Amazon Advertising with Premiere Creative

SINCE 1994, PREMIERE CREATIVE HAS HELPED BUSINESSES SCALE TO NEW HEIGHTS WITH TAILORED GROWTH MARKETING STRATEGIES

Premiere Creative’s Approach to Amazon Advertising

At Premiere Creative, we work with clients over a broad swath of industries to help drive success online through strategic Amazon Marketing. We make it a point to master best practices across all relevant digital media. In 2019, that means working to understand the power and breadth of Amazon Advertising PPC (pay-per-click). This piece covers Premiere Creative’s comprehensive approach to Amazon Advertising and Amazon analytics. It highlights the techniques we’ve developed to drive success for dozens of clients across many different verticals.  We find that our agile approach to Amazon Marketing sets us apart from the big agencies. We build businesses. Let us build yours on Amazon.

To learn more about Premiere’s Amazon Advertising services, contact us today.

Snapshot: Amazon Advertising’s Place in 2019’s Marketing Landscape

As Amazon’s influence over global eCommerce continues to surge, brands are anxious to make the most of its advertising products. They see the Amazon Advertising platform and its many features – which as of September 2018 have fallen simply under the umbrella of “Amazon Advertising” – as a new frontier. Amazon’s $10.1 billion in 2018 ad spend accounted for 7% of total digital ad spend in the United States for that year. It is now officially the third largest advertiser on the internet. Though $10.1 billion in total ad spend is peanuts compared to the gargantuan budgets enjoyed by the Facebook and Google in 2018 ($55 billion and $116 billion, respectively), Amazon’s growth rate is threatening the duopoly’s future grasp on the market. Analysts expect 8.8% of US digital ad dollars to derive from Amazon Advertising by the end of 2019. They expect that number to be 10% by the end of 2020. In other words, increasing client interest in Amazon Advertising’s robust platform and suite of products is driving an unprecedented level of growth. As Amazon continues to elbow its way onto the market, experts expect it to snatch material percentages of market share from Google and Facebook. The question on a lot of industry analysts’ minds is simple: why? What is it about Amazon Advertising that is so attractive to advertisers? Are its many upsides sufficient to foist it onto the market place? Will it soon enjoy the same level of influence over global ad spend as Facebook and Google? Let’s investigate.

Amazon Analytics: Exclusive Sales Data for Concise Amazon Targeting

Amazon Advertising’s explosive growth should not come as a surprise. Consider the pivotal role Amazon.com plays in the shopping behavior of millions of Americans. Amazon is a central hub for online shopping. A cursory glance at consumer data reveals that 40% of Americans order something from Amazon every month. 44% of shoppers begin their online shopping journeys on Amazon. By contrast only 33% of shoppers begin online shopping on Google. That discrepancy is only going to grow larger as Amazon improves its offerings.

So what does that mean for advertisers? It’s quite simple: Amazon’s dominance over online shopping provides it with oceans of granular and concise shopping data. Let’s say you’re searching for shampoo on Amazon. You find a product that you like at a price that works, throw it in your cart, and check out. Amazon now knows what brand of shampoo you prefer. It knows the price range in which you shop. It knows when you’re likely to need shampoo again. It knows your shipping address, your demographic information, and a host of other data as well. All such information is now available to advertisers on the Amazon Advertising platform. It can – and will –  used to target you concisely for future ads at the moment you’re most likely to convert.

Amazon’s dominance provides it with data, and advertisers use that data to target you with surgical precision. Whether an advertiser is getting started with its first Amazon Sponsored Product campaign or building out a large Amazon store, Amazon’s well of consumer data allows for ROI (Return on Investment), ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), and ACoS (Average Cost of Sale) optimizing decisions to be made at every turn. As a leading Amazon marketing agency, Premiere Creative has dedicated considerable time and resources to driving success for clients on Amazon. Let’s evaluate three of Amazon’s most powerful ad products. They are:

1) Amazon Sponsored Products

2) Amazon Sponsored Brands

3) Stores

To talk through Amazon Advertising’s diverse suite of products, contact Premiere Creative’s experts today.

Amazon Sponsored Products – Keyword Types and Targeting Methods

As Amazon Advertising consultants, Premiere Creative advises many clients on how to minimize ACoS with Amazon Advertising products. You can read more about our ACoS driven approach by reading this blog post, but generally we find that Amazon’s Sponsored Products ads are central to any Amazon Advertising strategy. There’s no doubt that Sponsored Products ads are extremely powerful tools for driving discoverability and incremental sales. But what does running one of these campaigns actually involve?

