Why Ad Type Variety On Amazon Is Important For Brand Success
Like many other ad platforms, Amazon has multiple ad types for advertisers to highlight their products and brand, each with a different objective. Implementing a variety of Amazon’s ad types simultaneously to achieve the same goal creates a holistic approach that comes with many benefits. Uncover the power of Amazon ads and how their unique, strategic ad type capabilities can influence shopper behavior to positively impact brands.
What ad types are available through Amazon?
Brands that sell their products on Amazon and meet their advertising eligibility requirements will have the ability to launch the sponsored ads listed below. Each ad type helps brands achieve specific goals and plays a unique role in enhancing an advertising strategy.
- Sponsored product ads: Triggered by a product ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) or a user’s search, sponsored product ads promote a single product listing using an individual product title and image. This ad type improves the visibility for individual products that shoppers are actively searching for to increase sales
- Sponsored brand ads: Product collections, store spotlight, and videos are three sponsored brand ad formats that are eligible to appear for specific products, keywords, or product category targeting. These ads help boost brand discoverability with premium placements
- Sponsored display ads: Advanced audience controls for sponsored display ads allow brands to use Amazon first-party audience segments and third-party platform placements (such as Pinterest) to target a wide range of relevant audiences. Designed to drive sales, sponsored display ads allow for automated or custom headlines and images to represent promoted products
Brands that use these three ad types individually will experience increased product sales to some degree, but their true impact is realized when combined into a cohesive strategy that drives awareness, engagement, and conversions across the entire shopping journey.
Unleash brand potential and boost ad performance: three reasons why marketers should use multiple ad types
Here are some key advantages to leveraging sponsored product ads alongside sponsored brand and sponsored display ads to attain brand growth and gain a competitive edge.
1. Increase brand visibility
Running these three ad formats together results in increased exposure for brands and an increased likelihood that shoppers will interact with the brand. Brand ads are typically one of the first things shoppers will notice because they’re much larger in size and placed above and alongside product listings. Further down on the page and within product listings, product ads will help brands remain top of mind with repeated ad exposure by showing alongside relevant search results. Advertisers can also take it a step further by promoting ads on third-party networks (such as Pinterest) to capture niche audiences outside of Amazon by using sponsored display ads. Leveraging these ad units together can help brands increase visibility by dominating result and detail pages to get ahead of competitors.
2. Reach a variety of audiences
Whether shoppers are ready to buy or just browsing, targeting unique audiences and catching their attention with tailored messaging is crucial for brand success, regardless of the marketing channel. On Amazon, sponsored brand ads’ customizable creative features help familiarize shoppers who are casually looking or potentially considering where to purchase from. On the other hand, sponsored product ads target a high-intent audience looking for specific products or product attributes, which often results in quicker sales. Finally, sponsored display ads help re-engage and retarget audiences to encourage customer loyalty. All of these ad types work together to target and engage a broader audience of potential buyers for a cohesive marketing strategy.
3. Improve performance metrics
Broader audience targeting and increased brand visibility often lead to improved performance metrics such as conversion rate. Recent data for a Collective Measures client revealed that conversion rates were nearly eight times higher when a shopper had interacted with both sponsored product and sponsored brand ad types (compared to a sponsored product interaction alone). This is a strong indication that differing ad types complement one another, and drive better results over time.
What this means for marketers
Incorporating multiple ad types in Amazon is a powerful way to amplify brand visibility, engage diverse audience segments, and boost overall campaign performance. Each ad format has unique strengths that — when appearing simultaneously — will create a cohesive and eclectic marketing strategy for brands.
For marketers new to Amazon, set aside a test budget and start by launching sponsored product ads to produce immediate sales. Then, loop in sponsored brand ads to drive brand awareness and launch sponsored display ads for retargeting to tie everything together. Monitor campaign performance to further invest in areas that are most profitable and refine targeting for campaigns performing below goal.
