According to the market research firm eMarketer, 2019 will mark “a major milestone in the world of advertising.” This is the year in which, for the first time, digital ad spending will exceed traditional ad spending across U.S. media, according to the firm’s latest forecast.

The research firm expects total digital ad spending in the U.S. to increase 19 percent to $129.3 billion this year, which would represent 54.2 percent of the estimated total U.S. advertising spend for the year. Mobile will continue its dominance, according to eMarketer, and account for more than two-thirds of the total digital ad spending bucket, with an estimated $87.1 billion share of the total.

Surprisingly, according to the eMarketer report, the Big Two digital players – Google and Facebook – are expected, for the first time, to lose market share even as their advertising revenues increase in 2019.

This is due to the fact that “the big winner this year will be No. 3 player Amazon,” eMarketer noted. And Amazon “continues to take [advertising] share from just about everyone. Its U.S. ad business will grow more than 50 percent this year and its share of the U.S. digital ad market will swell to 8.8 percent.”

“Amazon offers a major benefit to advertisers, especially CPG and direct-to-consumer [D2C] brands,” eMarketer forecasting director Monica Peart said in the firm’s report. “The platform is rich with shoppers’ behavioral data for targeting and provides access to purchase data in real time. This type of access was once only available through the retail partner to share at their discretion. But with Amazon’s suite of sponsored ads, marketers have unprecedented access to the 'shelves' where consumers are shopping.”

The report also predicts where the “new” digital ad spending is coming from: Advertising in directories, such as the Yellow Pages, is expected to “take the biggest hit (down 19 percent) this year,” while traditional print (newspapers and magazines) drops nearly 18 percent. Overall, traditional ad spending’s share in the U.S. market will drop to 45.8 percent in 2019, from 51.4 percent last year.