks are backing this idea, and are beginning to shift their priorities to give greater focus to ads.Snapchat, for example, is understood to be testing product ads in a bid to compete with Pinterest and Facebook in the hopes of securing a percentage of the increased social media business spends. But it’s not just social jumping on the bandwagon. In fact, Microsoft is also said to be experimenting more with product ads following a notable 33% increase in product ad clicks. What Does This Mean? So this leaves us with a question. What does a product ads boom mean for web developers who a) want to advertise their services, and b) want to promote the websites they’ve designed for their business clients? Quite simply, it means that there are now more opportunities than ever to reach the right audiences at the right time.However, it also means being willing to take a leap, moving away from tried-and-tested processes and trying out new ways of working. There’s no denying that this is the first step towards a future that isn’t dominated by SEO. Instead, it’s highlighting the growing power of targeting and retargeting, and giving more weight to intent-based behaviours rather than simply search terms and keywords. Businesses must be able to adapt to the changes and use SEO alongside other methods to succeed in the product ad world.