From its origins as an online book shop in 1995 to now holding the title as the largest internet company by revenue in the world, no one can deny that Amazon has truly dominated the digital landscape.
In fact with more than 353 million products available online, Amazon has now surpassed Google as the number one location for online shopping. Last Christmas alone Amazon sold enough 4K HD TVs to reach the peak of Mt. Everest 9 times over, and enough Harry Potter film boxsets to play consecutively for more than 300 years.
Recent research conducted by ClickZ Intelligence has shown that now more than half of consumers (55%) begin their search for a product with Amazon, compared to 34% on search engines and only 21% turning directly to a retailer.
“The biggest threat to Google in my view, is Amazon. It’s Amazon and search capabilities on Amazon that is potentially the biggest threat.”
– Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of world’s largest ad firm, WPP
So the ultimate question is how we utilise the reach and plethora of data Amazon has on user behaviour as a marketing opportunity? The answer is Amazon Advertising.
What is Amazon Advertising?
You’re definitely not alone in being unaware of Amazon’s marketing opportunities for businesses. Amazon Advertising is a platform which enables you to reach Amazon shoppers programmatically on Amazon’s portfolio of websites and mobile apps, regardless of whether or not you’re selling your products directly on Amazon.
Through either a managed or self-service approach, you can to leverage Amazon’s goldmine of user behaviour data to accomplish more relevant ad placements, ultimately achieving more impressive results for your business.
What is the Future for Amazon Advertising?
As we enter the final part of 2017, Amazon have shared an update to the key enhancements on their programmatic buying solution—including new features and capabilities to make it faster and more effective to build and execute your programmatic advertising campaigns.
- To streamline campaign management, Amazon has released a series of updates that automate processes, simplify campaign setup, and reduce turnaround time for tasks such as creative scanning, line item editing, domain targeting, and more.
- To increase efficiency, they have added the ability to remarket on third party sites, apply viewability filters using Integral Ad Science tiers, and onboard advertisers’ audiences –directly or from data management platforms like Adobe Audience Manager and Salesforce DMP (formerly known as Krux).
- To surface actionable insights, Amazon have enhanced their reporting with video metrics including downloads, rentals, and effective cost per completed view. They’ve also added retail metrics such as new product subscriptions and brand halo, which measures the impact of advertising on a brand’s overall portfolio.
- Finally, to help extend campaign reach, Amazon have expanded their third party supply to include additional ad exchanges, new creative formats and sizes, and broader support of private marketplaces.
A recent survey discovered that a greater number of businesses (63%) are intending to allocate their budget to Amazon activities in 2018 than Google (54%) or Facebook (53%). Could now be the time for your business to consider developing a strategy for Amazon in preparation for the next financial year?