When it comes to ad format, retailers are prioritizing search as companies increase Google and Amazon spend and embrace tactics like voice advertising. Search ad spend will grow 22.5% to $13.12 billion this year. Retail spend will account for the largest share of search dollars at nearly one-quarter of the total US search market.
“Google and Amazon have become online storefronts for nearly every product and service consumers are looking to purchase," Orozco said. "This means that search advertising has increasingly become a vital strategy for retail marketers to focus their budgets on. With the growth of voice search, we should also expect to see a continued emphasis on search in the foreseeable future.”
For consumers, search has established itself as a go-to resource, and voice shows similar promise. According to an August 2018 survey from digital experience platform WP Engine published in January, 43% of US internet users ages 14 to 59 already use Google Search when looking up information, and 9% expect to do so in the future. Fourteen percent of respondents said they current use voice assistants like Amazon Alexa or Apple's Siri, and more than twice that number of respondents plan to do so in the next five years.