Digital Marketing Trends: The Rise of Amazon Advertising
There is no hiding the fact that Amazon is taking over our online world. You may have even noticed more ads or sponsored products while you were shopping for Prime Day recently, or if you’re like me, just putting in your weekly Amazon order. Amazon Advertising has become a huge business, especially within the past year. In fact, Amazon became the third largest digital advertising platform in 2018 and is continuing to ease closer and closer to Google and Facebook. Its rich trove of data from all its users’ purchases gives Amazon a slight edge up on competitors in some areas of digital advertising. According to a recent survey from Third Door Media, about 80% of Amazon advertisers plan to increase their spending with the platform this year. If you’re an e-commerce business not currently taking advantage of Amazon Advertising, you are missing out on a massive opportunity.
How Amazon Advertising Works
Similar to the way Google search works, when you type a search term into the Amazon search bar you are presented with an array of results, some of which will be sponsored products or ads. In order to get your product into a more visible position, advertisers bid on specific keywords related to their product offering. You will only pay when a user clicks on your ad, not unlike the way it’s done in Google Ads.
Types of Amazon Ads
The most basic type of ad on Amazon is the ‘sponsored ad’ or ‘sponsored product’ which can appear above or within search results, or even on product detail pages. These ads are keyword targeted but look very similar to an organic product listing. When a user clicks on one of these sponsored ads, they are taken to that specific product detail page and the advertiser is charged per click.
Advertisers can also buy ‘sponsored brands’ which is a larger display of up to three different products with a brand logo, often shown at the very top of the search results page. When a user clicks on this type of ad they are either taken to a product detail page or to a customized brand page in the Amazon interface. These are also purchased on a cost per click basis, similar to the general ‘sponsored ads’
Another option for advertisers to buy through Amazon Advertising are ‘product display ads’ or PDAs. Unlike the first two types mentioned, these are not triggered by keywords but are specific interest or product targeted display ads. You’ll often notice these ads on product detail pages, but they can appear on review pages, search results and even marketing emails as well.
You may be wondering, “can I use Amazon Advertising if I don’t sell my products through Amazon?” Well, the simple answer is, yes. Amazon offers display or video ads for products not sold through their site, that can appear both on Amazon or on third-party sites or apps. This way you can still take advantage of the incredible data to target your display or video ads, but they are bought programmatically across Amazon and other sites and directed to the site you sell your products on.
Should You Advertise on Amazon?
One of the upsides of sponsored Amazon ads is that a lot of consumers don’t even notice them, since they look so similar to the organic product listings. Users don’t necessarily feel like they are being advertised to on Amazon, as opposed to the more obvious ads across other sites on the web.
As I said before, if you are selling any sort of product online, Amazon Advertising really is a no-brainer. With the wealth of purchase and behavioral data at your fingertips you can target your ads to find the most relevant audience for your product. Not only are you putting your ads in front of a specifically targeted audience, you are finding them at the right time in their purchase journey. Consumers are going to Amazon to search for things they want to buy – they are already in a buying mindset. You are much more likely to get stronger conversion rates when you reach your audience at the proper time in their buying cycle.
Although advertising on Amazon may seem relatively straightforward, you still want to be sure you have a well thought out strategy before jumping into anything, as well as the necessarily knowledge to manage and improve your campaigns after launch. For this reason, bringing in professionals is advised to get the most out of the digital advertising platform. At Pico Digital, we are certified Amazon Advertising professionals, meaning we have gone through training and received the Sponsored Ads Accreditation to build custom, high performing e-commerce campaigns for your business within the Amazon Advertising platform. Based on your business and product offering, we will build out a completely customized digital strategy that pairs your Amazon efforts with other advertising channels to create incremental performance gains.
