Using Amazon Advertising to Make More Sales

It makes sense to use Amazon Advertising. Think of it this way:

What website do the majority of people use for social networking? Facebook.

What website do the majority of people use for searches? Google.

What website do the majority of people use for shopping? Amazon.

Why not do your advertising on Amazon, where the focus is the online marketplace?

What is Amazon Advertising?

There are many options in a menu of Amazon advertising choices. More on that later.

In a nutshell: Amazon advertising helps a business or company develop creative campaigns. You can do that on your own (self serve), or choose an option that allows Amazon marketing services to do that for you (premium) as you plan your campaign.

The ad industry greatly changed with the advent of online ads. Either way, self serve or premium, you’ll get more product visibility as your brand name or product shows up more often in search results.

Who Qualifies for an Amazon Advertising Account?

Any business with a product or brand can use Amazon advertising – even if the business doesn’t sell on Amazon.

How Does the Amazon Advertising Platform Work

The way the Amazon advertising platform works varies by customer.

One of the marketing services offered by Amazon is helping the customer decide which type of Amazon ad is the best fit. The advertiser provides information about a product or products; Amazon develops a campaign.

The Amazon campaign team reviews the information and develops a plan, based on the customer-provided product listings. This will further ensure the success of your Amazon advertising strategy.

Types of Ads on Amazon Advertising

You already know that you pay for advertising. How much and how you pay for your ad campaign depends on which type of ad you choose.

You have a full menu of choices. Which is the right type of ad for you?

The good thing is, you’ll know right away whether or not an ad or campaign is working. You’ll be able to change your choice or make adjustments, based on customer activity.

Here are brief descriptions of each type of ad:

Amazon Sponsored Ads

Sponsored products ads and sponsored brands ads both appear on Amazon in “shopping results.” Customers who click on your sponsored product ads or sponsored brands ad may be directed to your business webpage.

Will your product ads or brands ads appear first, somewhere in the middle or last in shopping results? That depends on how much you pay for the sponsored ad.

You pay your chosen rate when a shopper clicks on your sponsored products. Your ad is “ranked” by how much you’ve chosen to pay per click. For example, an advertiser who pays $4 a click is ranked higher than one who pays $2 a click for sponsored products.

Amazon Sponsored Brands Vs. Sponsored Products Ads

Both sponsored brands and sponsored product ads are similar in that they appear in shopping results.

When shoppers click on brands ads, they made be directed to your business web site, or landing page. Brands ads help a business build brand awareness. You can choose to build brands by developing brand campaigns.

Sponsored products ads are just that. A shopper clicks and is directed to the products page.

Product Display Ads

With this advertising option, the seller ad may appear on the Amazon home page, product detail pages and/or shopping results pages.

Your ad will pop up whether or not the customer is shopping on Amazon. This is possible via Amazon affiliated sites.

Video Ads

Advertising on Amazon also includes an option for your ad to appear on Amazon-affiliated sites. This type of advertising on Amazon is developed with Amazon publisher services.

Your product display ads can appear across Amazon-affiliated sites such as IMDb.com, Twitch, and devices like Fire TV. You can also place video ads instead of display ads or Amazon product ads.

Amazon Stores

You can create a virtual store for your products within the Amazon page. Your products will still appear in search results with a bonus – shoppers will be “in” your store, where they can learn about your other products.

This is a modern take on a technique name in advertising tips in the traditional advertising business. Offer a sale or special products to bring customers through your door. Amazon makes it possible to bring customers through a “virtual” door and into your store.

In order to set up an Amazon store for your products, you much enroll in Amazon brand registry. You can use images and/or video to showcase your products. You’ll also get your own Amazon.com web address.

Amazon Headline Search Ads

Advertising on Amazon includes “hidden” benefits such as this one. You shouldn’t have to wonder why shoppers aren’t finding your products when they do an online search.

You may not realize that within the product description you’re using you may have negative keywords. These negative keywords can actually make it less likely that your products will appear in a search result.

