RESOURCES

If you've been selling on Amazon for some time, we don't have to convince you why advertising on the channel is so important. Broadly speaking, it's an effective and worthwhile investment. Even some of the world's largest retailers advertise on Amazon. The number one reason is the return on investment and strong performance. Looking at more reasons why you'll notice 'ease of ad buying' is further down the list. Brands that work with MPS don't have to worry because we take care of everything. Regardless of what advertising on the channel looks like for you, it's crucial to stay up to date on Amazon's ever-evolving landscape. Here we share insight into some of the latest updates to Amazon Advertising and keys to budget maximization.

Sponsored Brand and Sponsored Brand Video

As seen in the screenshot below, advertisers will now find headline suggestions inside the Sponsored Brand Campaign Builder. So far, this new feature has been helpful to our teams and gives us an opportunity to be more creative.

Another update worth noting is Amazon Account Executive can now build Sponsored Brand Video (SBV) campaigns at no additional cost. This allows us to better support clients that don’t have video assets available to leverage in Sponsored Brand Video campaigns. Instead, we can work with their AE to create and share a solution. Below are specs and requirements to keep in mind. 

• Ads must include your brand’s logo 
• Videos are created using an already promoted ASIN
• A daily budget must be set 
• Ads include key features such as 2-4 lines of messaging capped at 7 words 

Sponsored Display Audience Rollout 

Switching gears to Sponsored Display, there are new targeting options available for 'Audiences'. Before, advertisers could only retarget visitors of a PDP or shoppers browsing similar products. Now, advertisers can also leverage Amazon's pre-built audience segments created by first-party signals. This is referred to as 'Amazon Audiences' and supplements previous interest-based targeting options. 

This update is similar to DSP in-market, interests, lifestyle, life event audiences. Now advertisers have a greater opportunity to target people off-Amazon as well as shoppers on Amazon. It will be interesting to see how these play out as we test them more often. We believe this is Amazon’s effort of narrowing the gap between DSP and search as it applies to sponsored display.

Budget Maximization with MPS Insights, Powered by Downstream 

MPS clients have access to our proprietary technology, MPS Insights, Powered by Downstream. Recently, one of our client teams ran a test from an automation perspective for the budget maximization capability. Here’s a look at our goals and results. 

• Goal: The client had excess inventory for two ASINS and wanted to sell through the product to avoid added fees. With this, the client understood ACoS could be higher and they were not concerned about targeting breakouts. 

• Targeting: To accomplish this, our advertising teams targeted one branded keyword and one non-brand keyword for each product. The budget was flighted evenly across all four campaigns and daily spend levels were not increased.

• Result: At the end of this test, we were able to increase overall sales. However, efficiencies were led from brand targeting which is somewhat of an unfair advantage. During this test, we had to sacrifice CPC efficiencies to generate a sales lift of 4.8x. While the efficiencies weren't what we usually aim for, the automation was successful and accomplished the goal.  

This approach is best used for a brand that needs to move inventory quickly. We are doing further testing to identify other use cases for this approach. Regardless, it is helpful to be able to lean on an automated tool to support our team's expertise. Especially for high-pressure goals such as this one.

Final Thoughts 

Our teams are hard at work marking sure our clients are not only up to date, but making the most of their investments. If you could use the support of a strategic partner, schedule a free consultation. And, as always, we’re here to answer any questions about Amazon, other marketplaces, and any major digital platform.