Amazon Marketing: Five Major Keys To Build A Perfect Strategy

Amazon is essentially everywhere. It’s winning Oscars. It’s conquered Whole Foods. It’s manufacturing tablets and the Kindle. It’s got crazy fast shipping with Amazon Prime. It’s deploying drones — it’s probably standing right behind you. 

Oh, and let’s not forget it occasionally sells Amazon products online like, you know — everything. Whether you’re looking for books, clothes, appliances, or horrifying sequin pillowcases with Nicolas Cage’s face on them, Amazon has you covered. Additionally, you might have also heard that it’s entered the advertising game with Amazon Advertising (think Don Draper meets Jeff Bezos, only with a little less hair and more world domination). 

In any effective eCommerce marketing strategy, Amazon Advertising is quickly becoming a key component. Read on for five major keys to build a perfect strategy. 

What Is Amazon Advertising?

Amazon Advertising — formerly known as Amazon Marketing Services — was launched three years ago in 2018 as a new digital marketing solution for Amazon sellers. The highly-anticipated service allows vendors to promote their product pages directly to their unique target markets. 

Amazon Advertising encompasses a wide range of offerings, including:

Together, these powerful online marketing tools allow marketers to implement advertisements anywhere, from the very first page of Amazon search results to its in-depth product detail pages and beyond, while also providing the ability to build a more robust brand presence. Likely, this list of offers is sure to grow and evolve, but they all strive towards one purpose — to help businesses better reach and engage shoppers throughout every stage of the sales funnel. 

Your business won’t necessarily need to implement every single one of these tools, but understanding what each provides can help you immensely to determine how to best use Amazon Advertising to benefit your budding business. 

Five Keys to Build An Effective Amazon Advertising Strategy

To help you be successful on Amazon, let’s take a quick look at five important keys to build an effective Amazon Advertising strategy. 

Know Your Goals

Do you want to boost brand awareness or drive more sales?

While diving right in to run an Amazon ad might be tempting, most marketing campaigns succeed or fail due to decisions made well before the very first ad dollar was ever spent. It’s important to identify the key metrics you want to track in order to verify the success of your ads on the Amazon platform. 

If driving sales is at the top of your priority list — whether overall or for a specific product — generating conversions will be your main goal. The best way to track success is with the Advertising Cost of Sale metric, which is calculated simply by dividing your total ad spend by your total sales from advertising. Set a target Advertising Cost of Sale at the outset to help determine your company’s sale goals. 

However, if you’d rather focus on brand awareness, then your metric of success will be impressions — the number of times your ad is viewed. Again, set a good target impression total and figure out which cost-per-click bids will allow you to win more relevant keywords, appear above your competitions, and achieve your target. 

Implement The Right Tools

Did you know Amazon offers a lot of advertising opportunities within its diverse ad platform? Yup, it’s true! So make sure you understand these crucial products and how they can help you achieve your business goals. 

Most retailers starting on Amazon begin with Sponsored Product ads. These operate similarly to good ol’ Google ads on a Pay Per Click (PPC) model, where you simply bid on search terms to promote specific products. Based on your ad relevance, they’ll appear to consumers in product search results and on the product detail pages. They’re primarily used for boosting sales, utilizing the Advertising Cost of Sales metric as their key performance indicator. One of the really nice things about Sponsored Product ads is that the algorithm allows them to seamlessly blend in amongst other popular product listings; however, at the end of the day, they are not the only option for advertising on Amazon, nor would it be wise to limit yourself to implementing these ads on their own. 

Sponsored brand ads are an excellent way to simultaneously promote many products all at once while also boosting your brand awareness. You see, they work on a pay-per-click, keyword-targeted model, displaying multiple products alongside a headline — when clicked, they direct shoppers to a landing page. This unique landing page can be your Amazon Store, which is a free-to-create page featuring your specific brand and other products. Creating a top-notch multi-page storefront directly on Amazon filled with useful high-value content is an amazing way to stand out.

Prioritize Your Products and Optimize Their Detail Pages

Carefully choose products that are most important to your brand and customers to advertise.

In most cases, these items will be your most sought-after products, new products that are in season or otherwise in demand. Be sure these products are not only in stock but also have competitive pricing.  

Ideally, you’ll want to choose hot products with a Buy Box percentage and receive a high number of unique product detail page visits. Make sure, however, that those product detail pages adhere to the 3 C’s by being Clear, Concise, and Compelling. Stick with high-quality product images, relevant product descriptions, and descriptive titles. Your ad will get consumers in through the door, but your product details page will lock in the sale — so take extra care when crafting it!

