When we consider launching a sales-oriented advertising campaign , we will almost certainly think of Facebook or Google at first . This is something totally normal, since they are such important and influential brands that it is inevitable that they are part of our top of mind and, therefore, appear in our mind automatically and almost unconsciously.

However, in this article I want to talk about another possibility , an interesting option that I recommend you add to your list of priorities: Amazon Advertising .

What is Amazon Advertising? 

Amazon Advertising is Amazon’s pay-per-click advertising platform . As with other similar solutions, advertisers can place ads in different locations, use different options to segment the audience that can see them, and pay only when users click on them.

Amazon is, today, the online sales platform aimed at the most important end customer , the best known and the one that generates more revenue. More than enough arguments to be taken into account in our marketing and sales strategies.

For this there is Amazon Advertising, the pay-per-click advertising system that Amazon makes available to advertisers who wish to advertise their products or services.

Amazon Adversiting allows us to choose different locations to show our ads , as well as various audience targeting options . If we succeed with these two variables, location and segmentation, we can reach the ideal target that interests us most. Take note on how to do it!

The two great location options of Amazon Advertising

Within the Amazon Advertising ecosystem we can distinguish between two great location options :

1. Ads within the Amazon page itself . It is the most direct option, and its main advantage for brands is that they can take advantage of a high quality visitor flow, since, in general, most users only visit Amazon when we already have a firm intention to buy. In other words, with these ads we can reach users who are already at the bottom of the conversion funnel and, therefore, are very likely to become real customers the trend can be observed in Blue world City.
2. Ads in other places on the internet . Amazon Advertising is not limited to the purchasing platform itself, but thanks to Amazon DSP (which we will explain in more detail in another section), advertisers also have the possibility to publish ads throughout the internet. This option allows users to be segmented based on the information Amazon has about them. For example, we can direct the ads to users who are showing signs that, possibly, they will buy a product similar to ours very soon, either because they usually acquire products of this category or because they have searched for information about our brand before.

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The different formats of Amazon Advertising

Sponsored Ads

These types of ads are shown in the search results and on the product detail pages, directing Amazon users directly to a specific product sold on the platform.

With this class of ads you can increase the sales of your products , since these will have greater visibility when displayed in a prominent place on the results page: usually at the top or bottom, as well as on other product detail pages.

Sponsored Products are activated by keywords and advertisers have several options:

• Choose between different types of concordance.
• Establish a daily budget.
• Set the duration of the campaign.

Featured Ads (Sponsored Brands)

They are ads aimed at generating sales and brand awareness ( branding ) through keywords , but always on search results. Its main objective is to boost the discovery of your brand or reinforce it . The operation of these ads is as follows:

• A bid is made and the ad that wins it is the one that appears at the top of the page. Normally the ad is your brand logo, where you can also include personalized messages.
• When users click on your brand logo, they are automatically taken to a store or personalized landing page, where the product in which they are interested appears.
• When the user clicks on the product, he is automatically directed to a detail page about it.

Stores

Stores offer the option of creating a multi-page website for your brand on Amazon and are available to suppliers, vendors and agencies like Capital Smart City. Stores pages have their own brand URL, so they are a great option to direct your traffic to them.

This is a more sophisticated and complex option , since a good Stores page incorporates both the history of the brand and the product catalog , including related products and recommendations. To create them, you can add videos, text and images through a content manager, without the need for programming knowledge.

It is also not necessary to be familiar with coding for the design of a Store, since it uses blocks of content that can be dragged and dropped, or predesigned templates to create a personalized Store of several pages, without writing any line of code.

Display ads

Display ads allow you to display banner-type advertising pieces  with custom creatives on Amazon websites, applications and third-party websites. The platform has different creative formats and segmentation options based on users’ buying behavior. They are also available for users who do not sell on Amazon.

Display ads campaigns on Amazon Advertising can be managed by the advertiser himself or by a team of experts. In any case, as with other campaigns of this type, the keys to success are: look for copies and attractive images that call for action, and perform tests type A / B testto progressively optimize the ads.

The locations where your display ads can appear are these:

Video ads

Video ads can be used as a complement and even as an alternative to display campaigns , since they allow us to tell the story of the brand in a more impactful and emotional way as well as to make effective demonstrations of products and services.

As with display campaigns, video ads can be placed on both Amazon sites and other places on the Internet, always taking advantage of the information available to this platform to reach our ideal audience.

