With nearly 400 million users worldwide, more and more companies and brands turn to Amazon online store for increased profits and business revenue. But how can you be sure that your products stand out from millions of others and appear first in the search results? The answer is Amazon advertising!
Amazon advertising works in many ways like Google advertising, as users search for products in the Amazon search box using different keywords. The top search results are paid ads: Ads help products appear on the first page of search results, thus increasing traffic to the product sites. Amazon’s advertising campaigns also help to increase sales and brand awareness
Why is it important to advertise?
As more and more companies turn to Amazon to increase their sales, the competition will only get more intense in the future. Those who take advantage of the Amazon marketing tools, will stand out from the crowd. Others will fall behind.
Advertising on Amazon is a must, if you want to succeed!
Once you have started advertising, it is important to remember not to stop your campaigns completely. Amazon initially favours new advertisers and gives them a better chance of succeeding in advertising, but only once. Therefore, it is important to maintain advertising at all times, even with a small minimum budget, to ensure the best possible and ongoing results.
If you pause your advertising and start again in a week or so, you will have to start from scratch. Once you stop, Amazon will no longer offer you the same lead position and opportunities over other advertisers, ever again.
TOP 5 Benefits of Amazon Advertising
1. Stand out in search results
Amazon advertising helps products appear on the first page of search results where potential customers browse the most. This will also help to increase traffic to your product page.
2. Increase Sales
The increasing traffic to your product site will increase your sales, as potential buyers will have access to the advertised products as well as the other products on your site.
When you optimize your ads with compelling headlines and images, competitive pricing, and positive reviews, they help to turn impressions into clicks and clicks into sales.
3. Increase the organic visibility of your products
Increasing your sales can help your products to rank higher in search results and thus improve the organic visibility of your products. Sales history is a very strong ranking factor in Amazon. When a product sells better, Amazon automatically ranks it higher in the search results.
4. Increase Brand awareness
Amazon advertising increases brand awareness. Even if your ad does not directly lead to the actual purchase every time, it will still reach potential buyers by appearing in the top search results. This increases the consumer awareness of your brand.
5. Manage the marketplace and find the best keywords for your products
By creating successful advertising campaigns, you will manage the Amazon marketplace. Data collection plays an important role in advertising, i.e., finding the keywords that convert the best. By directing traffic to your site with keywords, you increase your competitive advantage, not only to sellers who do not advertise, but to the sellers who advertise less than you.
How much should you spend on Amazon advertising?
The advertising budget often raises questions among both beginner advertisers and those already advertising on Amazon. After all, the goal is to increase sales, so money must be used wisely. By setting up a budget, you first determine how many clicks you want on your product page per day.
The easiest way to get started is to set a budget that generates 20-30 clicks per day. As your campaign progresses, you are constantly collecting data, and each click helps to identify the target audience for your products.
Even if just one click leads to sales, you can use the data to find out that the remaining 19 clicks do not represent your desired target audience. Data management allows you to better plan your advertising, define your target audience and ensure the best possible results in the future.
How can you advertise?
The three most common advertising campaign types on Amazon are Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Display Ads. In addition, Amazon has introduced a new Sponsored Brands video ad, that allows sellers to advertise their products even more visually and effectively.
These types of campaigns are ON-Amazon advertising and can all be used in different ways in marketing. Before you start advertising on Amazon, it is a good idea to find out which types of ads are best suited to your business’s marketing strategy in order to increase sales.
You can also advertise your products with OFF-Amazon advertising. This type of advertising does not require you to be registered on Amazon as a seller.
ON-Amazon Advertising
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising has become an effective marketing tool on Amazon, when sellers can “buy” product visibility at the top of Amazon’s search results page.
The Amazon advertising pricing structure is transparent and straightforward and does not include any hidden costs. You only pay when someone clicks on one of your ads. By setting a daily PPC budget, you can fully control and track your own spending.
1. Sponsored Products
Sponsored Products -ads are the most popular ads on Amazon. These ads allow you to promote individual products on Amazon search results and product information pages.
Sponsored Products -ads increase the visibility of your products and help customers find and buy them on Amazon. These ads are, so to speak, disguised as organic search results. Thus, many consumers may not even notice the difference while browsing them.
Sponsored Products are pay-per-click ads based on auction pricing and keyword targeting. The seller only pays for ad clicks (PPC).
These ads appear in two places: in search results and on Amazon’s product information pages as part of an ad carousel and close to the top of the page.
Why use Sponsored Products ad type:
- Increases sales.
- Directs customers to product pages.
- Guarantees top position in search results.
How to set the Sponsored Products advertising budget:
You can set your own daily budget or maximum amount you want to spend on advertising per day.