Budget Wisely

It’s of the utmost importance to come up with an overall marketing plan and advertising budget for Amazon and allocate that budget wisely and accordingly to attain the greatest amount of coverage. 

Initially, it’s always a best practice to put the majority of your Amazon Budget directly into Sponsored Product Ads before divvying up the rest between Product Display and Sponsored Brand ads. This way, you can see which ads work best for you in what locations. 

The key here is to start prioritizing Amazon in your company’s marketing strategy. If all goes well, it’ll convert just as well — if not better — than your website. So be sure to invest a good amount of time and budget in Amazon Advertising the very same way you would for other social media advertising platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Google. 

Test and Optimize

If you ask us, one of the best aspects of Amazon Advertising is that it provides sellers with important data and statistics that they would not otherwise receive. 

Lastly, be sure to take full advantage and use this insight to optimize your ads and products to their fullest selling potential—yes, there’s such a thing as Amazon SEO (or search engine optimization). 

Whether optimizing copy to impact Click-Through-Rates, altering keywords for a better Advertising Cost of Sale, or simply updating product details to increase engagement, make sure you’re constantly eliminating underperforming content and allocating your budget where it provides the best results. 

Aim for an initial testing and discovery phase and then increase your budget once you’ve tracked down that winning ad. Then do a little more testing. Watch the sales pour in, and high-five everyone on your team for being so awesome!

A Final Word

Don’t be shocked to learn if, in a few years, Amazon is at the top of the eCommerce advertising game. We are all looking for that extra something to catapult our brand ahead of competitors, and right now, that means taking advantage of Amazon Advertising because very soon, everyone else will be. However, like all advertising platforms and marketing channels, Amazon Advertising can be a little confusing and even time-consuming if you don’t know what you’re doing. Thankfully, MuteSix is here to help!

MuteSix is a full-funnel ad agency that creates value for the digital age, with breakthrough creatives, targeted media buying, and data-driven analysis leading to proven results. 

Don’t settle for an agency that doesn’t have much experience, and check out MuteSix today!  

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/28/technology/whole-foods-amazon-grocery.html

https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?sh=73b0dc171b23

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ecommerce.asp

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Amazon Marketing: Five Major Keys To Build A Perfect Strategy

7 min read

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Amazon Marketing: Five Major Keys To Build A Perfect Strategy

Amazon is essentially everywhere. It’s winning Oscars. It’s conquered Whole Foods. It’s manufacturing tablets and the Kindle. It’s got crazy fast shipping with Amazon Prime. It’s deploying drones — it’s probably standing right behind you. 

Oh, and let’s not forget it occasionally sells Amazon products online like, you know — everything. Whether you’re looking for books, clothes, appliances, or horrifying sequin pillowcases with Nicolas Cage’s face on them, Amazon has you covered. Additionally, you might have also heard that it’s entered the advertising game with Amazon Advertising (think Don Draper meets Jeff Bezos, only with a little less hair and more world domination). 

In any effective eCommerce marketing strategy, Amazon Advertising is quickly becoming a key component. Read on for five major keys to build a perfect strategy. 

What Is Amazon Advertising?

Amazon Advertising — formerly known as Amazon Marketing Services — was launched three years ago in 2018 as a new digital marketing solution for Amazon sellers. The highly-anticipated service allows vendors to promote their product pages directly to their unique target markets. 

Amazon Advertising encompasses a wide range of offerings, including:

  • Sponsored Brands
  • Sponsored Products
  • Sponsored Display
  • Stores
  • Amazon DSP
  • Video Ads
  • Display Ads

Together, these powerful online marketing tools allow marketers to implement advertisements anywhere, from the very first page of Amazon search results to its in-depth product detail pages and beyond, while also providing the ability to build a more robust brand presence. Likely, this list of offers is sure to grow and evolve, but they all strive towards one purpose — to help businesses better reach and engage shoppers throughout every stage of the sales funnel. 

Your business won’t necessarily need to implement every single one of these tools, but understanding what each provides can help you immensely to determine how to best use Amazon Advertising to benefit your budding business. 

Five Keys to Build An Effective Amazon Advertising Strategy

To help you be successful on Amazon, let’s take a quick look at five important keys to build an effective Amazon Advertising strategy. 

Know Your Goals

Do you want to boost brand awareness or drive more sales?

While diving right in to run an Amazon ad might be tempting, most marketing campaigns succeed or fail due to decisions made well before the very first ad dollar was ever spent. It’s important to identify the key metrics you want to track in order to verify the success of your ads on the Amazon platform. 

