Industry trends, consumer shopping habits, and Amazon’s continued e-commerce dominance have helped turn the tech giant into an advertising behemoth.
The company’s ad business recently surpassed a $30 billion annual run rate in the third quarter. Wall Street expects advertising revenue to eclipse $10 billion for the holiday quarter when Amazon reports earnings Thursday afternoon. (Update: Amazon reported $9.7 billion for “advertising services,” a new section on its earnings release)
Amazon does not break out specific financials for advertising, but its “Other” category primarily includes sales of advertising services. And revenue for that category has skyrocketed over the past few years, now making up more than 7% of Amazon’s total revenue and helping fuel its bottom line given the high profit margins in digital advertising.
Amazon’s advertising arm is eight times as large as Snapchat’s entire business, and nearly seven times as large as Twitter. It