How Small Media Companies Can Compete

BY Kathy Crosett
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In the five-​year period between 2019 and 2023, media properties other than Alphabet, Meta and Amazon have watched their market share get squeezed from 37% to a projected 34.9%. Given those numbers, it’s easy to worry about how small media companies can compete against the market giants. Offering the right services at the right time will help your clients improve their ROI on digital ad spending and give your bottom line a boost.

Small Media Companies 

Reality Check

Here’s a reality check on what's happening with large media sellers. Amazon wasn’t much of a threat in this market in 2019, scoring only 7.8% of total digital ad spending. By the end of 2023, the retail giant will have nearly doubled its share of the ad market, likely scooping up 14.6% of U.S. digital ad spending.

eMarketer analysts believe Google will suffer the biggest impact as a result of Amazon’s growing power in the digital ad market. Google will likely see its share decrease from 31.6% (2019) to 26.4% in 2023.

With its percentage of the market hovering at around 24%, Facebook (now Meta) will likely report $65.21 billion in ad revenue this year. The privacy changes implemented by Apple, allowing users to opt out of being targeted by advertisers, will probably limit the company’s 2022 revenue increase to 15.5%. The company is also experiencing a big change in the source of its revenue. In 2019, 60% of revenue came from the Facebook platform. By 2023, 60% of the revenue will come from the Instagram platform. Both marketers and influencers like Instagram’s “Stories” and “Feed” formats. But the platform’s growth could be negatively impacted if people begin to believe that it’s playing a role in damaging the mental health of the most vulnerable users: teens.

Two factors are working against Facebook as the ad market tries to find its feet during the renewed focus on privacy. eMarketer analysts expect smaller audiences on Meta’s main platforms as some Facebook and Instagram users opt out of tracking. For now, advertisers, such as your clients, can still target audiences through mobile on Android devices.

What You Can Do to Help Clients

The privacy issue isn’t likely to fade away. And that trend underscores the need for your clients to capture and store their own first-​party data. Work with them to develop apps and games designed to encourage their customers to give up their names and email addresses. With that first-​party data in hand, you can help your clients develop email and mobile app campaigns to increase revenue.

Users have long complained that Amazon’s cloud offering is difficult to use. And they’re saying the same thing about buying ads on the site. If you’ve developed expertise in navigating and using the advertising tools on Amazon, you’ll be able to sell your services to marketers that need help.

There’s little question that Amazon commands attention. With an estimated 153 million U.S. Prime active accounts, Amazon can count on 91% of these shoppers to come directly to its site to make purchases. If your clients are promoting a unique product on the site, they have a chance to increase visibility and sales.

Social Media Management

If your SMB owner clients are like many others, they don’t have spare time or money. But they'll hire small media companies to develop social strategies that will help them bring in business. With a robust social media site, your clients can benefit from knowing what their customers like and don’t like about their products. And, reports SproutSocial, they’ll learn what their customers prefer about the competition. If you haven’t encouraged your clients to conduct polls on social media, help them start the process. The feedback can be invaluable. When consumers interact with your clients online, they feel emotionally connected. Your clients can then develop marketing campaigns based on what local consumers care about. 

One critical piece of information you’ll need, as a small media company, when pitching to your prospects is the Digital Audit, available from AdMall by SalesFuel. Once you identify their target audience, the Digital Audit reveals which social and other online sites are most popular.

Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels


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