How to Win on Amazon DSP this 2022

READ MORE: Looking to learn more about Amazon DSP and how we scale brands with it? Learn what it has to offer in our back-to-basics article here.

Top of Funnel Advertising (TOFU)

With the introduction of the latest version of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) in 2021, advertisers like us have been given more opportunities to get their hands on more information about ad performance and consumers. At a granular level, AMC allows advertisers to:

• See and analyze Amazon’s advertising and retail data which can help them create custom reports on event-level data and improve their brand’s insight and campaign performance. 
• Measure a brand’s performance across several media channels, making it a powerful, cloud-based measurement and analytics tool. 

While some would be concerned about the information being displayed on AMC, Amazon ensures that all analysis is within a privacy-friendly environment. 

AMC has allowed for TOFU (top of funnel) advertising to have a clearer and more meaningful impact in a way that advertisers and brands can fully understand where the money is going and how much impact consideration ads bring to their business. AMC gives advertisers the analytics tool that satisfies their need for cross-channel measurement and answers the high-priority questions they’ve been having for the longest time. 

Here are just some of the many questions that Amazon Marketing Cloud helps answer…

• What is the true impact of your consideration and awareness campaigns on lower-funnel segments?
• Do customers who won through DSP come back after a while to purchase your product again and whether they do it from your website, Amazon listing, or any other channel?
• How effective are your media combinations and what works best for you?

Among the many things that have attracted data-savvy advertisers to AMC is its cross-channel reporting capabilities. With web blockers blocking third-party cookies from tracking pixels, creating in-depth reports can become tricky. But with the use of AMC, advertisers are able to overcome that limit and create better reporting due to its data transparency. This data transparency allows for the creation of specialized campaigns with more effective conversion rates.

AMC’s reporting capabilities cover the following areas:

• Measuring advertising data and performance across a variety of channels on and off Amazon
• Ensuring privacy-first insights and  secure data gathering across several ad platforms
• Performing path-to-conversion analysis (such as multiple attribution models and cross-campaign data aggregation)
• Understanding your campaign’s needs through wider access to different datasets 
• Creating custom reports with more details on impressions, engagement, conversions, and revenue than those currently presented in Amazon DSP
• Customizing attribution analysis for measuring different media channels impact data such as research, audience discovery, and purchase behavior
• Analyzing enhanced audience insights to perform a more in-depth analysis of data and help create better ways to engage potential customers
• Curating reports that match the advertiser’s audience, tendencies, messaging, goals, channels, etc. for better campaign planning

Read: Top 23 Amazon Advertising Trends & Predictions We See for 2022

Streaming TV ads (formerly known as OTT/Over the top ads)

Amazon’s TV and online videos ads (or OTT Ads) are gaining more traction and becoming more and more popular to different audiences. These types of ads help with increasing brand awareness through a broad audience reach, making them one of the best options for increasing conversions. As viewers have now switched to watching more shows on streaming services, OTT ads enable advertisers to meet their audiences by having their ads displayed across all of Amazon’s streaming platforms and devices. This switch has enabled brands to increase their purchase rate up to 90% when their ads are integrated into a media strategy. 

FACT: As of 2021, there are over 200 million people subscribed to Amazon Prime content globally.

What is OTT Advertising?

Unlike the normal ads you see on TV, Over-the-top or OTT advertising focuses on ads that run through online streaming services and can also be served programmatically. Streaming platforms have been increasingly frequented by potential customers, especially those from the younger audience, making it the perfect place for advertisers to roll their ads in and try to gain conversions from. Among the most popular places for OTT ads include Smart TVs, video streaming apps, gaming consoles, tablets, and streaming devices. Having an estimated unduplicated monthly US audience of more than 135 million monthly, streaming ads cut the cable cord and reach 74% of ages 18-34, 64% of ages 35-54, and 56% of ages 55 and above. With these numbers, it’s easy to see how streaming TV advertising is increasingly the best place to create more mix to the brand’s media along with lasting customer connections.

What are the advantages of OTT Advertising?

• Increasing brand growth

 OTT ads allow you to reach your target audience within Amazon’s platforms and Amazon’s network of third-party publishers.