Naturally, the success of these types of campaigns depends largely on creativity . In addition to taking maximum care of the quality of your video, remember that in many cases users will view it from mobile devices, so it is never a bad idea to include subtitles.

The locations where your ads can appear in video format are these:

Custom Ads

The strength of personalized ads is that they can offer engaging and innovative experiences to try to capture the attention of our target audience. A possible example is live events. In contrast, personalized ads are complex and require the collaboration of an ad consultant.

Another benefit of personalized ads is that they can reach our potential customers wherever they are, both online and offline: from brand integrations with Amazon’s latest retail initiatives to large-scale outdoor advertising. 

Amazon DSP

Amazon DSP (formerly known as AAP or Amazon advertising platform) is a programmatic solution to reach Amazon audiences in different places . Possible locations include Amazon sites and applications, third-party sites and ad exchanges.

Amazon DSP claims to maintain a high standard of quality and safety through measures such as manual review of website quality and real-time bid evaluations. It also has a unique and high quality inventory.

Why do Amazon Advertising in your digital strategy and how it can help you

These are the main reasons why you should include AmazonAdvertising campaigns in your digital marketing strategy:

• Because of its reach . Amazon already has more than 300 million users, and an estimated 80 million more will become members of Amazon Prime in the United States alone. In Spain, the influence of this page in the ecommerce sector continues to grow. In fact, according to IAB Spain data, 7 out of 10 Internet users are already using Amazon. The average cost is € 75 per purchase and, in addition, these are repeated an average of 2.4 times.
• Because of the synergies it generates . As part of a global ecommerce strategy, Amazon ads can reinforce organic positioning within this platform. That is, if you publish paid campaigns, your organic results will also be better.
• Because of its relevance . Amazon has insider information about users’ consumption habits, which other platforms simply cannot access. That is why it allows us to establish unique and different connections with our audience, knowing firsthand when they are ready to buy.
• For its analysis functions . Amazon Advertising metrics can help brands better define and optimize their marketing strategies to achieve increasingly effective advertising.

• For its simplicity . Compared to other pay-per-click platforms, Amazon remains relatively easy to use. It even has an automatic campaign creation option that does almost all the work for you.
• Because of its growth potential . Although Amazon advertising is still behind the pay-per-click giants (Facebook and Google), it is thefastest growing source of Amazon’s revenue in Spain.
• For its additional advantages:
  • Possibility of using exclusive audiences . Advertisers can choose different locations to show their ads with different audience targeting options, which will allow you to reach your ideal target.
  • Access to a single quality inventory. Advertisers have the possibility to address their audiences programmatically, both on Amazon’s own platform and in a third-party inventory.
  • Security . To ensure brand safety, Amazon conducts periodic manual reviews to maintain quality standards.

Success stories

These are some of the success stories of Amazon Advertising strategies best known and media :  

• Samsung The objective of this campaign was to strengthen the brand awareness of the Samsung Galaxy S8 phone in five European countries. For this, a large multi-screen campaign was launched that included customized products.
• Schleich In collaboration with the Spanish digital marketing agency Amazing, a complete campaign to launch the brand’s products on Amazon.es was devised.
• Brita Together with AMG, a successful campaign was designed for the website and the mobile platform aimed at the most likely consumers for the Brita jar, which included sending promotional emails to previously segmented customers. 
• Logitech . A campaign based on prominent ads was launched to reinforce the brand and recognition of this signature of computer peripherals.
• Nespresso The Amazon Ads feature was used with great skill to establish long-term customer relationships.
• Phillips . Campaign based on ads for featured products to promote items with less visibility within the brand’s extensive catalog. 

Google and Facebook are still the leaders of online advertising, but Amazon follows closely

Today, the giants of online advertising are still Google and Facebook, but for some time there has been a remarkable growth in Amazon strategies . These data speak for themselves: during the second quarter of 2019, the leading internet sales platform registered an income of two million dollars in online advertising, reaching the United States as the third digital advertising platform.

Therefore, it is not a good idea to ignore Amazon Advertising when defining our strategy . It is an online advertising platform in full growth and constant development, with many interesting possibilities: various types of ads, bidding systems and great opportunities to reach our potential customer due to its reach and options for ad placement and segmentation of customers.

With Amazon Advertising, it is not only possible to highlight our products on the platform, but we can also, as many companies have already done, effectively reinforce our brand awareness among users .

Have you had any doubts about how to launch an online advertising strategy on Amazon? Write me in the comments section and I will do my best to resolve it!