Amazon Ads 101: Everything You Need to Know

Amazon is quickly becoming the world’s leading eCommerce marketplace and many online stores that had previously sold only on their own domain/platform are now migrating into Amazon’s ecosystem.

Everyone is familiar with the overall look and feel of Amazon but did you know that 25-30% of the page is actually paid advertising placements? In some cases, depending on the search, the number of competitors and the number of advertisers, ads can be even more prominent. Additionally, Amazon can even place ads on product listings themselves.

Like Google Ads and other paid media platforms, Amazon has a variety of ad real estate for both the product and brand level. When paid campaigns are properly set up and optimized, especially by agencies that specialize in Amazon Ads, they can be incredibly lucrative.

What Are Amazon Ads?

Amazon has its own self-service ad management platform that enables merchants to bid on keyword searches and competitor listings at both the brand and product level.

What Ad Units are Available?

Have you ever seen these before? If so, you could’ve been looking at an ad without even knowing it!

Brands Related to Your Search

Native Ads

Sponsored Products Related to this Item

What Can I Bid On?

Amazon divides its Ad Units into two main categories, keywords, and product/placement.

Keywords function the same as search engines, like Google, with broad, phrase and exact match capabilities- for instance, if you sell iPhone chargers, you might bid on:

Broad Match

This will display a paid ad when someone searches for “phone charger”, “car phone chargers”, “charge phone” etc …

Phrase Match

This will display a paid ad when someone uses specific keyword phrases like “iPhone charger” or “charger for iPhone” but includes a modifier, for instance, “charger for iPhone x”. Even though the search phrase includes an additional variant outside of the targeted phrase, it is still considered relevant and can be visible in this search query.

Exact Match

This will show ads only when someone uses an exact phrase or keyword so if you as the advertiser bid on the keywords “iPhone charger” your campaign won’t be visible on searches like “cheapest iPhone charger”, due to the variation of the phrase.

Modified broad

Currently available for sponsored brand placements only, this will let you show for searches where someone might use a variety of terms, for instance, you might have a search like “+men +jeans +blue” that could match for a wide range of results regarding sizes, cuts, and styles of men’s jeans.

Amazon Ads are automatically optimized to be shown to customers in the areas where you have shipping capabilities so you don’t need any additional geographic fine-tuning.

How Do You Measure Performance?

Amazon provides basic reporting within the campaign view along with an in-depth reporting interface that allows you to generate custom reports and dig deeper into the campaign’s performance.

One important thing to note is that Amazon has a 7-day lookback window and we often find that if you look at sales today vs a week from now on the same day of the week, revenue can increase up to 50%.

Additionally, if someone clicks an ad today and decides to purchase 3 days from now, Amazon will append the revenue from that sale to the first click date. Generally, marketers evaluate daily performance for directional data, then review a week later to get a sense of true overall performance and identify where further optimizations need to be made.

Learning More

AVX Digital specializes in building holistic campaigns for Amazon. If you’re currently selling on Amazon, or wish to venture into this marketing platform with the help of our experienced digital marketing agency, we’d love to learn more about your business and collaborate to strategize growth opportunities for premium results.