Google, Facebook ad gains continue to shrink what’s left for everyone else, says analyst firm

With Google and Facebook gobbling up more of the internet ad market this year, the rest of the players are left battling for a shrinking slice of the pie, according to research and consulting firm WARC’s latest Global Ad Trends report. Duopoly’s growing share. The report has the duopoly growing its share in 2019 to command 61.4 percent of all internet ad spend, resulting in the first decline (by 7.2 percent) of the ad spend available to other online media owners. In fact, when WARC looked at all advertising expenditures, online or off, Google and Facebook will bring in 29 percent of the total — $176.4 billion. Why you should care. The reason Google and Facebook have been so successful, according to WARC, is their development and dominance of the ad formats online marketers have found to perform most effectively: paid search and social. Additionally, the ease of use of the self-service ad buying tools offered by both companies make their products accessible to nearly every business, from the largest to the tiniest, wrote WARC data editor James McDonald. That doesn’t mean there aren’t alternatives and challengers, however.