• Precise audience targeting

As we mentioned, advertisers can target specific audiences who are more interested in our client category and are more likely to purchase products from their brand. They can be targeted by using Amazon DSP insights, Amazon’s first-party data, and having real-time intent for their ads. Through Amazon DSP, advertisers will be able to get more audience information than sponsored advertising, specifically: product interests, shopping behaviors, and demographics (gender, age, income, etc.) data on and off Amazon.

• Significantly cheaper than TV advertising

Traditional television ads are usually much more expensive than OTT ads. However, not all OTT ads will be cheap due to their rapidly increasing popularity. But while the cost of OTT ads can rise quickly, they’re a very cost-efficient way of posting visual ads as they’re more likely to have a more controllable ad spend, are easier to track, and have more relevant data after every campaign.

• Advertise to hard-to-reach and unreachable audiences

While online streaming services are vast, they weren’t able to reach more consumers in the past. But now that online streaming has been booming, OTT ads have been able to reach audiences that were unreachable before viewers have switched to watching on streaming platforms. Another way to keep the audience hooked is by not having a skip feature, allowing more audiences to watch your OTT ads. 

• Target your competitor’s audience

Also known as ad conquesting, competitor audience targeting is among the many features of OTT that make the ad competition stricter. Advertisers may target their ads around those who have seen their competitor’s ads, helping other brands increase their potential customers who might be interested in your products.

Latest changes and added features for Amazon OTT

• Ability to block genres 

This new feature allows advertisers more control over ad placement. By allowing advertisers to block genres, advertisers can make sure that their ads can appear in the most relevant genres that can get the most impressions from their target audience.

• New content release

Amazon has added new additional content and movies on both IMDb TV and Amazon Prime video which will open more opportunities for ads to reach a larger variety of audiences.

• Guaranteed audiences

Using a measure-and-buy approach, advertisers are able to pay only for impressions from audiences that are relevant to their brand. Advertisers may also be able to specify where they want their ads to appear.

• Use of the Video Creative Builder

Amazon OTT features a Video Creative Builder which allows for the creation of compelling and relevant video assets for use with ready-to-use customizable templates. Advertisers can change up the video’s images, background, and description. Existing videos may also be enhanced through this builder, allowing users to add product logos, choose templates, and add other elements such as texts and images. 

Read: How Tree to Tub Generated Over 180% RoAS, 13+ Million Impressions, & More in 10 Months with Amazon DSP – Case Study

Use Amazon DSP to convert traffic off Amazon (Link-out strategy)

Unlike other Amazon ad strategies, Amazon DSP allows advertisers to post ads without needing to sell products on Amazon. Because of that, more and more advertisers are starting to use Amazon DSP for creating link-out strategies and generating more traffic to their websites. 

Advertisers can use existing audience data from clients to create campaigns that send qualified traffic to your Amazon Store or any website outside of Amazon. This data is commonly not available to other display advertising services as well as it’s only unique to Amazon DSP. Doing this can enable advertisers to reach audiences on non-Amazon channels that are hard to reach or they have never reached before. 

Here are some of the advantages of using link-out strategies:

• Gain access to a premium inventory
• Access to Amazon’s first-party data and target audiences based on their shopping habits (Lifestyle and In-Market audiences), demographics
• Remarket to shoppers that have purchased or viewed your product in the past using Pixels, Hashed audiences, and Amazon advertising tag
• Ability to target lookalike audiences based on demographics, behaviors, and advertiser specifications
• Improvement of profit margins through non-Amazon channels such as eCommerce stores outside of Amazon
• Brands with unique products will be able to design their own custom image ad without using Amazon’s standard product display page format
• Brands can foster a closer connection with their customer, making it possible for remarketing, upselling, and improving customer lifetime value metrics. 

Read: The Ultimate Amazon Storefront Checklist and Best Practices

Link-out campaigns can help you accomplish the following:

• Collect valuable customer data on your website or other channels.
• Grow sales in your own eCommerce channel or website
• Boost brand awareness and eventually lead to a growth in sales.
• Establish a consideration phase that can redirect potential customers to specific web pages outside of Amazon
• Drive conversions through a purchase phase which can highlight KPIs, transactions, and the CPA
• Reach a new, broader, and relevant audience who are looking for brands like yours.
• If you’re using non-endemic advertising, it helps you promote your services, apps, and landing pages.

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