If you find yourself avoiding the entire Amazon platform out of fear and apprehension — it’s time to address these fears. While it’s totally understandable that such a dominant platform can intimidate those new to the marketing sphere, you don’t have to figure out Amazon Marketing Services all on your own. Perhaps the best way to take full advantage of all this platform has to offer is to hire an Amazon agency to cover all your bases from start to finish.
Why Advertise on Amazon in the First Place?
Hiring an Amazon marketing agency likely isn’t a top priority if you’re not even advertising on this platform in the first place! However, if you’re a direct to consumer brand looking for new ways to reach customers and increase your sales, then you definitely need to expand to this incredible platform.
As the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon can give you access to more than 300 million daily users. Of those 300 million, there are more 150 million Amazon Prime subscribers — and that number is constantly increasing. Amazon Prime subscribers are a special customer subset — one that tends to be more active on the platform and use it more frequently. For instance, Amazon Prime subscribers placed an average of 24 orders per year in 2018 for a total spend of between $100 and $500.
Outside of Amazon Prime, the platform itself receives more than 66,000 orders every single hour — this works out to be more than 1.5 million orders per day. But what does this look like in terms of revenue? Are people only buying low-cost items on the platform to save in shipping costs? Not quite. Those 66,000 orders per hour total an average of $17 million. Over the course of the year in 2020, Amazon had a net revenue of $3.86 billion — nearly a $100 billion increase from 2019.
Amazon generally and Amazon Prime specifically have become a way of life for many American households — with more than one-third having a Prime subscription. Amazon usage is particularly popular with the younger generations like Millennials. These younger generations prefer to use a quick and easy platform that gives them limitless options and total visibility in terms of price comparisons and customer reviews.
With all this in mind, you should be ready and excited to start taking advantage of this incredible platform. That being said, there’s more to it than simply listing products and instantly gaining sales.
What Are the Different Amazon Ad Formats?
Once you have made the decision to advertise on Amazon, you need to choose between a variety of different advertising formats available on the platform. These formats range in terms of success rates and cost — so weigh the pros and cons of each to make the best possible decision for your business.
- Amazon stores: If you’re looking to get started on Amazon with a cost-effective approach, then look no further than Amazon Stores! This free feature allows you to create your own brand page and add products for customers to shop directly on the platform. This feature also allows you to effectively harness the reputation and trustworthiness of Amazon and use it to boost your sales.
- Sponsored display ads: If you’re looking to get a leg up on your competition, then sponsored display ads could be the answer you’ve been searching for. This option places an ad featuring your product right below the buy box on a competing product. By presenting the customer with a better option, you can effectively steal them away from the competition.
- Sponsored product ads: If you’re looking to stand out amongst the millions of different products listed on Amazon, then a sponsored product ad is your best bet. It can be hard to get organic traction on Amazon if you don’t have many purchases and reviews to display on your store page. Instead, you can set a campaign budget that is only spent when a customer actually clicks on your ad. That way, you know that you’re paying for actual traffic and, hopefully, purchases!
- Sponsored brand ads: If you’re looking to increase brand awareness on Amazon, then sponsored brand ads could help you achieve this objective. This ad involves the placement of your products or a branded graphic within related search results pages. This type of ad can appear at the top, bottom, or left side of the search results page. Like sponsored product ads, this type of advertisement is also pay-per-click, or PPC, wherein customers are directed to a landing page or your Amazon store.
How to Advertise on Amazon the Right Way?
Now that you know more about the different ad formats available on Amazon, you need to learn how to properly employ them. Here are some valuable tips and tricks to help you advertise on Amazon the right way — getting the best bang for your buck:
- Embrace detailed product descriptions: In order to give users the most relevant search results, Amazon incorporates a ton of data into its AI algorithms. For example, product descriptions and details. As a result, you should always include this information with each product, including dimensions, materials, high-quality graphics, and scaled images.
- Embrace data and use it to your advantage: One of the perks of advertising on Amazon relates to all the valuable data and insights it provides you about all sorts of different variables ranging from your ad campaigns to your Amazon store. Use this data to your advantage to monitor your campaigns and store to see how they’re performing. If you find that they’re underperforming, make the necessary changes to get everything back on track.
- Know your keywords: Amazon revolves around keywords — after all, this is how customers search for products. So when you advertise, you need to know what keywords your target customers are using to search for related products. From there, you can build effective ad campaigns and tailor your store to these specifications.
- Hire an Amazon agency: Perhaps the best thing you can do when advertising on Amazon is to work with the experts. That way, you can focus on more important things and let your agency do all the heavy lifting!
How to Hire the Right Amazon Agency?
That being said, not all Amazon agencies are created equal. For this reason, you need to make sure that you’re hiring the right people to manage your Amazon advertising strategy. After all, you have seen how beneficial the Amazon platform can be if you do it right. You’re going to want to work with someone who knows all the ins and outs of this expansive platform and get you the best bang for your buck.
With all this in mind, Greg Gillman is definitely one expert that you’re going to want to have on your team. Greg specializes in omnichannel growth strategies for direct-to-consumer brands and has earned his clients more than $4 billion in annual revenue.
Final Thoughts
Hiring the right Amazon agency is a key component to building an effective marketing strategy on this platform and beyond. Look for an agency that’s there to listen more than they talk. Look for a partner that is invested in the growth of your business. Finally, look for an agency who can help you with the big picture through an omnichannel approach.
Sources:
Amazon – Statistics & Facts | Statista
Five Ways You Can Boost Your Brand Awareness Without Breaking The Bank | Forbes
