is already the third online advertising platform, behind Google and Facebook. And in addition, buy youtube views the figures indicate that it will not stop growing in the next few years, so it’s time to take it into account in your marketing plans.
Amazon Advertising leverages the power of the world’s largest e-commerce platform to reach an audience that is ready to buy and offer them exactly what they are looking for. But can it overshadow the duopoly of Google Ads and Facebook Ads ?
Amazon Advertising and online advertising: what the data says
Last September, the eMarketer research firm surprised us with a study that showed that Amazon Advertising is already the third force in the digital advertising market in the United States , after overtaking Oath and Microsoft. In addition, predictions indicate that its growth will double this year.
According to this study, Amazon Advertising will invoice 4,610,000 million during this year, which represents 4.1% of the digital advertising market. It is expected that this revenue grow more than 50% per year until at least 2020. Consequently, its market share will increase to 7% , a figure that is far from threatening Google and Facebook but is very significant.
Amazon Advertising is emerging as a very interesting option for online marketers, for its long-term projection and its evolving functionalities. Recently, the platform announced a simplified system for buying ads inside and outside its properties and new video ad formats.
The challenges of Amazon Advertising
Although the future looks very promising, the truth is that Amazon Advertising has a lot of work to do if it wants to stand up to the leaders of the digital advertising market. In a recent study by Third Door Media , marketers cited the following platform challenges :
- 46 % stated that the reporting system did not seem appropriate.
- For 43%, platform optimization techniques are still insufficient.
- 34% said they found it difficult to get help from Amazon customer services.
- Other challenges mentioned were to understand the different advertising options, demonstrate their effectiveness and ensure a sufficient budget.
On the other hand, Amazon Advertising poses unique challenges for brand safety , which may make it unsuitable for some companies or categories. Within the Amazon resale system many counterfeit products or of questionable legitimacy are sneaking in, which may pose a problem for brands in terms of the location of their ads.
Another challenge mentioned by the experts is the Amazon browsing and content experience . While Google and Facebook offer a privileged experience in this aspect, the Amazon platform and the way users use it make it more difficult to insert content naturally. Another point in favor of Google and Facebook is its ability to offer ads segmented locally and linked to physical stores , with options such as calling the store or even directions to visit it. In contrast, Amazon necessarily moves in the realm of the global and the virtual.
Amazon Advertising for small and medium businesses
According to a survey by Marketing Land , small businesses are more likely to get the support they need from Amazon customer service (35%), compared to 2% of employees working in larger companies.
Small businesses are also more likely to divert budget from other channels, such as search or social ads , to increase their investment in Amazon Advertising, which directly affects the market share of Google and Facebook.
Amazon seems to be showing special attention to SMEs, with solutions such as the launch of Storefronts . This platform is home to more than one million products from more than 20,000 small and medium-sized American companies. Thanks to the multiple options available at Amazon, SMEs can offer a multi-channel shopping experience that was previously only available to large companies.
What advertisers need to know about Amazon Advertising
Amazon Advertising is a pay-per-click advertising solution that allows you to place ads in different locations (inside and outside the site), use different options to segment the target audience and pay only when users interact with the advertising.
Although it is not the first option that we would consider when making social ads, the truth is that the potential reach of Amazon Ads is very interesting. The platform already has more than 300 million users, and in Spain it is used by 7 out of 10 Internet users.
For brands that already distribute their products organically through Amazon, payment ads can create very interesting synergies, since they reinforce the positioning of the products.
Amazon Advertising locations
The first thing that marketers should know is that Amazon Advertisingallows you to place ads both within your own Amazon and in other places on the internet .
In the first case, the brand benefits from obtaining highly segmented traffic, since users usually only visit the page when they have a strong interest in a specific product. This allows to implement more aggressive strategies and improve the conversion ratios.
In the second case, we use Amazon DSP (formerly known as AAP or Amazon’s advertising platform), which is a programmatic solution to reach Amazon audiences in other places on the internet. In other words, we take advantage of the information that Amazon has about users and their purchasing habits and we use it to segment campaigns in other sites with high precision.
With Amazon DSP we can place ads on Amazon sites and applications, third party sites and ad exchanges. This platform has good security measures for advertisers, such as manually reviewing the quality of websites and evaluating bids in real time.
The Amazon Advertising formats
Regarding the formats of Amazon Advertising, the system is constantly evolving, but today we highlight the following solutions: sponsored ads, display ads, video ads and Stores.
- Patricinated ads
The sponsored ads include different subtypes, such as those sponsored sponsored products and brands. It is the most organic solution, since they are integrated into the product search itself.
This format appears on the search results pages and product pages, and directs the user to the product information page in question or to the brand store. To launch a sponsored ad campaign in Amazo n, you just have to select the products you want to advertise, set a budget and choose the keywords, products and categories to segment them.
- Display ads
The display ads have the typical banner format, with different sizes and custom creatives. They appear both on Amazon’s own websites and applications and on third-party sites. Unlike the previous ones, they are also available for users who do not sell on Amazon.
Amazon Advertising offers the option of creating self-managed display campaigns for the advertiser or leaving them in the hands of a team of experts on the platform.
- Video ads
Video ads work in a similar way to display ads , and can also be located both within Amazon itself and on external sites, all using segmentation options based on Amazon information about their visitors. They are a good complement to display campaigns, since they allow launching more impactful and emotional creatives and make visual demonstrations of the products.
- Stores
Finally, although it is not strictly an advertising format itself, stores are an ideal complement to advertisements on Amazon. They are available for suppliers, vendors and agencies, and allow us to create a website for a brand on Amazon, with several pages and all the information about the products. They work through a simple content manager that allows uploading videos, text and images without the need for programming knowledge.
To maximize the potential of the stores, the ideal is to combine them with ads directed to them from different locations inside and outside of Amazon . In this way, we can control the entire trip of the client and leave him in an optimal position to convert.
To control the results of all these formats, Amazon Advertising includes its own measurement tools , which have exclusive information about the impact of the ads on browsing behavior, brand image and sales, both on Amazon sites and on third parties.