How Retailers Can Succeed on Amazon during the Holiday Season

How Retailers Can Succeed on Amazon during the Holiday Season

by Morgan Reilly Advertising

By Tim Colucci and Morgan Reilly

It’s a challenging time to be a merchant selling products on Amazon. In October, Amazon’s vaunted Prime Day II sale underperformed according to analysts’ analysis. And then Amazon forecast its Q4 retail sales to be $140 billion to $148 billion in the fourth quarter, far short of analysts’ average estimate of $156 billion. Meanwhile, Adobe Inc. forecast that US e-commerce sales in November and December will rise just 2.5% from the prior year.

All of this is because consumers are more price conscious amid inflation and fears of a pending recession, so they will likely spend less.

Independent sellers on Amazon’s website, who account for a majority of unit sales, are bracing for a challenging holiday season in the run-up to Cyber Week. Many of them advertise their products on Amazon via Amazon Ads. How should they adapt their approach if at all?

Here are some tips:

1 Don’t Let Prime Day Results Spook You

Klover, a company that analyzes real-time commerce and financial data, found that households spent around 40 percent less during the October event compared with the July Prime Day. But merchants were constrained by Amazon’s ground rules for selling on Prime Day II, which prohibited vendors from featuring top discounts on both October Prime Day and Cyber Week. So, many merchants likely were hesitant to feature their top discounts/promotions because they needed to save them for Cyber Week. Also, many retailers might not have been prepared to have inventory ready for two Prime Days (July and October) and Cyber Week — and in those cases, they are likely holding out for Cyber Week.

2 Focus on Value, Not Price

As a partner to advertisers this holiday season, our own experience indicates that the lowest cost item isn’t necessarily the most popular. So far we’re seeing traditionally popular sellers are doing well. Consumers are willing to pay for what they really want. They’re willing to trade down for a lower-cost alternative, but that doesn’t mean they’re going for the cheapest items on the menu. Beware inventory dumping, which burned many businesses on Prime Day. During the inflationary times we’re living in, price-conscious shoppers are less likely to buy something extra just because it’s on sale.

3 Consider Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display in Addition to Sponsored Products

For many merchants, Amazon’s Sponsored Products ad unit is the bread-and-butter of their ad spend. Sponsored products are used to promote a single product and take the consumer directly to the product page. Additional creative such as images and text are not needed, making sponsored products the simplest ad to set up. Merchants use keyword targeting to match products to a consumer’s search and show ads on the search results page or product detail page. 

Amazon Sponsored Products

Sponsored Brands allow for multiple products or titles to be promoted together using a custom headline and logo. Consumers are taken to a product page if they click on a product, or to a designated landing page if they click on the image or ad text. Sponsored Brands are good for driving awareness, in addition to sales. For example, advertisers can pair new or seasonal items with a related top seller in an ad to increase visibility in other product offerings. Or if a seller has multiple versions of the same product, using Sponsored Brand ads showcases the variety available within a single ad.

Amazon Sponsored Brands

Sponsored Display, on the other hand, makes it possible to engage with shoppers on and off Amazon with self-service display ads. Advertisers can engage audiences browsing specific detail pages, on the Amazon home page, on Twitch (owned by Amazon), and across third-party apps and websites. Amazon says that on average companies that use Sponsored Display see up to 82 percent of their sales driven by new-to-brand customers.

 

So, why do Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display matter? Because the 2022 holiday season is more competitive. As Amazon noted in its earnings forecast, shoppers are spending less. They’re choosier. So, advertisers have to work harder at the awareness and consideration phases, which is where Sponsored Brands (for consideration) and Sponsored Display (for awareness) can be especially useful by showcasing more of a product’s features on and off Amazon.

4 Know Your Cyber Week Strategy

Today merchants everywhere (whether on Amazon or not) need to manage their holiday advertising spend against an increasingly complex set of choices: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and now Cyber Week (Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Super Sunday, and Cyber Monday).

You do want to fund your advertising for all of Cyber Week, but some days are more appealing than others depending on what you sell. Cyber Monday remains huge, especially the peak shopping evening hours. Cyber Monday will likely loom very large in 2022 as shoppers hold out for the best possible deal.

Each day a retailer gets closer to Christmas, sales will inevitably taper off, off, but retailers should keep placeholder budget in place up until the last day free shipping is possible.

Contact True Interactive

True Interactive has deep experience helping clients plan and implement holiday shopping campaigns online, and this includes the use of Amazon Ads. We can help you, too. We understand how to create nimble search campaigns and multi-channel ad outreach to target consumers with the right message at the right time. Contact us to learn more.

