I didn't need to read the article to know. No, Ads don't make more than AWS.
Adspend has been utterly gutted since the early 00's as analytics have shown how ineffective it is. There's still very large companies that uses a nonsense correlated-purchase-after-seeing-an-ad attribution model. This is fantasy to justify existing jobs and to tell other big companies how amazing they are.
Digital ads are not going to "take off" anytime soon either, as the hyper-concentration of capital makes spends more regular and "chunky" (block of 5mil spend to each target platform from the big boys, to the big boys) which hasn't even kept up with inflation. A bearish stance when factoring in population growth slowing and political pushback/infighting/adblocking, is pretty reasonable.
Eh, you might not want to confess that you haven't read the article before arguing against it, that's pretty bad form.
Why don't you read it and argue against the arguments laid out in the article instead, so the rest of us might learn something instead of reading empty opinions from someone who doesn't even listen to others?
Ofc I read it, but the "article" barely manages to make a point with hyperthin facts (AMZ disclosures). The Benedict Evans chart (Amazon: more profit than AWS?) answers concisely, making the "discussion" rather pointless.
> However, we can make an informed guess. Google’s core business had 2020 operating margins
> To repeat - this is just an informed guess, and ads will of course change other things
Lots of handwaving to support a strange theory for no apparent reason other than to portray Amazon as evolving into the same business as Google (a pretty face on an Ad business) for a greater narrative. This feels like establishing facts, with a weak foundation, to reference in the future.
OFC this kind of information has been talked about before:
https://marketingland.com/analysts-say-amazons-advertising-b...
and now Amazon has figured out how to maximize by focusing on other "big brand" items, rather than the ever pitiful mom-and-pop (https://www.innovell.com/it-is-just-amazon-advertising-but-w... - all sponsored focused) but the market is only so big (eyeballs). If AMZ is only 10% of retail, it doesn't make sense to have the same spend as on Google or other retail-focused (Target, Walmart, BestBuy, etc).
I think you're misunderstanding where many of these ads _are_. They're on Amazon itself. Search for anything on Amazon, and you're going to see sponsored listings in the search results. Look at a product page, and you'll see competing offerings.
I've got some novels up on Amazon and it is totally accepted within the indie author community at this point that Amazon ads can absolutely be worth it.
I didn't need to read the article to know. No, Ads don't make more than AWS.
Adspend has been utterly gutted since the early 00's as analytics have shown how ineffective it is. There's still very large companies that uses a nonsense correlated-purchase-after-seeing-an-ad attribution model. This is fantasy to justify existing jobs and to tell other big companies how amazing they are.
Digital ads are not going to "take off" anytime soon either, as the hyper-concentration of capital makes spends more regular and "chunky" (block of 5mil spend to each target platform from the big boys, to the big boys) which hasn't even kept up with inflation. A bearish stance when factoring in population growth slowing and political pushback/infighting/adblocking, is pretty reasonable.