Rolling Out An Effective Amazon Sponsored Brand Campaign

Imagine the average customer on Amazon. They’re on the hunt for something specific and when they begin their search, they’re inundated with innumerable choices. This can get overwhelming for customers – who may take longer to make a purchase decision – and for brands – who can lose out on a sale because of the sheer number of competitors.

So how do you cut through the noise and make it all about you? The answer is Amazon Sponsored Brands. With Amazon Sponsored Brands and its ever-increasing array of marketing services, you can create a customized branded experience for your customers and a formidable brand presence on this competitive marketplace. But before we jump in, let’s get to the basics.

What exactly are Amazon Sponsored Brands?

Formerly known as Headline Search Ads, these keyword-based pay-per-click (PPC) ads are placed on top of the search results. Amazon Sponsored Brands contain your brand’s logo, products, and message – making them strategically invaluable during a shopper’s journey. These ads help build brand awareness and enable new customer acquisition by giving you a space to showcase those offerings that are relevant to a search query.

Amazon Sponsored Brands ads are available in three formats:

• Product Collection: This type of promotion allows you to highlight three products at once, giving you the option to choose products and their order. It also has a custom image option that allows you to insert lifestyle images, along with a headline. 

• Store Spotlight: Similar to the above category, this format allows you to feature stores. Store Spotlight is a great option for your brand if you carry a wide selection of products that can be segregated by type, style, theme, use case, age group, etc. You can also use these ads to highlight unique brand propositions with custom content that can be educational or motivational. 

• Video: With video content already proven to be more effective than static content, it makes sense to focus on this format. These video ads allow you to advertise one product with a direct link to the product page. If you already have product videos that feature your top-sellers, you should leverage this option without question. 

What makes these ads particularly effective are their placement in the Amazon advertising funnel. At this stage, your potential customers are already familiar with your category and interested in making a purchase, even if they’re not familiar with your brand. With the right marketing plan in place, you can jump the queue and guide your customers toward a specific product category or listing, or your Amazon store.

How have they helped brands so far?

According to Amazon’s internal data, advertisers have seen significant improvements in returns, conversion rates, and click-through rates (CTR). Advertisers who used video ads saw a whopping 108.1% increase in their CTR. Sellers who used a combination of custom images and Store Spotlight ads recorded a 57.8% increase in conversion (in comparison to advertisers who used only one ad format). What’s more, advertisers who used a combination of video, custom images, and Store Spotlight ads saw a noticeable return on ad spend (ROAS) of 5.5%.

Another advantage of using Amazon Sponsored Brands is that you can measure your campaign’s performance with ease since the ‘promotion to conversion’ process is all happening on the same platform.

Great, how do I get started?  

While there is a science and an art to running an effective campaign on Amazon Sponsored Brands, there are a few strategies that can help you get a running start. Here are three such tricks:  

• Harvest the right keywords: An effective campaign is all about harvesting specific keywords, which come in three main varieties – specific keywords (“organic cashmere wool sweater”), generic keywords (“sweater”), and branded keywords (“Mango cashmere sweater”). If you’ve already run a Sponsored Products campaign before, you’re already a few steps ahead. All you need to do is harvest keywords that recorded the highest conversion rates and use them for your new promotion.

• Segregate branded and non-branded searches: If you’re using headline search ads, a key strategy you must adopt is separating searches by intent i.e. branded vs. non-branded keywords. For example, if the customer is searching for “Mango cashmere sweater”, it makes sense to drive traffic to the store page instead of individual products.

• A/B test your campaigns: When you’re just starting out, it’s smart to run two promotion campaigns simultaneously with only one differing variable to figure out which strategy works better in terms of CTR. This will help you optimize ad spends and visibility. 

Keen to get started? The good news is you don’t need special tools or techniques. If you’re already a seller with a verified account on the Amazon Brand Registry, you can execute your advertising strategy right away. To know more about developing and rolling out an effective Amazon Sponsored Brands advertising strategy, reach out to our experts.