Three Takeaways from Amazon Prime Day 2022

Three Takeaways from Amazon Prime Day 2022

by Morgan Reilly Amazon

Amazon has announced that Amazon Prime Day 2022 was the biggest Prime Day Event ever. Prime members purchased more than 300 million items worldwide during Prime Day 2022, which took place July 12-13. Amazon did not disclose sales results, but the 300 million items purchased was up from 250 million in 2021, and research firm Numerator estimates that spend per household neared $200, up from the high $150’s in years past. This is an impressive measure especially amid soaring inflation. So, who is buying all this stuff, what are they buying, and how are they buying? This is a significant question. The answers give advertisers clues about online purchasing behavior during inflationary times. Well, Numerator took a close look at the numbers. And they say a lot.

Women Drive eCommerce

High income, suburban women were top Prime Day 2022 shoppers. Compared to Prime Day 2021, this year’s shoppers were marginally older, and slightly more likely to come from middle or low income rural households.

Women dominate Prime Day

These figures validate why brands market to women. Women are responsible for most purchases in a typical household, and since there are 3.9 billion women in the world, marketers are eager to gain as much of their spend as possible. But marketers need to be mindful to tailor their advertising to women – for example by respecting their diversity and steering clear of tired themes (such as always depicting moms as caretakers and nurturers).

Amazon Wins by Tapping into Its Customer Base

95 percent of households knew it was Prime Day before shopping, and most learned about the event directly from Amazon. Among those who were aware of the sale, 41 percent say it was the primary reason they shopped on Amazon and another 42 percent said it was a contributing factor. And Amazon dominated the list of most popular products sold.

Amazon dominates Prime Day

These numbers underscore the power of Amazon to capitalize on its built-in customer base by promoting big ticket events to them. Amazon has successfully developed hundreds of in-house products and brands, and the company knows how to market them to Prime members.

This will pressure businesses to get out in front of big-tent sales such as Back-to-School, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday even more so than they have, especially by re-marketing and advertising to their own customers. This is especially true during inflationary times. One third of Prime Day shoppers waited to buy something until Prime Day, with another 17 percent using the event as an opportunity to stock up on sale items. On the flip side, over a fourth of Prime Day shoppers passed up a good deal on a non-necessity. Businesses will double down on special sale days in 2022, knowing that their customers may very hold out for promotional specials to maximize savings.

It’s also worth noting that Amazon didn’t dominate every product sold, with products such as Dawn Dish Soap, Frito-Lay, and Tide doing well. Businesses have learned that it’s better to join Amazon than to try and beat the retailing giant. And retailers who tried to compete with Amazon by creating their own quasi-Prime Day events did not succeed: although 54 percent of Amazon Prime customers considered buying from other retailers during Prime Day (particularly Walmart and Target) only 24 percent actually made purchases elsewhere in addition to Amazon, with about one-in-ten still considering a non-Amazon purchase at the time they were surveyed.

This is why Amazon Ads is succeeding: the company has monetized all the data it collects about its customers and developed attractive ad units for companies that want to reach them. The advertising arm of Amazon achieved 32 percent year-over-year growth in 2021, which amounted to $31.2 billion in revenue. Amazon Ads will continue to be a huge growth engine for Amazon, as more businesses try to reach the customers searching for things to buy on Amazon every day. (Amazon is now bigger than Google for product searches.)

Live Stream Shopping Is on the Rise

Amazon noted that Amazon Live Prime Day streams had more than 100 million views. Thousands of users hosted livestreams during this year’s event, Amazon said. Livestreaming makes it possible for advertisers to sell products via live demonstrations and promotions. Live shopping is especially big in China: according to eMarketer, live shopping accounted for nearly 12 percent of China’s retail ecommerce sales in 2021. Coresight Research estimates the live-stream shopping market will reach $20 billion in 2022 and grow to roughly $65 billion by 2023. Several livestream platforms have proliferated. But livestream shopping needs to be done well, with great production values and authentic, engaging personalities to connect with shoppers. This is why businesses are turning to ready-made platforms such as Amazon Live.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed in Amazon’s world, contact True Interactive. Our experience with Amazon Ads makes us well suited to help your brand succeed all year-round.

Why Walmart Connect Is Winning

Why Walmart Connect Is Winning

by Tim Colucci Walmart

For the first time, Walmart shared how much money its advertising business, Walmart Connect, is generating. And business is good. In announcing its quarterly earnings February 17, Walmart said that Walmart Connect achieved $2.1 billion in revenue in 2021. Why is Walmart Connect succeeding?

