Online Advertising
Is there anyone who hasn’t visited Amazon’s website? An essential platform for e-commerce, it is nevertheless often neglected in favour of more widely known advertising platforms such as Google Ads and Facebook Ads. However, Amazon Advertising is destined to become an increasingly important player, worthy of being included in the web marketing strategies of companies that want to increase their visibility and especially their sales. There is little information available to help you create Amazon ads (we searched hard!), so we decided to give you our 5 tips to get your campaigns off to a good start on the e-commerce giant’s advertising platform.
1- Understanding how Amazon ads work
Amazon Advertising works similarly to Google Ads: you set a budget for your campaigns and only pay when a user clicks on your ads. The ads are differentiated from the non-advertising content of Amazon pages with a “sponsored” label.
You can highlight your products by combining up to 4 types of ads
Sponsored products
The first type of advertisement is sponsored products. These ads are based on keywords. They appear in search results (at the top and/or when scrolling the page) and on product pages. Clicking on this advertising content leads to the featured product page.
Here are three examples of how these ads are displayed.
Below, as you scroll down the search results page.
Below, on a product listing.
Sponsored brands
The second type of advertisement is for sponsored brands. This content appears mostly in search results and, when clicked, can lead to different destinations, such as a product page or shop. It is based on keywords and is recommended for visibility strategies.
For example, a search for “essential oil diffuser” can display several ads for brands.
Below, the ads are displayed before the search results.
Below, the ads are displayed after the search results.
Product display ads
The third type of advertisement is called product display ads. These are banners that are displayed throughout Amazon’s network, whether on its website pages, those of partner sites or the devices in their product range.
For example, when visiting a product listing, you will often see this type of advertisement, as shown in the screenshot below.
Video ads
The last type of ad is for video content. Amazon recommends using these in conjunction with campaigns on the Display network to ensure an even stronger presence and improve brand awareness.
2- Use your account to make Amazon ads
Now that you know all about formats, it’s time to find out how to advertise on Amazon. For this, let’s go to Amazon Advertising. At this stage, things are already starting to get more complicated. On the one hand, the Canada page is only available in English and, on the other hand, the options vary depending on the type of ads you want to create.
Create sponsored ads
Sponsored ads include two of the four types of ads listed above: sponsored products and sponsored brands. To proceed to the next step, you must either have an account (Seller Central, Vendor Central or Vendor Agent) or create one.
If you have yet to set anything up, Amazon offers two ways to get a Seller Central account. If your product catalogue is less than 20 items, the “Individual Sales Program” formula will only incur costs on your sales ($1.49 CAD per sale + additional costs). If it is higher, you will need to subscribe to a professional account at $29.99 CAD per month, and additional fees will also apply to each sale.
Broadcast display or video ads
To advertise on Amazon on these types of ads, you need to use Amazon DSP (formerly called Amazon Advertising Platform), a platform specifically designed to link advertisers to sites that are owned by Amazon or their partners.
However, these types of campaigns cannot be started without the help of an Amazon advertising consultant. In this case, the first step is to contact them directly.
We will therefore not cover the Display or Video section of Amazon ads in more detail in this article.
3- How to build your Amazon ads campaign
Once you are connected to the platform, it’s time to bring your web marketing strategy to life. But before rushing in, it is always good to recall some good practices by (re)discovering how to create a PPC campaign, since to avoid wasting time and money, you have to build your account in a structured manner.
Prepare your Amazon advertising account structure
If you have already created Google Ads campaigns, it will help you understand how to make Amazon ads. If you haven’t done one before, but you’re also interested, you can always count on our expertise on the subject. The best approach is to have a clear idea of your product categories and create a campaign for each one. Then, think about the product families that make up these categories, as this will give you the ad groups, which will be composed of your keywords.
For example, let’s suppose that you sell products for well-being and that you want to highlight several of your categories. You would create a campaign with ad groups such as: “diffuser”, “essential oil”, “aromatherapy”, etc.
Choosing keywords and increasing their relevance
Your list of keywords is very important, since your choices will determine when your ads will be displayed and therefore guide your expenses since you will pay for each click-through.
We recommend keeping your lists concise (up to 30 keywords). If you have a lot of ideas when advertising on Amazon, you can probably still split your ad group into several. Consider doing this, but don’t spread yourself too thin!
It can also be interesting to choose keywords from the names of your competitors and their products. Since the costs per click are still relatively low, this helps you gain visibility with Internet users who know less about your brand than those of your competitors.
Finally, to avoid wasting too much money unnecessarily at the start, focus on certain keyword matches (exact and expression in this case) and consider excluding terms that are often associated with your products, but are not relevant to you. This step, often overlooked, is very important to get more qualified clicks and maximize your return on investment.
4- Work on content and track your performance
Once your ad account is well structured, it’s time to tackle the content so you can finally launch your campaigns.
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Make Amazon ads with engaging content
Amazon ads are formatted differently than Google Ads, but it helps to know how to create an effective text or display ad on Google Ads, so you can apply the same principles and adapt them, from the title of your product to the content of the landing page, which must be compelling and detailed enough to get you to the purchase.
It goes without saying that the goal of your ads is to attract attention and get clicks. But on Amazon, there are many possibilities. How many times have you visited a product page because you clicked on a result without really knowing if it was exactly what you were looking for? To avoid this, you need to include as much information as possible in the titles.
Let’s return to the example of your well-being shop mentioned above. Imagine that you have advertisements for bottles of essential oils. A user will want to know from the title which type of essential oil it is, whether the product is sold by unit or in batches, the volume, etc.. This applies to all your product listings, whether or not you sponsor them.
Below, here are two examples of ads, one complete, the other much less.
Track your advertising results
It is crucial to monitor the performance of your campaigns from the beginning to see how the market reacts and to be able to adjust the focus. Don’t hesitate to test several things to find out what works best. When you advertise on Amazon, the interface recommends that you run 5 campaigns in the first few weeks of the launch, but this of course depends on your product catalogue and your budget.
As recommended above, continue to exclude irrelevant keywords that you will find in Internet users’ search terms. You can download reports and check them to get as many qualified clicks as possible and reduce your unnecessary expenses.
Also, if you haven’t already done so, don’t hesitate to take a look at the competition. Adjust your bids, monitor your cost per click, analyze your results, in short, manage your campaigns and don’t abandon them. You should check your account at least two to three times a week to make sure everything is fine.
5- Don’t forget to make seasonal Amazon ads
One of Amazon’s great strengths is its popularity during the holiday season or the high points of the year, which are associated with discounts. Neglecting these dates may mean losing the bulk of your sales.
Prepare your campaigns well in advance (the platform allows you to plan up to 4 months in advance) so that everything is ready, both for early shoppers and last-minute purchases. The ideal is of course having different advertising content, which adapts to purchasing behaviour and the conversion funnel.
Creating a sense of urgency is a common practice that is generally successful. Don’t hesitate to highlight discounts or limited-time offers when you create Amazon ads, especially since the site is specially designed for direct purchases.
At the same time, while some of your products can sell very well throughout the year, it may be wise to run campaigns over a limited number of weeks for other products.
In summary, to get your campaigns off to a good start, you must first understand the options that Amazon Advertising offers so you can create a well-organized account and get qualified clicks to maximize your performance with regular management and capitalizing on the year’s key periods.
Amazon Advertising is no small task and we know the topic well. If you need help, you can check for yourself what online ads can do for you and then call Maxence at 514 572 7758 to have My Little Big Web create or manage your campaigns.
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