Amazon is expanding retailers’ ability to target shoppers with this advertising update. It developed a new Sponsored Display campaign type, known as product targeting, which allows retailers to target ads to shoppers who have viewed specific categories or products on Amazon. The update is opening up new avenues for retailers to engage audience subsets that are actively searching for their products.
In this installation of Keeping Up With Amazon, we’ll explore what this new feature is and how it might impact retailers’ advertising strategy on Amazon.
Release Date:
Amazon announced Sponsored Display product targeting on April 2, 2020.
What It Is:
Sponsored Display product targeting is a new campaign type for Amazon’s Sponsored Display ad format, currently in beta. Retailers can select specific products or product categories that they want their ads to display for. The retailer’s ad will appear when a shopper visits those products, similar products, or categories that it has selected.
These ads are available on desktop, mobile, and table. Retailers are charged on a CPC basis. They can set bids based on a product category or ASIN.
Currently, retailers can only create one ad group per product targeting campaign. This is not the case with other Sponsored Display campaigns.
What It Means for Your Business:
With this new Sponsored Display campaign, Amazon is expanding retailers’ ability to target low-funnel shoppers who have high purchase intent. This could give retailers another tool to convert shoppers on Amazon while improving their product visibility.
It also puts more control in retailers’ hands. Previously, Amazon matched Sponsored Display ads to shoppers based on interests that retailers selected. Amazon developed an algorithm to match shoppers to specific interests, but there is little insight into how these audiences are created or how much interest a shopper may have in a given product. With product targeting, retailers ensure their ads are only reaching shoppers who have visited pages with their products, similar products, or product category.
Sidecar has seen this campaign type drive more engagement than other Sponsored Display campaigns because it gives retailers more control and insight into the shoppers they are targeting. It can be a valuable way to build awareness for your products or even capture new customers from competitors’ pages.
As Amazon matures as a marketing platform, retailers are gaining more control over how and when their ads appear. Sponsored Display product targeting is the latest example of this trend, providing retailers with more ways to compete on an increasingly crowded platform.