Amazon Sponsored Products ads appear in search results and on product detail pages. They are pay-per-click display ads that populate based on the keywords used in searches. Sellers using Sponsored Product ads on Amazon target their key customers by bidding against keywords. To simplify the discussion, think of bidding against keywords as a form of targeting that is either don manually (through “manual targeting) or programmatically (through automatic targeting). Manually targeting in Sponsored Product campaigns gives advertisers an increased level of control. They select the keywords, the CPC’s (cost per click), and the budgets they’re willing to allocate to each keyword (or cluster of keywords). Amazon’s automatic targeting feature bids against all keywords relevant to an advertiser’s product detail page and sets the CPC’s itself. Both manual and automatic targeting have their pros and cons, but Premiere Creative’s approach to Amazon Sponsored Product ads involves using both. We find this tactic leaves no stone unturned in the process of keyword bidding.

Keyword match types are another important consideration when it comes Amazon Sponsored Product ad campaigns. The three-keyword match types are:

1) Broad Match Keywords:

Broad match keywords allow Amazon Advertising’s technology to display your ad whenever a specific keyword is searched. If you place a broad match bid against the term “red shoes,”  your ad will appear whenever someone includes the phrase “red shoes” in their search. A person could write “I hate red shoes” into the search bar, and your ad will still be triggered. This match type also accounts for misspellings, and does not account for word order. I.e. if someone searches for “read shoes” or “shoes that are red,” your ad will still trigger.

2) Phrase Match:

Phrase match keywords allow your ad to show up when people include a specific phrase in a search. Word order is an important consideration here. If you run digital marketing for the New York Yankees and you’re trying to bid on the phrase “Yankees Cap,” your ad will show up when someone searches “Snapback Yankees Cap,” Fitted Yankees Cap,” or “Yankees Cap for kids.” However, your ad will not be triggered if someone searches “Yankees hat” or “baseball hat new york yankies.”

3) Exact Match:

This one is a bit self-explanatory. Exact match is the most restrictive keyword type in that it only allows Amazon Advertising to populate your Amazon Sponsored Product ad when someone searches the phrase on which you’ve bid exactly. Going back to the Yankees example, if did an exact match bid on the phrase “Yankees Hat,” your  ad would only populate for those users who searched “Yankees Hat” verbatim.

Now that you understand the differences between automatic targeting, manual targeting, and keyword match types, where do you start with planning? You can go to 10 different digital marketing agencies and get 10 different answers. At Premiere Creative, our team of Amazon Advertising consultants begins by running automatically targeted Sponsored Product campaigns, especially if the client is selling multiple products online. Amazon’s algorithms for automatic targeting make optimizations on the fly. They scan product detail pages, determine the best keywords to bid against, and continuously monitor live campaign results to make adjustments. Running an automatically targeted buy first allows you to see which keywords perform best. It will show you what works, what doesn’t work, and  provide you with ideas for expanding your keyword lists. Automatically targeted campaigns can show you a path forward. You can then use manually targeted campaigns to explore and find your own path.

Additionally, if you’re running Sponsored Product ads for multiple products at once, automatically targeting your first ad buys will show you which ones are your top performers. Once you have those insights, it will be easier to allocate budget effectively once you implement manual targeting.

To sum up, Amazon Sponsored Product ads are incredible for driving incremental sales, increasing the discoverability of your Buy Box offers, and driving up ROAS while decreasing ACoS. It offers both automatic and manual keyword bidding that Premiere uses in tandem to produce optimal media outcomes. The key for manual bidding is doing thorough keyword research and bidding on a combination of high and low volume keywords. The key for automatic bidding is ensuring your product detail pages are as thoroughly filled out as possible. Premiere Creative’s team of digital marketing experts has up-to-the-minute experience running efficient, high ROI Amazon Sponsored Product campaigns for many eCommerce clients.

If you think your business will benefit from an Amazon Sponsored Product campaign, contact Premiere Creative today. 

Premiere’s Approach to Amazon Sponsored Brand Campaigns

Amazon Sponsored Brand ads are similar to Amazon Sponsored Product ads in several ways. First, they’ve only been labeled “Sponsored Brand” ads since September 2018. Before Amazon decided to place all of its marketing products under the umbrella “Amazon Advertising,” these ad units were referred to as “Amazon Headline Search” ads and were a function within AMS (Amazon Marketing Services). Sponsored Brand units appear as banner ads on Amazon search results pages. Like Sponsored Product ads, Sponsored Brand ads are driven by keyword bidding.

