There are few aspects of our lives that Amazon doesn’t touch these days. From its origins as an online bookstore, it’s grown into a global giant that sells us TV, movies and music via streaming as well as ebooks and audiobooks, while its smart speakers are in homes around the world, helping us turn our lights on and off. And then of course, there’s the millions of products of all shapes and sizes that are available to buy from the world’s most famous online store itself.
It’s not just Amazon that makes money from its store these days either, with individuals and brands alike able to sell their products on there. But how do you stand out from the crowd? As usual, the answer comes down to advertising, and Amazon allows businesses a number of options to advertise products and services through their platforms, even if you’re not selling them on there.
With a global audience of 206 million monthly customers, that’s a huge opportunity to get eyeballs on your products or services that might otherwise be beyond the reach of a small business. So why else should you be thinking about advertising on Amazon? 56% of consumers visit Amazon before any other site, while 46.7% of American internet users start their product searches there, so if you want them to find you, make sure you’re where they are looking.
What kind of adverts can you run on Amazon?
Sponsored Products – These adverts help to increase the visibility of your products and appear on search results pages and product detail pages on the Amazon website.
Sponsored Brands – If you’re looking to build up your overall brand rather than individual products, this is the way to go. The ads show up within Amazon search results and can point customers to a Store landing page or any products you promote within the ad.
Sponsored Display – The kind of traditional display ads you’ll be familiar with from other online vendors like Google, you can use these to place your visual adverts across Amazon-operated websites, apps and third party websites.
Stores – Amazon also lets you curate your own landing page(s) Store within its website, letting you get your branding on there and showcase the products you want to make the biggest splash.
Tips for advertising on Amazon
Getting started with a new system can be intimidating at first, but here are some tips to help you make the most of your adverts with Amazon:
- Choose descriptive campaign names – Start as you mean to go on with your campaign names, making sure they are clear and descriptive so you can easily work out which is which. You’ll thank yourself later on when you have hundreds of them and can still tell them apart.
- Start off with a monthly budget – Budgeting is a difficult challenge at first, because you need to work out how much of a spend you need to make the adverts worthwhile and competitive. So starting with a monthly budget rather than a daily one will help you avoid overspending while you learn the ropes.
- Set an end date, every time – Even if your campaign isn’t meant to be a time-specific one, resist the temptation to leave them open for a long time, as this risks burning through your cash quicker than you expected.
- Make use of ‘automatic targeting’ – When it comes to advertising, you shouldn’t always rely on technology to show you what to do, but to get started, Amazon’s automatic targeting will help you identify the kind of keywords you need to be using based on your products. When you’re more comfortable, you can switch to manual targeting.
There’s a lot of potential for small businesses to gain a larger audience for their products and services with Amazon Advertising, and these tips should help you get started, so why not try it out today?
