When it comes to advertising, Amazon is a bit of an anomaly. Sure, other digital advertising channels like Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram have also experienced explosive growth in the past few years. But when it comes to Amazon Advertising, things are a bit different.
With over 240 million active users and 500+ million products listed on its website alone, it’s safe to say that Amazon is one of the biggest online marketplaces in existence today – and likely will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
As such, advertisers continue to allocate their advertising dollars into this channel and see great results. In fact, a recent study found that 90% of brands using Amazon as a primary advertising channel saw a positive ROI. So why exactly does this platform work so well for advertisers?
Amazon is a fast-growing online marketplace with hundreds of millions of users. It’s also a major force in digital advertising, accounting for 13% of all digital advertising expenditure in the U.S. alone last year.
In other words, as an ecommerce brand, your business needs to be on Amazon if you want to thrive beyond your own website and native app ecosystem. Unfortunately, that’s where many brands stop their research.
They see the potential in Amazon ads and dive right in without fully understanding what they’re getting into, or how best to allocate their limited marketing budget. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the do’s and don’ts of launching an effective Amazon advertising campaign as well as six actionable tips for greater success.
What is Amazon Advertising?
Amazon advertising is a self-serve platform that allows brands to bid on and purchase targeted keywords that appear in search results, product detail pages, and on Amazon-owned email and mobile apps. You can also pay to have your products promoted to Amazon Prime members.
Amazon advertising has many benefits compared to other online advertising channels such as Google AdWords, paid search, and retargeting. One big advantage for brands is that users are already on Amazon and are actively looking for products to purchase. This makes them highly qualified leads.
To successfully get the most out of your Amazon advertising budget, you have to know what you’re doing, which is why we’ve broken down the basics for you below.
Why Should Brands Advertise on Amazon?
Amazon is the world’s third-largest digital advertising platform, and its user base is huge. In fact, Amazon has more than 340 million active users globally. By comparison, Google has over 2 billion monthly active users.
Beyond sheer scale, though, Amazon customers are highly engaged and ready to buy. This is because they’re already on the platform with a clear intent: to make a purchase.
How Much Does Amazon Advertising Cost?
The cost of Amazon advertising varies based on a number of factors, including your desired budget and the competitiveness of the keywords you want to target. To give you a rough idea, though, here are some approximate costs.
Search terms – $0.75 per click Search terms with Amazon’s “Buy” button – $2 per click Product display ads – $0.55 per click Product display ads in the Amazon app – $0.65 per click Depending on the level of competition for your keyword, you’ll likely be bidding on a monthly basis.
This means you’ll set a daily budget and may not know how much you’ll spend until the month is over. Keep reading to learn how to mitigate risks associated with this approach.
3 Key Takeaways Before Launching Your Campaign
Before diving into the nitty-gritty of Amazon advertising, there are three key takeaways you should keep in mind. First, Amazon advertising is an ongoing process that requires patience and ongoing maintenance.
It won’t happen overnight and you’ll likely have to adjust your strategy along the way. Second, it’s important to start with the end in mind. Before you even think about creating your first campaign, you need to identify your top goals.
What are you trying to achieve with Amazon advertising, and which metrics can you tie back to those goals? Finally, you need to stay organized from the get-go. Whether that means using an excel spreadsheet, a dedicated note-taking tool, or a marketing automation platform, you need to make sure you’re tracking important data.
That way, if you make changes to your strategy or want to evaluate how it’s going, you’ll have easy access to the data you need.
2 Key Mistakes to Avoid When Launching an Amazon Advertising Campaign
Before you dive into creating your first campaign, make sure you’re not making these two common mistakes.
Mistake #1: You don’t understand your customers – Before you even think about what keywords you should target or the products you want to promote, you need to understand your customers. What are their pain points? What are their desires? What are their demographics? Amazon provides a variety of data points that will help you better understand your customers, including their:
- Geographic location
- Gender
- Age
- Behavior
- Language
Once you have a better understanding of your customers, you can start to plan your campaign.
Mistake #2: You’re not tracking key business metrics – Data is your friend. It will guide you through the campaign process and help you make informed decisions along the way. Without tracking the right business metrics, though, you won’t know when you need to make adjustments to your campaign.
Why Should You Care About Amazon Advertising?
Let’s quickly recap the advantages of Amazon advertising so that you see why it’s worth your time and energy. One major advantage is that your ads will appear alongside Amazon product search results, which means you’ll be in front of customers who are already on the platform and actively searching for products to purchase.
That’s a huge advantage compared to standard display ads or even Google search ads. Another major advantage is that Amazon has a massive user base, with more than 340 million users worldwide. That’s more than double the size of Google’s monthly user base of over 2 billion users.
And a third advantage is that Amazon has significant reach among older demographics and smaller, emerging markets. Google, on the other hand, has focused on younger audiences in the U.S. and Western Europe.
