The first thing to know is that a campaign is prepared well in advance. Moreover, it runs all year round even with small budgets (to meet Amazon's KPIs) and gets boosted during peak times: Black Friday, Christmas, Prime Days...
OKTee supports you in your Ads strategy and assists you at every step. We're used to seeing sponsored ads when browsing on Amazon. Despite Amazon being widely used today, the functioning of Amazon Ads remains somewhat unclear. Discover everything you need to know before diving into advertising on Amazon!
Amazon Ads (Advertising): What Is It?
Amazon Advertising is simply Amazon's advertising platform. Just as Google has Google Ads, Amazon naturally has Amazon Ads. It's logical to see such a service exist since Amazon can be considered a full-fledged search engine. The difference here is the focus on shopping.
It's crucial to bear in mind that currently, one-third of Amazon's search results are sponsored! Many have already grasped the potential of this tool.
Moreover, for comparison, Amazon's advertising service is one of the top 3 in the world, behind the indisputable Google and Facebook.
Numerous types of ads are available with Amazon, and it's essential to consider the opportunity that Amazon can represent for your business. Indeed, this e-commerce platform boasts millions of customers, with nearly 50% of online purchases in some countries.
The potential also lies in the other services that Amazon offers to customers, as well as sellers. Firstly, we can think of the Amazon Prime service and its over 200 million subscribers who are eagerly waiting to see your products on the site. On the merchant side, we can notably mention the FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) functionality. This means that, in exchange for additional fees, you entrust all the logistics of your products to Amazon.
It's thanks to this method that Prime subscribers receive their products so quickly. In other words, considering Amazon's potential for your turnover, using sponsored ads can be an interesting sales lever.
Different Types of Ads
Something noteworthy about Amazon Advertising is the variety of possible ad types. This is important for adapting the advertising strategy to your sales funnel and budget.
Sponsored Products
You're probably used to seeing these sponsored product ads. Indeed, they appear in the top positions of search results, as well as in suggestions on product pages. If we were to compare to Google, it's somewhat a mix between Search and Shopping ads.
These ads often appear in search results and can resemble regular products (which is one of their main advantages), although they feature a gray "sponsored" label at the top of the item title.
Sponsored product ads work similarly to CPC (cost-per-click) ads. They operate on a cost-per-click pricing model, so you only pay when a customer clicks on the ad. Like Google Ads, Amazon uses keyword targeting on which advertisers bid. The more popular the keyword, the more expensive it is, that's the basic principle.
After clicking, buyers are directed to the detailed page of your product (which looks like any other non-sponsored page).
Amazon suggests using sponsored product ads for "product visibility, new offers, unique selections, offers with low views, clearance items, and seasonal promotions."
However, keep in mind that sponsored product ads tend to be the most expensive of Amazon's advertising options. It's rather logical when you think about it, as they appear the most "natural." However, they are effective in making your products more visible on the Amazon marketplace.
Several options are available when setting up sponsored product ads:
Automatic targeting, allowing Amazon to target keywords and products it deems similar to the product you're advertising.
Manual targeting allows you to select the keywords and products you want to advertise.
Automatic campaigns are ideal for beginners and serve as discovery campaigns to help you understand how consumers interact with your products. Manual campaigns are more suitable for a targeted advertising approach, once you've learned where your products perform best and how Amazon's platform works.
Sponsored brand ads
Sponsored brand ads, formerly known as Headline Search Ads, are ads displayed at the top of the SERP for a given search term. They are currently only available for brands registered with Amazon (naturally).
They also work on a CPC basis, based on the keyword, and direct customers to a specific page on Amazon. These pages can be a brand store, a custom product landing page, or even a detailed product page.
This type of ad has several new features that can be used to further promote products. The first is the "Custom Image" feature, which allows brands to use product-focused images, for example. The second is the video feature, which allows a brand to upload a video for a single product and direct traffic to the detailed page of that product. This can be a value-added feature for products that can benefit from a quick "How to" guide.
Sponsored brand ads are an excellent way to increase brand awareness, promote less popular products, and show consumers how they can use your products through images and video content.
Sponsored Display
In September 2019, Amazon unveiled a new type of ad: Sponsored Display Campaigns or "Sponsored Display."
According to Amazon, this new ad type replaces the old Product Display Ads, noting that all existing Product Display Campaigns are now part of Sponsored Display without any additional action required by advertisers.
The most notable feature of this new ad type is its ability to retarget Amazon shoppers. Additionally, these ads are not limited to Amazon search results. They can be displayed anywhere on Amazon's advertising network, which includes Amazon.com as well as all companies it owns or partners with.
Sponsored Display uses audiences that are automatically created based on relevant purchase behaviors on Amazon.
The two different options when setting up an SD campaign are:
Retargeting: "Reach custom audiences who have viewed product detail pages that match criteria you choose."
Product targeting: "Choose specific products or categories to target your ads."
From there, you can select your audience based on product categories, an ASIN, or specific audiences.
Amazon aims to make sponsored display ads an entry-level opportunity for users looking to familiarize themselves with online advertising before investing more deeply with Amazon Ads.
Other Amazon Ads Tools
To help you be as profitable as possible on its platform, Amazon has developed tools. Whether it's tracking or management tools, the American giant tries to put you in the best conditions to sell as much as possible.
Good to know: These different tools are nevertheless reserved for large sellers. You won't have any interest in using this type of functionality if you only sell a limited number of products.
Amazon DSP
The first tool is Amazon DSP.
This stands for Demand Side Platform. Basically, this means that it's the platform where you can manage "demand." In reality, it's a system that allows you to manage prices and products from different sources in one place. At the same time, in addition to the management aspect, you have the possibility to work on automation and targeting optimization for your sponsored ads in particular. There are also retargeting features to track past visitors.
DSP can be a relevant tool if you want to boost your sales funnel even more. Indeed, automation is something that's all the rage in marketing these days. In the context of advertising, it's clearly relevant. Improving your targeting is of course essential. It allows you to readjust your target, which logically should already be precisely defined before you launch your product.
DSP allows you to manage 4 types of advertising:
Video ads
OTT video ads (non-clickable)
Static ads (without dynamic elements)
