eMarketer’s Nicole Perrin recently observed that even before the pandemic, ecommerce channel advertising was attracting a lot of attention from advertisers—especially in verticals like consumer packaged goods (CPG)—as well as retailers, which hoped to add new higher-margin revenue streams to their businesses after seeing Amazon’s success in the area. “Amazon had become the No. 3 digital ad seller in the US thanks primarily to placements on its ecommerce property, and companies including Walmart, Target, and eBay had been growing similar businesses,” Perrin noted.

She also pointed out the pandemic boost in ecommerce sales—including a major shift toward digital grocery shopping—accelerated growth in U.S. ecommerce channel advertising to 49.8 percent. “By the end of last year, ads on properties where the primary activity was ecommerce accounted for 12.3 percent of U.S. digital ad spending, up from 9.4 percent in 2019.” Perrin said eMarketer expects investments in these ads to continue growing faster than the overall digital ad market.