More American brands plan to increase their ad spend on Amazon than on Google or Facebook for 2018.

Almost two-thirds (63%) of north American B2C marketers intend to increase their spend on Amazon over the next 12 months.

This represents a significantly higher portion than the number of marketers who intend to increase spend on Google (54%), Facebook (53%), and Twitter (23%).

‘The Age of Amazon: Maximising the B2C Opportunity’ report by Clickz Intelligence highlights the rapidly growing reach of the retail and tech brand. While marketers plan to increase budget spend on the platform, it seems only 15% agree they are using Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) to its full potential, while only 17% say they have a fully defined AMS strategy.

Clickz also conducted a survey of 1600 US consumers, which compared the research and buying behaviour for eight categories of retail.

66% of consumers in the survey had bought clothing from Amazon in the previous 12 months, 64% had bought personal care products and 63% had bought home decor products.

Only 43% of consumers had bought grocery products, although this is expected to grow as the brand intends to scale up Amazon Fresh and Amazon Prime Pantry. The acquisition of the Whole Foods brand should also see this number grow.

14% of consumers own an Amazon Echo, and a further 32% are considering it. 15% of respondents in the marketer survey say their businesses have Alexa capabilities, with a further 23% of companies planning to later this year.

Unlike Google, says Chris Humber, head of search at Catalyst/GroupM, “Amazon has transactional data, it knows who you are and what you are purchasing.

“That allows Amazon to move from predictive to prescriptive search, so they can recommend proactively,” he says.

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Further reading

• Tips for getting your Amazon arsenal ready for the giant’s Australian arrival »
• Among other tech introductions and a feud with Google, Amazon just bought back Big Mouth Billy Bass »

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