Enhancing brand visibility is vital to drive sales for a product and knowing where, and how, to advertise is key.
Global ecommerce giant Amazon has a number of advertising solutions designed to support brands seeking to effectively manage how they advertise their products.
Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) is the umbrella term for various Amazon services aimed at brands. It includes a number of features such as Sponsored Products, which is designed to boost an ad to appear in related shopping results and product pages.
In 2018, Amazon rebranded several of its features with AMS now known as Advertising Console.
Brands and sellers can select from a number of different advertising formats to run and manage their ads to improve their performance on the platform - but where do you begin?
We spoke to a few agencies to get the low-down on everything you need to know about Amazon Marketing Services in 2022:
Ad formats and costs
Emma Tyson, Head of Digital at integrated marketing communications agency tigerbond, said there have been some “huge improvements” to Amazon Marketing Services over the last couple of years, which is “exciting news for advertisers”:
“Its new ad formats, updates to its advertising console interface and new features not only improve our clients’ performance on the platform, but also means that we’re able to more effectively manage campaigns from an agency point of view too.
She explained the “rising cost of CPC” (cost per clicks) is an area the agency expects to evolve during 2022.
“However, while Amazon still delivers great value, depending on your niche, the future of advertising on the platform may also need to leverage owned and earned media opportunities to balance these increasing costs.”
For Darren Ratcliffe, Founder at Manchester agency digitl, there are a number of factors brands and sellers should consider on the costs involved:
“Unlike ebay where you pay a percentage of the Final Value Fee, AMS runs on a more traditional Pay Per Click model, like you’d find with Google or Bing — there’s no guaranteed sale.
"Effectively managing your Actual Cost of Sale (ACOS) is therefore vital to protecting your margins. And using one of the many free calculators out there is well worth it. Oh, and a final pointer — don’t forget to factor in your FBA fees either!”
Darren Ratcliffe, Founder of Digitl
Tips for getting the best out of the platform
At tigerbond, the agency has invested in trialing some of the latest ad formats such as video ads before its clients’ competitors.
“This has really helped them to dominate in areas where others aren’t yet appearing. Not only that, but as there has been lower competition in some of these ad formats this has meant lower CPCs, and a greater return on ad spend (ROAS), which is great news for our brands.
“2022 is definitely the year to diversify your portfolio of ad formats to ensure you are consistently driving awareness as well as conversions. Ultimately you want to appear in as much of the available advertising space on Amazon as possible within your target ROAS, so it’s good to keep on top of these innovations,” said Emma at tigerbond.
The algorithm has recently become “more and more sophisticated”, said PPC Executive, Ausrine Vaiciute at Circus PPC Agency.
This provides “more insights about PPC performance that allow us to make data-driven decisions”.
“We can now compare where our clients’ brand stands in the Amazon market against close competitors, so we know whether the exposure is sufficient enough to achieve desired goals and market share.”
She pointed to other “metrics, reports and improvements” that have been recently added to the platform “allowing better data analysis for specialists”.
“These are all recent changes to the platform, and I sense that this trend will continue in the future.”
Ausrine Vaiciute, Circus PPC agency
Brand visibility
For Darren at Digitl, the platform can be a solution to boost brand visibility:
“AMS plays a crucial role in effectively selling on Amazon. It’s a great way to provide your products with the visibility they need to out-perform against your competitors. And if you’re launching a new product or just starting out, it can really help kick-start the important process of generating sales and generating positive feedback.”
User engagement and attractive content can boost brand visibility on the platform, explained Emma at tigerbond: “Amazon’s algorithm thrives on users engaging with product listings. Providing attractive content like this can help drive those crucial sales and reviews that will increase the organic visibility of your products.”
But it is not all about Amazon, brands need to build their presence outside of the platform too.
“Utilising owned media including your brand’s website and social media channels can be great ways to promote your products before directing that traffic to Amazon to make a sale. We create unique creative content for our clients to use throughout - a tactic like this helps them to stand out from the crowd," said Emma.
“Finally, for that extra push, and to provide social proof for your products, it’s worth considering working with relevant influencers. This is a tactic we often utilise for our clients as it helps us promote products directly at their target markets while providing us with feedback on products that we can then use in other advertising material.”