What Is Walmart Connect?

Walmart Connect is the name of Walmart’s advertising business. Walmart Connect creates targeted advertising by capitalizing on the customer data it has accumulated about search and shopping on Walmart.com and in Walmart stores. Walmart Connect offers many ad units. For example, Search Brand Amplifier makes it possible for a brand’s logo, a custom headline, and up to three of its products appear at the top of a web page (on Walmart.com), thus improving brand recognition and showcasing a company’s product portfolio.

What Did Walmart Announce?

In a conference call with Wall Street analysts, Walmart said that Walmart Connect is growing remarkably well. According to Walmart’s Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs, “Walmart Connect advertising experienced robust sales growth this year with a strong pipeline of new advertisers and large growth opportunities ahead. In fact, the number of active advertisers using Walmart Connect grew more than 130% year over year. And about half of the ad sales came from automated channels in Q4, more than double last year. We expect Walmart Connect to continue to scale over the next few years with plans to become a top 10 ad business in the midterm.”

Why Is Walmart Connect Succeeding?

Walmart Connect is benefitting because the company relies on first-party customer data. Ad platforms that rely on first-party customer data are becoming more attractive as businesses such as Apple and Google make it harder for advertisers to capitalize on third-party customer behavior data to create online ads. First-party data is beyond the reach of these privacy initiatives. That’s a big reason why retailer-based ad businesses are flourishing – and Walmart is not the only one, as we blogged here.

Another reason for the success of Walmart Connect is that the company has offered automated advertising tools. As noted above, in a call with Wall Street analysts, Walmart said that half the advertising revenue in 2021 came through automated channels. This suggests that Walmart is doing a good job offering programmatic advertising — or the use of automated technology for media buying (the process of buying advertising space), as opposed to traditional (often manual) methods of digital advertising.

Although we don’t have any numbers yet, it’s also likely that Walmart’s physical stores will play a role in the growth of Walmart Connect. Walmart Connect sells ads on more than 170,000 screens — including televisions and self-checkout kiosk screens — located inside more than 4,500 U.S. stores. For example, TV Wall Ads provide placement of an advertisement on thousands of in-store TV screens in stores, with the goal being to influence shoppers while they’re making purchase decisions. Keep an eye on the in-store ad units. They are primed for growth as people become more comfortable shopping in stores post-pandemic.

What Should Advertisers Do?

  • Consider retailer-based ad networks as a complement to your existing digital ad strategy, not as a replacement. If your strategy focuses on Facebook and Google, for instance, don’t move your ad dollars over to a retailer network. Remember that Facebook and Google also already offer proven advertising products that capitalize on their vast user base. For example, location-based digital advertising tools help strengthen Google’s advertising services at the local level.
  • Work with an agency partner that knows the terrain. For instance, at True Interactive, we complement our history of helping businesses advertising on Google and social media with expertise across retailer ad networks such as Amazon and Walmart.
  • Learn more about the ad products that might apply to you – and those products are evolving. In 2022, more retailers will use first-party data to help businesses create more targeted ads off-site – meaning advertising across the web, as well as via connected TV.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here and our Walmart Connect expertise here.

For More Insight

“Why Retailers Are Launching Ad Businesses,” Tim Colucci, January 11, 2022.

“Walgreens Doubles Down on Its Advertising Business,” Tim Colucci, May 19, 2021.

Why Retailers Are Launching Ad Businesses

Why Retailers Are Launching Ad Businesses

by Tim Colucci Advertising

Best Buy recently announced the launch of Best Buy Ads, a new in-house media company. Best Buy Ads offer a range of ad units including paid search ads, onsite and offsite display ads, onsite and offsite video ads, social ads, and in-store ads. According to Best Buy, Best Buy Ads capitalizes on the fact that Best Buy interacts with its customers three billion times a year. From those interactions, Best Buy learns about the search and shopping habits of its customers. This makes it possible for the retailer to sell ad units that target a specific demographic: people with a strong interest in consumer technology.

Best Buy is the latest retailer to launch an ad business. Other examples include:

  • Walmart Connect, the leading ad business run by a brick-and-mortar retailer.

As with Best Buy, they offer services ranging from display to media buying. They all have one thing in common: they monetize their customer data.

