Last week, Digiday held the Amazon Advertising Strategies Virtual Forum, where retailers and agency partners addressed all things related to Amazon advertising from product detail pages, video advertising to the impact of COVID-19 and more.
In this two-part series, we have compiled our key takeaways from the event – starting with our top five.
1. Boost brand awareness
Over the last few months, ecommerce has grown more than ever before with many brands experiencing an increase in sales and conversion rates. So, now is the perfect opportunity for brands to start investing in the upper funnel – making use of brand awareness and conquesting tactics. And there are many ways to put this into practice, such as targeting competitor keywords, targeting broader categories, as well as targeting competitor products. It may also be beneficial to assess your product range to know what makes you stand out against your competitors on Amazon and, target your campaigns based on these to build a competitive advantage.
2. Hone your strategy
Defend your brand
A strong strategy on Amazon advertising should cover brand defence, category keywords and competitor keywords – with each having their own objectives and key-performance-indicators (KPIs). To that end, it is crucial to defend your brand terms, especially when the category is highly competitive and the market is aggressive.
Boost visibility
You should also ensure the visibility of your products, particularly, for searches which include your brand terms – both in search results and in your product detail pages. It’s also important to decide strategically which products you want to display when someone searches for your brand.
Leverage keywords
Additionally, you should aim to cover the main keywords of the categories relevant to your product and target key competitors within your strategy, in order to continually reach new customers.
Budget
Deciding where to allocate your budget should be dependant on the visibility of your brand on Amazon. For example, if your brand is new to Amazon, you should assign a majority of your budget towards category and competitor targeting – with minimum budget allocation to cover your brand terms. It’s important to keep in mind that no matter how new a brand is on- or off Amazon, you should always assign a budget to cover your brand terms.
3. Set seasonally-specific strategies
In the same way that we set different objectives depending on what our strategic focus is, it may also be advantageous to set different strategies for different seasons of the year. For example, in Q1 you might be focused on acquisition and discovery thereby investing in upper funnel formats. Whereas in Q2, you might look to focus on conversions, investing in the bottom of the funnel with the aim of capturing high intent traffic using high converting tactics. So, by taking a seasonal approach, you’ll be able to continually adapt your strategy to ensure you’re focusing on what’s relevant to your brand objectives at any point in time.
4. Keep your content relevant
Consumer behaviour and their lifestyles will have changed significantly over the last few months – particularly with the recent coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, it’s important to regularly update the content within your listings i.e. images, bullet points, descriptions and A+ content to Stores, in order to continually connect with your consumers. Keep in mind, there any many brands on Amazon, and a good way to stand out from the competition is by keeping your content as relevant as possible.
5. Utilise video
The use of video is becoming increasingly important in advertising, and Amazon is not an exception. Brands must ensure that they are taking advantage of the benefits of using video, both in their product detail as well as their brand Stores.
Additionally, video allows brands to highlight their unique selling points (USPs), their product features, and benefits. It also gives brands the opportunity to provide a great deal of information in a matter of seconds – an effective way of telling your brand story.
Amazon has long understood that video is a considerably popular format. As such, a few months ago they launched Sponsored Brand Video – a new format of Sponsored Ads that allows advertisers to feature videos rather than static images.
Overall, brand awareness tactics, efficient keyword strategies and continually refreshing your content are advisable areas to focus on when looking to boost your Amazon strategy. In part two, we will discuss the launch of luxury brands on Amazon, the impact of COVID-19 and the importance of demand-side platform (DSP) for a full-funnel strategy.
To find out more about Croud and our Amazon advertising services, get in touch.