There are key words that help optimize searches. By using the Amazon headline search ads service, you can help build campaigns – Amazon will suggest the best headlines for your product or products.

Using these suggested headlines for your product or products will help you come to the front of shoppers’ search results.

Audio Ads

Amazon music has an ad-supported tier. As customers listen to the free Amazon music, via Alexa-enabled devices, audio ads are featured during breaks.

Alexa-enabled devices include Echo and Fire TV, as well as mobile and desktop Apps.

Native Ads

Native ads are like ad-ons. Visitors who land on Amazon in a search result are shown additional product recommendations.

The recommendations can be for similar products. For example, a search result is for a vinyl tablecloth and more vinyl tablecloth offers from various manufacturers appear.

Adding this to your menu of choices is a wise choice, especially when your product -while common – is distinctive in some way.

Amazon DSP (Demand Side Platform)

With Amazon DSP Demand Side Platform advertisers can buy product display ads, video ads and audio ads in a package.

Ads can appear on Amazon sites and apps, and also in other locations via third-party sites.

By choosing this option, a business can easily track which type of ad products are most effective. Advertisers can manage sponsored bids as well as costs for video, audio and/or display ads.

Self Serve Vs. Premium Ads

With the self-serve ads option, the seller has full control of ads and can easily make changes.

With premium ads, the seller’s ads including a product detail page may be customized by the Amazon advertising team. If you’re not skilled at optimizing (using keywords that drive search results) you can let Amazon experts do that for you.

Which is best for you? Keywords are of utmost importance in order for products to show up in search results. If you’re not well-versed in concepts such as keyword targeted and “keywords, If you’re skilled at using keywords, self serve may be the choice for you. If not skilled with keywords, choose premium ads.

How to Advertise on Amazon

Yes, there are many choices within Amazon marketing. To help you narrow down your choices, use these tips for advertising on Amazon with these key steps:

7 Key Steps

Making a list will help you decide what’s the best choice for your advertising solutions.

1. Set Your Goals

2. Choose Your Niche

3. Make Sure You Have an Amazon Seller Account

4. Create Product Detail Pages

Your products detail page needs to use keywords that help it appear in searches. Although the descriptions and words you’ve chosen work fine on your business page or landing page, you may need to make changes to compete with other online sellers.

5. Choose the Location of Your Ads

6. Choose What Type of Advertising You Would Like

7. Optimize Your Ads

Our top advertising tip is to optimize your ads. The content of your ads should use words that define your product – yes, that’s true. With online sales, you are competing not only locally, but globally.

Optimizing ads is done by determining the most common search terms used by customers seeking information about a product.

For example, a person might type in search terms such as “adjustable fan” when looking for information about both floor and window fans. Optimizers use statistics to determine search terms that are most commonly used when people search ads.

If you’re going to advertise with the big ones, you’ll have to up your game with ad content that uses the best keywords.

How to Optimize Your Amazon Ads to Perfection

Use the Right Keywords

Taking out a negative keyword is also important. A negative keyword is the opposite of a good keyword. Here’s an example: You sell hiking boots. An example of a keyword would be boots, and hiking. If you are selling a specific type of hiking boots, add that to the description, such as “waterproof” and “leather.” Now you have “waterproof leather hiking boots” or what’s known in the industry as a “long tail keyword.” A long tail keyword is a very specific phrase.

If you add words such as “Sneaker style” or “Green” you complicate the search. Instead of finding your product, shoppers are finding green sneakers.

There are various tools available free online to help you weed out negative keywords.

Try Out Different Ad Formats

Bid On Your Competitors’ Best Keywords

Choose the Manual Setting But Test Out Automatic

Make Sure Your Ads Don’t Show for Negative Keywords

Price Your Products Correctly

Set Different Bids for Each Ad

Stick to Long Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are specific descriptive phrases that describe a product.

How much do Amazon Ads Cost?