Why an Ad Business Appeals to a Retailer Like Best Buy

An online advertising business is appealing to Best Buy for a number of reasons, including:

  • This is a proven model. The growth of Amazon Advertising (Amazon’s own in-house ad operation) speaks for itself. Amazon Advertising is so successful that Amazon is now challenging Google’s and Facebook’s dominance of online advertising. In light of this, we’ve witnessed a slew of retailers jumping into the ad business. For example, Walmart Connect (Walmart’s ad operation) has enjoyed strong growth.
  • Customer data is a competitive weapon. Retailers such as Best Buy collect a treasure trove of data about their customers, starting with their search and shopping preferences. This data gives each retailer an edge because they can promise advertisers access to a targeted audience with intent to buy. As noted, Best Buy targets consumers in the market for home electronics. By contrast, the recently launched ad platform from retailer Macy’s targets a fashion-conscious consumer. Walmart promises entrée to grocery shoppers and price-conscious consumers. Of course, retailers must know how to mine all this data and then develop attractive ad units. But the data provides a built-in advantage.
  • Retailers’ customer data is getting more attractive to advertisers. Businesses are looking for alternative ways to reach consumers amid the demise of third-party cookies, which are crucial for third-party ad targeting, and the advent of stricter consumer privacy controls on Apple’s iOS, which has also made it harder for businesses to target consumers with ads. With third-party ad targeting across the web threatened, platforms that give advertisers entree to shoppers within retailers’ walled gardens are more appealing. Basically, retailers are using their own customer data to do what Apple and Google won’t do for advertisers anymore.
  • e-Commerce is booming. Online ad businesses in particular are catching fire because of the e-commerce boom. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, “The e-commerce industry is expected to hold on to pandemic-elevated sales into 2022, with big retailers including Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc set to benefit as consumers stick to new, hybrid shopping patterns.” S&P Global Market Intelligence says U.S. e-commerce sales are on track to exceed $1 trillion for the first time in 2022. Businesses want to reach those shoppers, which creates a demand for online advertising. The surge in online commerce also means more people are using retailers’ sites to search and shop, which creates more valuable customer data that retailers’ ad businesses can monetize. This also means advertising.

What Advertisers Should Do

  • Consider retailer-based ad networks as a complement to your existing digital ad strategy, not as a replacement. If your strategy focuses on Facebook and Google, for instance, don’t move your ad dollars over to a retailer network. Remember that Facebook and Google also already offer proven advertising products that capitalize on their vast user base. For example, location-based digital advertising tools help strengthen Google’s advertising services at the local level.
  • Do, however, monitor the effectiveness of your advertising on Facebook and Google amid the demise of third-party cookies and the onset of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, which includes more privacy controls that may make Facebook ads less effective (which remains to be seen).
  • Work with an agency partner that knows the terrain. For instance, at True Interactive, we complement our history of helping businesses advertising on Google and social media with expertise across retailer ad networks such as Amazon and Walmart.
  • Learn more about the ad products that might apply to you – and those products are evolving. In 2022, more retailers will use first-party data to help businesses create more targeted ads off-site – meaning advertising across the web, as well as via connected TV.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here.

For More Insight

“Walgreens Doubles Down on Its Advertising Business,” Tim Colucci, May 19, 2021.

“Amazon Unveils New Ad Units Across Its Ecosystem,” Kurt Anagnostopoulos, May 4, 2021.

“Why Macy’s Launched an Advertising Platform,” Tim Colucci, March 3, 2021.

“Walmart Asserts Its Leadership in Advertising,” Tim Colucci, February 8, 2021.

Walgreens Doubles Down on Its Advertising Business

Walgreens Doubles Down on Its Advertising Business

by Tim Colucci Advertising

In December 2020, Walgreens launched its own advertising business, Walgreens Advertising Group, wag.  Now Walgreens is doubling down on advertising by expanding wag’s capabilities into over-the-top (OTT) services, connected TV (CTV) and traditional linear TV across 100 apps and 10 supply-side platforms, with an inventory of 2.5 billion daily impressions. This development demonstrates a growing trend of retailers using their customer data to provide advertising services.