With Amazon advertising, you can reach a whole new set of customers who aren’t yet familiar with your brand. If you’re new to Amazon advertising, don’t worry. It may seem a little overwhelming at first, but it’s not as difficult as it might seem. By following the tips outlined above, you can avoid common mistakes and get the most out of your Amazon advertising campaign.
To ensure you get the most out of your Amazon advertising budget, follow these six tips.
- Define your Ad Objectives – Amazon advertising allows you to create ads to drive customers to your products, boost brand awareness, or drive App downloads. It’s important to understand what you’re trying to do. If you’re trying to grow your brand, you may want to focus on brand awareness ads. If you’re trying to drive traffic to your app, focus on app promotion ads.
- Know your Customers – You should know your customers better than they know themselves. Once you have a better understanding of who they are and what they want, you can tailor your ad creative and copy to better resonate with them. This is one of the many reasons why you should use an ASIN tracker to research your customers. You should also conduct A/B tests on your creatives to further hone in on what resonates with your customers.
- Amazon’s Biggest Ad Platform Differences From the Competition There are a few key aspects of Amazon advertising that set it apart from the rest of the digital landscape. Understanding these differences up front can help you get more out of your ad spend.
- First, unlike Google or Facebook, Amazon’s ad platform is entirely self-serve. There’s no need to hire a full-time employee to manage your campaigns. Ultimately, while this saves you tons of time, it also means that there’s significantly less human oversight in Amazon’s ad platform.
- Next, Amazon’s ad platform is less focused on keywords and more focused on product-related searches. This means you don’t have to worry as much about keyword research or finding the right long-tail keywords. You still need to know what you’re selling, but the focus is on your product listing.
- Finally, on Amazon, you can’t create a campaign and just leave it. Amazon’s ad platform requires an ongoing commitment from brands to continually optimize and improve their campaigns.
Don’t Assume, Test
You’ve likely heard that testing your ad creative and copy is essential to a successful advertising campaign. While this is certainly true for every advertising channel, it’s especially vital for Amazon.
This is because Amazon’s algorithm doesn’t focus on keywords or click-through rate like Google does. Instead, it focuses on product sales, which means that your ad creative and copy must be geared toward driving sales.
When testing ad creative and copy, look at these two major areas:
- Headline – The headline is the first thing a potential customer sees in your ad. This is also the primary factor in whether or not a customer will actually click on your ad. Because of this, you want to spend a lot of time on coming up with a headline that will catch a customer’s attention.
There are a few major things to keep in mind when creating your headline, including:
- Offer – The offer is what you’re actually trying to sell. It’s important to match the offer with the headline in order to drive sales. This means that the offer, headline, and ad visuals should all be geared toward selling the same product.
- Branding – Branding is less focused on selling and more focused on building a brand. This means that it’s more important to match your brand identity.
Strategy First, ad budget Second
To properly run an Amazon advertising campaign, you have to have a solid strategy first. This means choosing the right product categories, targeting the appropriate audience, and creating a compelling ad creative and copy.
Once you have a solid plan in place, you can then start to worry about budget. It’s important to realize that Amazon’s ad system is self-serve. This means that you will have to create your own ads and campaigns and manage them on your own.
You don’t have the luxury of working with an ad agency on a large-scale campaign. Instead, you will have to create your own campaigns and ads and manage them on your own.
Where to Start?
Once you’ve identified your ad objectives, chosen your product categories, and selected your target audience, it’s time to start creating your ad campaigns. Amazon allows you to create two types of ad campaigns:
- Product Ads – These are the most common type of campaign and are geared toward driving traffic to a product page. They are most often used to drive sales or drive app downloads.
- Brand Ads – Brand ads are geared toward building brand awareness. They are often used in conjunction with product ads to drive additional traffic to your product pages. The goal with brand ads is to tell your brand story in a compelling way.
How to Successfully Run an Amazon Advertising Campaign
Once you’ve followed the above tips and have a solid plan in place, it’s time to execute. Follow these steps to ensure that you have a successful Amazon advertising campaign.
- Create your campaign – The first step is to create your campaign. This includes selecting the type of campaign you want to run, the types of products you want to advertise, and the type of budget you want to spend.
- Select your ad type – Once you’ve created your campaign, you’ll want to select your ad type. There are two basic types of Amazon ad types: product ads and brand ads.
- Create your ad creative – Once you’ve selected your ad type, it’s time to create your ad creative. This includes coming up with a theme or concept, writing an ad headline, and creating your ad visuals.
Conclusion
Ultimately, Amazon advertising is a major opportunity for ecommerce brands. However, it’s important to understand that it’s not a plug-and-play solution. Properly setting up and managing an effective Amazon advertising campaign requires a significant amount of time and effort.
Keep in mind that Amazon’s ad platform is different from other major digital advertising channels. This means that you won’t be able to apply the same strategies that you’ve used on other channels. Instead, you’ll have to approach Amazon ads in a different way.
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