The differences between sponsored brands and sponsored products are robust. A sponsored brand ad unit is the first thing consumers interact with when they search for something on Amazon Marketplace. They populate as a row along the very top of an Amazon search results page. Unlike Amazon Sponsored Products ads, Amazon Sponsored Brand ads allow advertisers to display photos and product information for multiple products (up to 3 unique ASINS, or Amazon Standard Identification Number).

Another key difference between sponsored brands and sponsored products concerns the keyword types against which advertisers can bid.

1) Branded product keywords

Branded product keywords are a combination of your brand’s name and a product that you sell. Let’s say you’re working for Cuisinart. Your marketing goal is to drive traffic to 3 product detail pages for Cuisinart products using a single Amazon Sponsored Brand ad. Your creative would include links to each product page, photos, and descriptions for each product. The keywords you would bid against would be “Cuisinart”+ “Food Processor,” “Cuisinart”+ “Griddler,” and “Cuisinart” + “Microwave.”

2) Complimentary product keywords

Complimentary product keywords are bundles of two related products that impact each other’s demand. If I’m selling Salt on Amazon, complimentary product keywords ensure that I’m bidding on “pepper” as well as “salt.”

3) Sponsored Products automatic targeting keywords

This match type only applies if you’ve run Sponsored Product campaigns for the products you’re now promoting via Amazon Sponsored Brands. The algorithm identifies success-driving keywords from your Sponsored Products campaign and bids against them for your Sponsored Brands.

Using Amazon Sponsored Brand campaigns, brands can promote three unique products simultaneously, customize images and headlines, optimize landing pages, and conduct thorough analysis around all of these elements by using Amazon Advertising’s robust suite of data analytics products.

When it comes to best practices for Amazon Sponsored Brand campaigns, there are a few considerations to keep in mind.

1) Amazon Sponsored Campaign creative

should feature your three top-performing products. Placing top-performing products in your Sponsored Brands Campaign increases the volume of clicks and sales on your landing pages. Another important tip is to list each product’s top benefit in the ad’s headline. A large percentage of online shopping orders on Amazon derive from mobile users, so putting your best foot forward is critical. Finally, always avoid claiming that your product is a “top seller” or “#1.” Your ad will not get approved if such claims are made in your copy.

2) Landing page testing

is another critical point for success with Amazon Sponsored Brand campaigns. Landing pages for sponsored ads can either link out your Amazon Store or to a dedicated product details page. Consider testing different landing pages and seeing what works best.

Familiarize Amazon shoppers with your brand today: contact Premiere Creative about Amazon Sponsored Brand campaigns. 

Amazon Stores – Promote Your Brand and Products with Custom Amazon Pages

As NJ’s top Amazon agency, Premiere Creative has seen tremendous success with Amazon Stores. Amazon Stores is a free service that allows brands to build out multi-page sites within Amazon.com. By using this robust digital marketing and eCommerce tool, brands can showcase their offerings and communicate their value proposition more effectively to millions of shoppers.

Amazon Stores provide an enhanced brand-centric shopping experience on Amazon in both desktop and mobile platforms. They allow brands to boost organic ranking in Amazon’s search results and drive higher sales volume. They’re optimized for mobile browsing and allow users to have a concise and easy experience shopping your brand online. By serving as a central hub for all of your products online, they allow you to capitalize on both internal and external traffic sources. But moreover, Amazon Stores allow brands to maintain their brand identity while taking full advantage of Amazon’s incredible functionality.

An Amazon Store is a website for your brand that happens to live within the Amazon ecosystem. Think of it as a stall in a bazaar. Amazon gives you 3 pages worth of real estate on its website completely for free, and provides you with a drag-and-drop website builder to make it fit within your brand’s voice and aesthetic. You can adorn your Amazon Store with rich media assets that bring it to life. You can leverage concepts in SEO (one of Premiere Creative’s other strong suits) to improve your store’s organic search results on other search engines.

Additionally, Amazon Stores also comes with its own suite of Amazon Analytics. Leverage these insights to great effect for optimization decisions, traffic tracking sources, and understanding your strongest selling product.

Start taking advantage of Amazon’s marketing capabilities today! Dial (973) 346-8100 to schedule a free consultation with our Amazon Advertising experts!

PREMIERE CREATIVE: MORE THAN A DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY - YOUR FUTURE BUSINESS PARTNER

We’re in the business of your success. 

Make this year the year you build digital equity by showcasing your business with effective digital marketing and experience exponential growth.