1. Sponsored Brand, 2. Sponsored Product, 3. Organic search results, 4. Sponsored Video
2. Sponsored Brands
Sponsored Brands ads are an effective way to increase brand awareness, promote offers, and direct customers to specific product categories, product listings, and Brand Store pages.
The Sponsored Brands -ads are pay-per-click ads (PPC). These ads generally appear in Amazon search results as a top banner including 3 products, a brand logo, and a short text. The logo is primarily featured in the ad that helps to increase brand awareness. In addition, these ads can be displayed in four different ad placements above and below the fold.
Sponsored Brands -ad type requires that your brand is registered with Amazon Brand Registry.
Why use Sponsored Brands -ad type:
- Increases Brand awareness.
- Increases sales, including products that are not advertised.
- Directs customers to the Brand Store.
- Generates product visibility through competitors’ products when your own brand can be promoted among the search results of competing products.
How to set the Sponsored Brands advertising budget:
You can set your own daily budget or campaign-level budget, which is the maximum amount you are willing to spend on the whole campaign.
3. Sponsored Display
Sponsored Display ads allow sellers to display ads to customers who have previously viewed a specific product or similar products in the last 30 days. These ads appear on product detail pages and other pages across Amazon, as well as on OFF-Amazon websites.
Sponsored Display are pay-per-click ads and can be targeted by selecting audiences that are automatically created by Amazon. Advertisers can retarget products and re-engage customers with particular interests on and off Amazon.
This ad type requires that your brand is registered with Amazon Brand Registry. It is also available with OFF-Amazon advertising.
Why use Sponsored Display -ad type:
- Reach customers within the online store as well as on off-Amazon pages.
- Reach customers who have already viewed your products or shown interest in a particular product category.
- Products remarketing.
How to set the Sponsored Display advertising budget:
You can set your own daily budget or maximum amount you want to spend on advertising per day.
4. Sponsored Brands Video
Sponsored Brands video ads are keyword-targeted, and you only pay when a user clicks on them. The videos link directly to the product information page of the advertised product.
Adding on-screen text to video ads is a good way to support voice communication in conveying a product message. All the video ads appear automatically without sound and without the ability to switch to full screen mode. For this reason, design your videos to work without sound. In addition, make sure that the text on the screen is also easy to read on different mobile devices.
This ad type requires that your brand is registered with Amazon Brand Registry.
Why use Sponsored Video -ad type:
- Increases Brand awareness and sales.
- Promotes products and brands more visually.
- Enables storytelling.
- Attracts buyers with moving images.
Remember to check Amazon Video Advertising Criteria
Amazon sets specific criteria for video advertising that each video must meet before appearing on the platform. Video ads may not contain customer reviews, Amazon trademarks, or references to Amazon products or services. In addition, the videos have precise technical specifications for example for the size and duration. You can learn more about the criteria of video advertising here.
Each video campaign is subject to the Sponsored Advertising Guidelines and Acceptance Policies. All content must be suitable to the public and comply with all rules and regulations that apply to the advertiser or ad content wherever the ads may appear. Amazon does not accept video ads that do not comply with these policies.
OFF-Amazon Advertising
Amazon DSP (Demand Side Platform)
Amazon DSP is available for all advertisers whether they are sellers on Amazon or not. The platform enables advertisers to increase brand awareness both on and off Amazon.
The ads created and managed through Amazon DSP can be set up to be shown across the leading publisher’s sites, mobile apps, video channels and social media sites.
This advertising tool provides unique targeting capabilities due to always up-to-date Amazon’s exclusive 1st party shopper data. Advertising options available on Amazon DSP are focusing on boosting brand visibility among relevant audiences and therefore are set up to use a cost-per-view model instead of cost-per-click.
There is not really a “self-service option” available for Amazon DSP at the moment. Brands can either go through a service called ESS (Enterprise Self Service) or choose a managed service option through Amazon. In any case, before implementing a DSP campaign type, you should feel confident about the optimization level of your Amazon Advertising PPC campaigns. Once you are profiting with your PPC campaigns, you are ready for DSP.
Retime provides Amazon DSP, so you can also contact us to get started.
Good to know before you start
Before you start Amazon PPC advertising, it is important to make sure all of your Amazon product listings are SEO-optimized. Amazon SEO is a prerequisite for keyword targeting and optimizing the clickthrough rate and conversion rate of Amazon PPC ads. Include all relevant keywords in your product listings. This allows your ad to generate impressions. In addition, pay special attention to creating an attractive cover image, as the same image will appear in product ads.
For everything related to Amazon advertising, you can contact Retime’s experts. We have a set of tools to help you find the right words and phrases to use in your product descriptions in order to optimize your text and make your ads relevant. Our service is available in most Amazon market languages.
Interested in advertising on Amazon? Feel free to contact us. We will help you include your advertising goals to your sales strategy, create effective campaigns and succeed in Amazon global marketplaces!