1. Amazon Hits Its Stride
2019 was a phenomenal year for Amazon, supported by a record-breaking Prime Day and a highly successful back-to-school season. Brands have begun to understand the power of advertising on Amazon and the unique opportunity it offers to capture people at the beginning of their purchasing journey. Brands have flocked to Amazon for its revenue-generating ad capabilities. We expect this trend to continue in 2020 as Amazon refines its offering and advertiser use becomes more sophisticated. Experiment with sending more of your paid search traffic directly to Amazon as the offerings improve, like Amazon Attribution. Amazon is simply too good of an opportunity to miss.
2. Instagram Remains Facebook’s Secret Weapon
In spite of an ongoing public image crisis, Facebook has continually published positive results throughout 2019, demonstrating that media backlash doesn’t necessarily equate to poor business performance. This growth is likely to continue into 2020 due to the roll-out of a number of new features such as Facebook Watch and Automatic Placements. However, the real story is still the rise of Facebook’s secret weapon, Instagram. With more than 500 million people using Instagram Stories every day, there’s plenty of opportunity for advertisers to experiment with engaging creative. Instagram Explore Feed is expected to launch in the New Year. It’s a fairly new concept for advertisers, bringing more interest-based targeting to the platform. Explore Feed represents a great chance for advertisers to be part of what’s culturally relevant and trending while reaching new audiences looking to discover something new. Exciting times ahead!