ACOS stands for Advertising Cost of Sales. With Amazon sponsored product and sponsored brand strategies, your ACOS is easy to calculate.

An advertiser can use various strategies to promote sponsored product or brands, or product/brands campaigns. In the case of sponsored product or brand advertising, the ACOS is the amount the advertiser has chosen to pay per click. Advertisers place bids for the amount.

The Cost per Click (CPC) is part of the ACOS. Here’s an example of how it works, using sponsored product ads:

1. The advertiser decides how much to pay when a customer clicks on an ad. It is part of the advertiser’s budget.
2. The beginning CPC on Amazon is 81 cents. By comparison, the CPC for FB ads is 1.72 and the CPC on Google ads is 2.32.
3. However, the Amazon CPC is part of an auction-like system. How much you choose to pay per click may determine how your ad is ranked – where it is positioned as a result of a customer’s search.
4. Important to note – A click does not always translate into a sale.
5. Calculating the value of clicks and the CPC impact on profit is strictly numbers. Calculating the value of clicks and the impact on brand awareness is an intangible.
6. The success of brand campaigns can be calculated by weighing advertising cost against profit margins. Again, much is intangible as you build brand awareness.

Pros of Amazon Advertising

1. Amazon is a trusted name and known for excellent customer service.
2. Amazon is the go-to for unlimited products.
3. You can use Amazon ads professional services such as Sizmek Ad Suite to create and optimize your product, brand and campaigns. You can also track sales history and number of detail page views.
4. ACOS are easy to calculate on sponsored products or brands, using CPC against sales.
5. Compared to a print ad, the click gives you a definitive number on how many customers have seen it.

Cons of Amazon Advertising

1. The CPC can turn into bidding between competitors.
2. Any advertising cost is a budget risk.
3. A click does not always turn into a sale which affect ACOS (advertising cost).
4. To date, Pay Pal is not accepted.
5. It takes time to set up as content of display ads and product listings and product pages must be definitive and optimized.

Should I advertise on Amazon?

Yes. To date, Amazon is the biggest online retailer. Advertisers should be there.

Another main reason is that it will force your hand to properly set up your product pages as keyword targeted. The experts at Amazon can help you do that and more, such as organizing ad campaigns.

How many times have you run display ads or other types of ads and had no way to determine their effectiveness? Have you run advertising campaigns, and not know if campaigns were winners?

With Amazon, your ad and sale is in the same place. Products, brands, campaigns, all right there to affix numbers.

No matter which digital marketing tactic you choose with Amazon, you’ll have the performance metric right there. You can analyze clicks and profits.

What are Amazon ads called?

<Create a Google-style FAQ paragraph that answers this question in full. Go through the different names for Amazon ads.>

Are KDP ads worth it?

KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing. Think of it as advertising for book authors.

Using Amazon, you can self-publish your book, which is then available on Kindle.

You pay for advertising to promote your book.

Are KDP ads worth it? KDP ads give you a way to promote your book to a worldwide audience. What’s more, KDP ads can be customized, so that the ad for your book appears to a relevant audience.

For example, if shoppers have purchased a romance book, ads for similar books will appear. That’s like book campaigns without leaving your home.

Can you advertise non-Amazon products on Amazon?

Yes. You can use an ad on Amazon to direct shoppers to your website – even if your product is not available though Amazon.

What is a good cost per click on Amazon?

The Amazon CPC starts at 81 cents. Compared to other starting CPCs advertisers pay (Google ads 2.32 and FB ads 1.72) that’s a bargain.

But that’s just the starting point. The Amazon CPC is typically relative to the cost of the product. For example, if your product is a $10 hair band, you don’t want a $4 CPC.

As a comparison, here’s a look at average cost per click costs for ads in various service industries:

Consumer services 3.77

Legal services 5.88

Auto services 1.42

In short, a good CPC is a cost that’s inline with the overall cost of your product.

Image: Depositphotos

This article, "Using Amazon Advertising to Make More Sales" was first published on Small Business Trends