What Walgreens Announced

Walgreens has touted wag as an effective way to leverage insights from 100+ million Walgreens loyalty members and one billion daily digital touchpoints with customers to create personalized advertising. wag provides businesses access to advertising platforms on Walgreens-owned and third-party channels, with the potential of achieving higher match rates versus the industry standard method of digital media buying. wag provides the ability to reach shoppers across digital display, video, social, streaming audio, email as well as Walgreens digital platforms and stores. On May 17, Walgreens announced that wag will extend its reach into television. According to Walgreens, the new capability consists of:

  • The addition of OTT & CTV inventory accessible via the wagDSP — a proprietary programmatic buying technology that integrates Walgreens customer and transaction data with dynamic creative capabilities and real-time optimization.
  • A first-to-market collaboration with OpenAP, and integration with the OpenID that enables brands to reach audiences powered by Walgreens first-party data as part of their television buys. Brands will be able to collaborate with Walgreens to execute against deterministic audiences now, and closed loop measurement will be in place by the start of the broadcast year.

Inventory is sourced through 100+ apps and 10 supply-side platforms with 2.5 billion+ available impressions daily, including access to inventory from key platforms.

Brands activating against this inventory can do so with all of the same functionality, optimization, and measurement capability as in digital video and display executed through the wagDSP. This enables people based media targeting, with measurement and real-time optimization.

Why the Expansion of Walgreens Advertising Group Matters

This news matters for two reasons:

  • wag’s expansion is part of a broader effort by retailers to capitalize on their own-first party data to provide advertising services. Retailers such as Amazon, Dollar Tree, Kroger, Macy’s, Target, and Walmart are all monetizing their first-party customer data by building ad businesses. Each retailer can give advertisers access to different types of consumers. For instance, wag gives advertisers access to consumers in the health and wellness space, and Macy’s is geared toward businesses wanting to reach fashion-conscious shoppers. We expect more of these platforms to emerge as businesses seek alternative ways to reach consumers amid the demise of third-party cookies, which are crucial for third-party ad targeting. With third-party ad targeting across the web threatened, platforms that give advertisers entree to shoppers within retailers’ walled gardens are more appealing.

What Advertisers Should Do

We suggest that advertisers:

  • Consider retailer-based ad networks as a complement to your existing digital ad strategy, not as a replacement. If your strategy focuses on Facebook and Google, for instance, don’t move your ad dollars over to a retailer network. Remember that Facebook and Google also already offer proven advertising products that capitalize on their vast user base. For example, location-based digital advertising tools help strengthen Google’s advertising services at the local level.
  • Do, however, monitor the effectiveness of your advertising on Facebook and Google amid the demise of third-party cookies and the onset of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, which includes more privacy controls that may make Facebook ads less effective (which remains to be seen).
  • Learn more about the ad products that might apply to you – and those products are evolving, as the expansion of wag demonstrates. In addition, we recently blogged about how Amazon is creating more ad units. The time may come soon when advertising on the web means constantly capitalizing on walled gardens’ offerings.
  • Work with an agency partner that knows the terrain. For instance, at True Interactive, we help businesses advertise through connected TV, complementing our deep expertise with online advertising on Google, social media, and the retailer networks such as Amazon and Walmart.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here.

Five Lessons From the 2021 Ad Spending Surge

Five Lessons From the 2021 Ad Spending Surge

by Mark Smith Advertising

Ad spending is surging. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, U.S. companies are expected to spend 15 percent more on advertising in 2021 year than they did in 2020. That’s because consumer confidence is increasing, and the pace of Covid-19 vaccinations is accelerating. And digital is getting a bigger share than ever of the advertising pie:

Digital Share of Ad Spending

Announcements from technology giants and social media apps in recent days underscore just how much businesses are investing into digital advertising:

  • As we reported on our blog, Amazon Advertising and Facebook reported strong year-over-year ad revenue growth in their most recent quarterly earnings announcements.
  • Alphabet announced 32 percent year-over-year ad growth for Google, demonstrating an impressive rebound from a slump triggered by the pandemic.

Amid this spending surge, we see some important lessons emerging:

