Google’s Market Dominance
For quite some time, Google has been leading search marketing with a considerable global market share. Recent statistics based on the last five years, January 2010 to January 2015, reveal that Google’s market share has remained above 87%. Further statistics highlight Google’s dominance amongst other search engines for the 12 months prior to October 214:
- Google: 88.87%
- Bing: 5.99%
- Yahoo: 3.54%
- Ask Jeeves: 0.47%
- AOL: 0.32%
Google has been so successful largely thanks to their algorithm and the ability to continually show the most relevant search results to users. Google do this by collecting data based on users’ search queries and online behaviour. This information is used to return improved search results with increased relevancy to the search query and the user.
The data that Google collects is extremely valuable to advertisers and is part of the reason why so many businesses and e-commerce websites compete to advertise and connect with their target audience on Google.
Advertise On Google
Google’s most profitable feature to date is AdWords. Advertisers create and submit advertisements to Google who then spreads the ads to the most relevant user. Google can target users with ads based on:
- Browsing history
- Users that have previously visited your website
- Location
- Language
- Demographics
- Device
This form of online advertising generates the majority of Google’s profits and is an excellent platform for businesses and retailers to reach potential customers.
More and more e-commerce sites depend on Google to bring traffic through to their website. The information that Google cannot provide to advertisers is a customer’s purchase history. It is not possible to track this behaviour across the internet as a whole, however there is one website with a distinct advantage.
Amazon.com
Amazon is currently the world’s largest online retailer with over 237 million active customer accounts worldwide and is becoming one of the most valuable brands worldwide with $74 billion recorded in net sales last year. Amazon has also been a successful early adopter of mobile sales, with an impressive 13.5% of mobile visits resulting in a sale. When consumers are ready to purchase online they are likely to go directly to Amazon.
Amazon To Threaten Google’s Dominance
Amazon may not be seen by many as a direct competitor to Google but they do share a fundamental principle – users visit their website to search and they provide the most relevant search result.
They are obviously more focused on the commerce side of the equation, but, at their roots, they are answering users’ questions and searches, just as we are.
Eric Schmidt – Google Chairman
The data Amazon is collecting from users that perhaps concerns Google the most. Amazon collect data on what we buy and the products users have in their Amazon Wish List as well as information collected from the popular Amazon Kindle and Amazon Prime services.
It is this data that is most valuable to e-commerce advertisers as it provides more accurate information on who is most likely to buy a particular product.
Who do you think is most likely to become Google’s biggest competitor? We would love to know how you feel about Google’s market dominance, please let us know by commenting below.
No comments yet.