One of the most significant advertising stories of the year is the rise of Amazon as an ad platform. As we discussed on our blog earlier this year, Amazon’s advertising products have been enjoying phenomenal growth albeit off a much smaller base compared to Google and Facebook.
And Amazon shows no signs of slowing down. In September, eMarketer reported that in 2018, Amazon will become the third-largest digital advertising platform behind Google and Facebook. On October 8, CNBC reported that some advertisers are moving as much as half of their search budgets from Google to Amazon. According to CNBC, “Amazon appears to be emerging as the most credible threat to Google’s cash cow advertising business since Facebook conquered mobile advertising beginning shortly after its 2012 IPO.” Those reasons include:
- Amazon’s continued growth as an ecommerce platform beyond retail, which gives Amazon a larger pool of advertisers.
- Amazon’s popularity as a search engine. According to Survata, about half of product searches begin on Amazon.
- Amazon provides a seamless search-and-purchase option. Per CNBC, unlike the case with Google, “Using a Google search ad to lead to a purchase may require a person to set up an account and input their credit card information with a separate website. Especially for smaller brands, there’s not really an advantage between selling direct to the consumer versus selling through Amazon.”
Google holds a strong lead over Facebook and Amazon. But especially for businesses that sell products on Amazon, Amazon’s advertising products are increasingly attractive.
To help our readers better understand how to succeed with Amazon’s advertising solutions, on our blog we are casting a spotlight on three Amazon products: sponsored ads, display ads, and video ads. The first post in our series, “Advertiser Q&A: Amazon Sponsored Ads,” is live. As my colleague Samantha Coconato writes, Amazon’s sponsored ads are Amazon’s pay-per-click (PPC) advertising solution. They are available to sellers, venders, book venders, and Kindle Direct Publishing. Sponsored ads take a consumer directly to a product page or brand site within Amazon.
To maximize the value of sponsored ads, advertisers should spend time to really think through which products and offers would make the most sense on this platform. For example, putting up ads for a seller’s entire inventory all year round would probably not be a wise use of your money. Pulsing the ads on and off during seasonal or clearance sales and using a promotion or discount would be a better way to generate sales and to raise awareness of your products or store.
For more insight into Amazon sponsored ads, check out our post. And stay tuned for more insight. If you have questions about maximizing the value of digital advertising, contact us. We’re here to help.
Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
