Should Your Brand Use Amazon Advertising?

Amazon is an important sales channel for a large (and growing) number of brands. According to a Feedadvisor report, 42% more brands are selling on Amazon now than there were just a year ago.

Why More Brands are Selling on Amazon

This growth probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise. After all, there are many reasons why winning brands are selling on Amazon.

• Amazon is leading eCommerce growth. eCommerce experienced explosive growth in 2020. And Amazon was one of the top beneficiaries. In 2020, Amazon accounted for 39% of all retail eCommerce sales in the U.S.
• Amazon has loyal shoppers. The eCommerce giant delivers a familiar, beloved online shopping experience that keeps shoppers coming back. Amazon boasts 300 million active customer accounts and 150 million paid Prime members. And according to Feedadvisor, Prime subscribers spend significantly more than non-members.
• Amazon is expanding globally. Amazon currently has dedicated online stores in 16 markets, and it’s quickly expanding to all four corners of the globe.

That’s just a few of the upsides. Explore more reasons your brand should be selling on Amazon.

What is Amazon Advertising?

Amazon provides a number of innovative tools to help ensure brands’ success. One of those tools is Amazon Advertising.

But what exactly is Amazon Advertising?

Most modern brands today leverage digital advertising, which is essentially a combination of text, image and video that can appear just about anywhere on the internet to help consumers discover, browse and shop for products. For example, here’s a digital ad that appears on Facebook for Madison Reed brand hair coloring.

And here are a couple of ads that display on Forbes.com while viewing an article.

Because Amazon reaches such a wide audience, it has a ton of data about how shoppers discover, browse and purchase products. They use this data to develop Amazon Advertising solutions that can help you reach customers (wherever they are on the shopping journey) and ultimately get them to purchase your products and become loyal to your brand.

Brands can use Amazon Advertising regardless of whether they sell their products on Amazon. However, those that do sell on Amazon have access to more products, features and metrics. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to focus on Amazon Advertising for those that sell on Amazon.

Amazon Advertising from a Customer’s Perspective

Now, let’s take a look at Amazon Advertising from the perspective of a consumer.

Imagine a consumer is searching for a blender they can use to make smoothies. The shopper navigates to Amazon and types “blender for smoothies” into the search bar. Above the search results is a display ad, encouraging the shopper to check out Nutribullet’s Amazon store to learn more about the brand’s offerings. Then, the first search result is a sponsored product listing for a blender. There are other sponsored listings that are peppered throughout the search results.

Halfway through the first page of results, there’s a video ad that appears, showing a blender in action. If the shopper clicks on the video, they’re taken to a product page for the featured blender.

And on that product page, they see a text ad displayed for a Ninja personal blender that can be used for making smoothies.

Finally, at the bottom of the search results, the consumer sees a carousel of brands that are related to their search. These are also ads.

Why Top Brands Use Amazon Advertising

A large number of brands that sell on Amazon also leverage Amazon Advertising. And that number is growing. The Feedadvisor report we mentioned earlier found that 88% of surveyed brands used Amazon Advertising in 2020, up from 73% in 2019.

Why is Amazon Advertising so popular among brands? For starters, it has wide reach. Amazon Advertising reaches nearly all (96%) of adults in the U.S. aged 25-54. What’s more, brands can get up and running fairly quickly — and there are options available for a wide range of budgets. And finally, Amazon Advertising is effective. Amazon’s website states that,, “cross-media brand campaigns that include Amazon Advertising were found to be 41% more effective for driving brand awareness and 34% more effective for driving purchase intent than cross-media campaigns that did not include Amazon Advertising.”  And Feedvisor tells us that 44% of brands see a 7x-10x return on Amazon Advertising.

How Amazon Advertising Can Help You Reach Consumers Throughout the Purchase Journey

Amazon offers a wide array of advertising options to meet different needs and budgets. In order to determine which options are right for your business, you first must identify your key goals for advertising.

Let’s explore three top goals for businesses selling on Amazon, as well as some of the advertising options that can help brands achieve those goals.

Goal #1: Drive Brand Awareness

Let’s say you’re a brand that sells bicycles. There’s a consumer who recently moved to a home that’s near a bike trail, so they’re starting to consider the possibility of purchasing a new bike. But this customer doesn’t know your brand exists.

Building brand awareness puts your company on the consumers’ radar so when they’re ready to evaluate their options, they know you exist and think favorably of your brand.

There are a number of Amazon Advertising options that can help you boost brand awareness, including:

• Sponsored display: Display ads that appear on and off Amazon can help boost the visibility of your brand. Here’s an example of a display ad for Planters, a snack company.

• Video ads: Videos can capture shopper attention and give you an opportunity to tell your brand story. Here’s an example of a video ad that displays when a consumer does a search for “bicycle”. It’s an ad for a brand that makes bicycle stands, which the shopper may not even know exists prior to seeing this ad.

• Audio ads: These run when consumers are listening to Amazon Music’s free ad-supported tier.

Goal #2: Boost Consideration of Your Brand, Product or Service

When a consumer is in the market for a product you sell, you want them to consider your product. For example, if a consumer is shopping for a new TV and you manufacture TVs, you want to be added to their short list of considerations.

There are several Amazon Advertising solutions that can help you boost consideration, including:

• Sponsored brands: These ads feature your brand and products and appear after a shopper does a search. For example, this ad for Pampers might appear when a shopper types “diapers” into the search box.
• Posts: Posts are a shoppable feed that appear on product pages that leverage beautiful imagery to entice consumers to click through to learn more. Here’s an example of a carousel that appears on the product page for a baby toy. Posts are a free marketing tool for brands, even those that don’t otherwise advertise on Amazon.
• Stores: Stores allow brands to provide customized, fully-branded experiences on Amazon (including a unique Amazon URL). And creating one is free! A well-designed store is a great place for shoppers to land when they come across your brand either organically or through advertising. Here’s an example of a Store for baby care brand Pampers.And here’s one for popular toy brand Melissa & Doug.

  

  Here’s a third example of a great store. This one is for KitchenAid.

  

Goal #3: Increase Conversion

A key goal of any brand selling on Amazon is to increase sales. Amazon Advertising tools we’ve discussed earlier, including Sponsored Display, Sponsored Brand and Stores can help you drive sales. In addition, Sponsored Products can help you boost conversion by connecting you with high intent shoppers who are close to making a purchase.

For example, if a consumer searches for “Pampers Diapers,” the first search result is for Seventh Generation diapers, which is a competing product.

These ads also appear on product pages for similar products. For example, if a shopper is on the product page for LARABAR cherry pie flavored fruit and nut bars, they might see sponsored posts like this for similar products.

Boost Your Success on Amazon with Amazon Advertising

Amazon is a lucrative sales channel for brands across categories. And the COVID-19 pandemic has supercharged its growth. Now’s the time to explore how Amazon Advertising can empower your brand to be even more successful on Amazon. Don’t forget to consider including reviews in your marketing strategy on Amazon and other platforms.