  • Businesses that maintained their spending levels during the depths of Covid-19 in 2020 are at an advantage over those who pulled back and are now kickstarting their spending. Consumer behavior and sentiment are changing faster than ever. We predicted in 2020 that reducing ad spend during the pandemic would catch businesses flat-footed when consumer behavior shifted again – as it has done in 2021.
  • We’ve hit an inflection point with digital. As the stay-at-home economy takes hold, consumers are remaining online at higher levels than ever. As a result, online spending continues to accelerate. Businesses that asked, “But how long will the growth last?” in 2020 fell behind those that saw the surge for what it is: a behavioral change. The faster businesses adapt to those changes by boosting their online advertising, the sooner they’ll attract shoppers online.
  • The tech giants are experiencing a golden era. We’ve seen the tech giants – namely Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft – experience heavy criticism in recent years for reasons too numerous to summarize in a blog post. And of course the specter of antitrust lawsuits looms over Facebook and Google (and Apple in Europe). On top of that, they’re at war with each other, and the demise of third-party cookies calls into question how well advertisers will be able to target consumers across these platforms. But guess what? Amid the blowback, the tech giants continue to run the table, as noted above. Smart advertisers aren’t allowing negative headlines to scare them away from the tech giants. They’re watching how these platforms innovate with new ad units that monetize the surging online audience.
  • Retail ad platforms are on the rise. Savvy marketers are capitalizing on the fact that retailers such as Amazon, Dollar Tree, Kroger, Macy’s, Target, and Walmart are monetizing their first-party customer data by building ad businesses. Each retailer can give advertisers access to different types of consumers. We expect more of these platforms to emerge, contributing to robust ad growth.
  • Social commerce is going to fuel more ad spending. As we discussed on our blog recently, businesses should capitalize on social commerce advertising tools such as Pinterest Product Pins, through which a business can connect its product catalog to Pinterest, filter and organize inventory, create shopping ads, and measure results; or numerous ad units on Instagram that make it easier for businesses to turn advertising into shopping experiences.

We urge businesses to take a fresh look at how your customers’ journeys are changing amid the rise of digital-first living and spending. Monitor performance closely as consumer behavior fluctuates. Businesses that invest in strong real-time analytics tools will have the upper hand.

Contact True Interactive

At True Interactive, we know how to help businesses navigate the complex waters of online advertising. Contact us. Learn more about our work here.

Photo by Adem AY on Unsplash

Amazon Unveils New Ad Units Across Its Ecosystem

Amazon Unveils New Ad Units Across Its Ecosystem

by Kurt Anagnostopoulos Amazon

Amazon keeps giving advertisers more reasons to choose its advertising platform, Amazon Advertising.

We recently blogged about the fact that Amazon and Facebook are steadily chipping away at Google’s online advertising marketshare. As eMarketer reported, Amazon’s share of the online advertising market increased from 7.8 percent in 2019 to 10 percent in 2020. Amazon just reminded us why Amazon Advertising will keep growing: product innovations.

We’ve already talked about how Amazon keeps launching ad units such as Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands that make it possible for businesses to place ads on Amazon, which functions as a powerful search engine for people looking to purchase things. As reported in Advertising Age, Amazon is rolling out new products that extend beyond the Amazon site:

  • Amazon will expand advertising opportunities on Fire TV, which competes with devices such as Apple TV and Roku to stream content on connected TVs for millions of viewers. Fire TV is more than a device. It’s a way for advertisers to reach people as they browse and discover new entertainment. One new ad unit, Sponsored Content Rows, is designed for businesses to promote content such as new shows and movies in the form of a row (or carousel) of sponsored content while people browse for shows on their connected TVs (akin to sponsored search results in a Google search engine results page).
  • Amazon also expanded the places where it will show display ads across the Amazon network, including Fire TV, Prime, IMDb TV and Twitch. “We’re making it easier by introducing sponsorship opportunities paired with high-quality content from Prime Video, IMDb TV, Twitch, and third-party content,” Amazon said. This is an important development because it shows that Amazon is expanding its advertising reach beyond the core Amazon site. Many consumers are not aware that Amazon’s network of brands includes sites such as IMDb and Twitch – but indeed they’re part of Amazon’s empire. Amazon is figuring out more ways for advertisers to monetize those popular sites. (Twitch ranks 32 among the world’s 50 most popular websites, with Amazon ranking 13.)

This news comes on the heels of a huge week for Amazon. On April 29, The company announced quarterly earnings that exceeded analysts’ expectations. Although Amazon does not disclose revenue results for Amazon Advertising, it’s estimated that Amazon Advertising realizing revenue growth of 77 percent year over year to achieve $6.9 billion in the first quarter alone.

Earlier in 2021, Amazon scored a huge advertising coup when Amazon Prime Video became the first streaming service to secure an exclusive NFL national broadcast package, which will begin in 2022. The agreement will open up more advertising revenue streams as Amazon monetizes the value of the audience that relies on Amazon Prime Video.

It’s important that advertisers keep their options open by capitalizing on the power of platforms such as Amazon that are harnessing the value of their first-party data to create ad units. (We’re seeing the emergence of more similar platforms such as the Macy’s Media Network.) True Interactive works with brands to capitalize on these offerings such as Amazon Advertising and Walmart Connect, along with our longstanding work with advertising partners such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.  To succeed on these networks, contact us. We can help!