Amazon is a massive digital world of possibilities when you’re a seller; more than 197 million users search on the platform every month. No wonder so many businesses are trying to get their piece of the market pie, but this requires advertising with the intent to match consumer interests. That’s why Amazon sponsored advertising is so important.
Today, we’ll walk you through the process of setting up a sponsored ad campaign. There are three varieties of Amazon sponsored ads available to Professional Seller accounts, so let’s go through the basic steps for each:
Sponsored Product Ads
Do you know how to really get the attention of users actively searching for your type of product? Sponsored product ads. These are advertisements for individual product listings, which will appear in relevant search results and even other product pages when the campaign is active. Since the first page of results drives over 70% of Amazon’s eCommerce traffic, sponsored product ads are crucial. They act as a “booster shot” of sorts, bringing your listing up to the top with a chance to engage undecided shoppers.
Setup Steps
- Log into your Seller account, click the advertising tab, then click on Campaign Manager.
- Choose the “Sponsored Products” option.
- Name your campaign, set an appropriate start date and daily advertising budget, and activate automatic targeting.
- Select the “Dynamic Bids – Up and Down” strategy from the available options (Amazon will automatically adjust bidding based on the likelihood of clicks generating conversions).
- Create your ad group. Here, you’ll insert all the product listings you want to include in the campaign.
- Decide what your default bid for the ad group will be. Either use the lowest bid Amazon recommends or come up with your own by calculating your advertising cost of sale (ACoS).
Sponsored Brand Ads
Having a sale or promotion coming up, or simply want to move as much product as possible? Setting up a sponsored brand ad can draw more eyes to your company and any listings you manage. You have the ability to include your logo and even a custom headline, and these ads are featured at the top of relevant search results.
There are a couple of important elements to bear in mind with these. First, you need to have a clear understanding of what your brand stands for, who your target demographic is across all product lines, and how tempting your listings may be to prospects (positive, real reviews and compelling listing descriptions, for instance). Second, only vendors, agencies, and professional sellers enrolled in their brand registry can use these types of ads.
Setup Steps
- Log into your Seller account, click on the advertising tab, then select the Campaign Manager.
- Choose your ad format from one of the following: Product Collection,” “Store Spotlight,” or “Video. For “Product Collection,” set the landing page to your brand’s Amazon Seller homepage (you can also select a pre-existing store page or request an auto-generated landing page, the latter of which is built from specific products) . For “Store Spotlight,” you can link to subpages of your store to boost visibility. For “Video,” you can add targeted video content as long as it meets Amazon’s strict creative policies and guidelines, all of which are listed here.
- Add a high-resolution logo, your brand name and a headline. Check to make sure your listings are organized in the order you want.
- Select “Keyword Targeting” from the targeting option and enable automated bidding. Set the bid to “Suggested Bid.”In addition to this, you can perform product and category targeting.
- Choose the default bid, either using the lowest one suggested by Amazon or by calculating your ACoS.
Sponsored Display Ads
Sponsored display ads are key to achieving your goals as a seller. These appear on social media, on websites, and even on competitors’ listings for similar product types. In addition, Amazon will automatically generate creative elements for these ads, so they are anything but time-consuming to implement – but don’t overlook the fact that brand registration is still a requirement!
Setup Steps
- Log into your Seller account, click on “Advertising,” then choose the Campaign Manager tool.
- Click the “Sponsored Display” option.
- Set the name of your campaign, the start date and budget.
- Create your ad group name and set targeting to “Audiences.” There is a range of audience targeting expressions that can be set to best reach your campaign goals.
- Choose to either advertise two suggested products or a custom amount; the former focuses on those with the most visits in the last 28 days, while the latter allows you to manually select listings.
- Set your bidding to “Dynamic Bids – Up and Down,” which allows Amazon to adjust bidding according to an ad’s click-to-conversion potential. After, set your default bid, either with the lowest number provided by Amazon or through calculating your ACoS.
This is Just the Beginning
Those are the essential steps in quick-fire form, but don’t hesitate to learn more about how sponsored ads work on Amazon! We’ve published a number of in-depth articles on the subject including our dedicated Amazon Sponsored Products Guide. Alternatively, if you’re looking for optimization software that eliminates guesswork and streamlines your keyword bids in a single click, Trellis is a great choice for sellers and brands of all sizes. Best of luck with your campaigns!
