The pandemic led to unprecedented growth in US ecommerce sales. Even as sales growth returns to somewhat normal levels in 2021, total sales will far exceed our pre-pandemic estimates.

Ecommerce monetization opportunities for publishers are expanding. Publisher revenues from ecommerce now include commissions and fees generated from affiliate or partner marketing content, curated ecommerce marketplaces, and branded merchandise.

SMS marketing has long remained under the radar. But several tailwinds will make sending text messages to customers a common practice in 2021.

Amazon's ad revenue is crushing competition

Traditionally, travel advertisers including online travel agencies are among the biggest search ad spenders on Google. That business tanked last year, but ecommerce-related search advertising outperformed thanks to the supercharged digital retail environment.

Amazon’s US ecommerce sales will grow by 15.3% this year to $367.19 billion after a meteoric 44.1% rise in sales during 2020.

Search had a challenging time during the pandemic. Spend grew just 5.3% to £7.34 billion ($9.41 billion) in 2020, down from 17.7% the previous year and significantly down on our pre-pandemic estimate of 12.2% growth. However, this latest forecast is a reversal on our interim August 2020 estimate, when we expected a decline of 1.7% for the year.

eMarketer is pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Litmus' Cynthia Price, vice president of marketing, along with Epsilon’s Nicole Eaton, vice president, group accounts, and Proactiv’s Dave Sims, head of customer experience. They will discuss tried and tested strategies for creating high-performing email onboarding programs.

Even as total worldwide retail sales declined by 3.0% in 2020, retail ecommerce growth boomed to 27.6%. Ecommerce growth will decelerate substantially in 2021 to 14.3% as brick-and-mortar sales recover.

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Jonathan Woodward, head of new business, demand generation at Adobe Experience Cloud, Americas. He discussed how marketers can capitalize on ecommerce’s unprecedented growth by improving the customer experience.

Our latest forecast shows that Amazon, Walmart, and eBay will remain the top three largest ecommerce companies in the US by total sales volume, while Best Buy and Target will usurp The Home Depot and Wayfair for the No. 5 and No. 6 spots on the 2021 list, respectively.

Link Walls, vice president of digital marketing strategy at ChannelAdvisor, talks with Rimma Kats, executive editor at eMarketer, about how marketers should reevaluate retail media, ads on Amazon, and data privacy.

The duopoly of Facebook and Google still dominates digital ad revenues worldwide, but a collective rival from the ecommerce industry is showing momentum.

Social commerce accelerated in the US in 2020 amid the pandemic-driven ecommerce boom as key platforms advanced their shopping and checkout capabilities.