If driving sales is at the top of your priority list — whether overall or for a specific product — generating conversions will be your main goal. The best way to track success is with the Advertising Cost of Sale metric, which is calculated simply by dividing your total ad spend by your total sales from advertising. Set a target Advertising Cost of Sale at the outset to help determine your company’s sale goals. 

However, if you’d rather focus on brand awareness, then your metric of success will be impressions — the number of times your ad is viewed. Again, set a good target impression total and figure out which cost-per-click bids will allow you to win more relevant keywords, appear above your competitions, and achieve your target. 

Implement The Right Tools

Did you know Amazon offers a lot of advertising opportunities within its diverse ad platform? Yup, it’s true! So make sure you understand these crucial products and how they can help you achieve your business goals. 

Most retailers starting on Amazon begin with Sponsored Product ads. These operate similarly to good ol’ Google ads on a Pay Per Click (PPC) model, where you simply bid on search terms to promote specific products. Based on your ad relevance, they’ll appear to consumers in product search results and on the product detail pages. They’re primarily used for boosting sales, utilizing the Advertising Cost of Sales metric as their key performance indicator. One of the really nice things about Sponsored Product ads is that the algorithm allows them to seamlessly blend in amongst other popular product listings; however, at the end of the day, they are not the only option for advertising on Amazon, nor would it be wise to limit yourself to implementing these ads on their own. 

Sponsored brand ads are an excellent way to simultaneously promote many products all at once while also boosting your brand awareness. You see, they work on a pay-per-click, keyword-targeted model, displaying multiple products alongside a headline — when clicked, they direct shoppers to a landing page. This unique landing page can be your Amazon Store, which is a free-to-create page featuring your specific brand and other products. Creating a top-notch multi-page storefront directly on Amazon filled with useful high-value content is an amazing way to stand out.

Prioritize Your Products and Optimize Their Detail Pages

Carefully choose products that are most important to your brand and customers to advertise.

In most cases, these items will be your most sought-after products, new products that are in season or otherwise in demand. Be sure these products are not only in stock but also have competitive pricing.  

Ideally, you’ll want to choose hot products with a Buy Box percentage and receive a high number of unique product detail page visits. Make sure, however, that those product detail pages adhere to the 3 C’s by being Clear, Concise, and Compelling. Stick with high-quality product images, relevant product descriptions, and descriptive titles. Your ad will get consumers in through the door, but your product details page will lock in the sale — so take extra care when crafting it!

Budget Wisely

It’s of the utmost importance to come up with an overall marketing plan and advertising budget for Amazon and allocate that budget wisely and accordingly to attain the greatest amount of coverage. 

Initially, it’s always a best practice to put the majority of your Amazon Budget directly into Sponsored Product Ads before divvying up the rest between Product Display and Sponsored Brand ads. This way, you can see which ads work best for you in what locations. 

The key here is to start prioritizing Amazon in your company’s marketing strategy. If all goes well, it’ll convert just as well — if not better — than your website. So be sure to invest a good amount of time and budget in Amazon Advertising the very same way you would for other social media advertising platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Google. 

Test and Optimize

If you ask us, one of the best aspects of Amazon Advertising is that it provides sellers with important data and statistics that they would not otherwise receive. 

Lastly, be sure to take full advantage and use this insight to optimize your ads and products to their fullest selling potential—yes, there’s such a thing as Amazon SEO (or search engine optimization). 

Whether optimizing copy to impact Click-Through-Rates, altering keywords for a better Advertising Cost of Sale, or simply updating product details to increase engagement, make sure you’re constantly eliminating underperforming content and allocating your budget where it provides the best results. 

Aim for an initial testing and discovery phase and then increase your budget once you’ve tracked down that winning ad. Then do a little more testing. Watch the sales pour in, and high-five everyone on your team for being so awesome!

A Final Word

Don’t be shocked to learn if, in a few years, Amazon is at the top of the eCommerce advertising game. We are all looking for that extra something to catapult our brand ahead of competitors, and right now, that means taking advantage of Amazon Advertising because very soon, everyone else will be. However, like all advertising platforms and marketing channels, Amazon Advertising can be a little confusing and even time-consuming if you don’t know what you’re doing. Thankfully, MuteSix is here to help!

MuteSix is a full-funnel ad agency that creates value for the digital age, with breakthrough creatives, targeted media buying, and data-driven analysis leading to proven results. 

Don’t settle for an agency that doesn’t have much experience, and check out MuteSix today!  

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/28/technology/whole-foods-amazon-grocery.html

https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?sh=73b0dc171b23

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ecommerce.asp

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