How to determine which Amazon Advertising product is right for you
Amazon Advertising is a beast.
It’s a critically important source of growth for your brand and, at the same time, CONSTANTLY evolving.
But I’m not going to attempt to boil the ocean with this post.
Instead, I’m going to tackle the very narrow question of: “Which Amazon Advertising product is right for me?”
(For those of you who aren’t willing to invest 4 minutes and 21 seconds into this important question, here’s the TLDR: “It depends on your advertising goal.”)
What is Amazon Advertising?
Ok, I know this is a basic question, but we need to start somewhere and get people to the same starting point.
Amazon Advertising is a suite of tools and products on Amazon that enables brands to “buy” visibility for their products at the top of Amazon’s search results page, on product detail pages, and elsewhere.
There are 3 Amazon ad types available: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display.
Sponsored Products – These are the most popular ad type on Amazon and typically comprise 80-90% of advertiser spend. This ad type uses keyword- and ASIN-targeting to enable advertisers to promote individual products within Amazon search results and on product detail pages.
Sponsored Brands — This ad type allows brands to promote a custom headline, brand logo, and up to 3 products in an ad in the top spot above Amazon search results (and other placements), and offers the ability to send shoppers to their Amazon Stores page or a custom landing page on Amazon.
Sponsored Display — These ads send shoppers to Amazon product detail pages. They deliver relevant ads both on Amazon and on external websites to shoppers who are visiting or visited (remarketing) specific products on Amazon. They appear below the “Add to Cart” button on Amazon product detail pages, next to and below search results, or on third-party websites and apps depending on the chosen targeting method (product/views targeting).
Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display ads are purchased on a pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-click (CPC) basis. That means that your Amazon ads are displayed at no charge (i.e., views, or impressions, are free!). You pay for your advertisements only when a potential customer clicks on the ad. You’re in control of the amount that you’re willing to spend per click and hence the amount you spend on ads.
What’s my Advertising Goal?
Honestly, that’s not a question I should be answering for you. But, roughly speaking, there are four main goals that advertisers typically set for their advertising campaigns on Amazon:
Awareness & Reach - If you’re familiar with the “marketing funnel” concept, this is at the very top of the funnel. You’re simply looking to get the attention of shoppers.
Consideration — OK, you’ve got their attention, but that doesn’t (usually) move products off the digital shelves. You need to engage shoppers and perform an action. Ideally, that’s an Add-to-Cart, but you’ll settle for a click at this stage.
Conversion — This is the goal of all goals: purchases and sales. You’ll typically want to do this efficiently but, depending on where you are in your brand’s lifecycle or what you might be doing with a given product, you might settle for inefficient sales (i.e., high Advertising Cost of Sales) for a period of time.
Loyalty — It’s more costly to acquire new customers than increase the value of existing ones. To existing customers, your brand is a known quantity and in the Loyalty stage, you take advantage of that relationship.
Which Amazon PPC type is right for me?
Or, put differently, which Amazon PPC type is best suited for each advertising goal. Here’s the rundown:
Awareness & Reach — Sponsored Brands (Top of Search), Sponsored Display (Third-Party Websites)
Consideration — Sponsored Brands Video (either Top of Search or Product Pages), Sponsored Display (Product Pages)
Conversion — Sponsored Products
Loyalty — Sponsored Products, Sponsored Display (Remarketing)
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Questions about your Amazon PPC? Schedule a 1:1 Coaching Call, or have us audit your Amazon PPC.
