Amazon Unboxed 2022

Last week Amazon Advertising, at the Unboxing 2022 event released new platform features; some of these to help small and medium-sized businesses in entering the channel.

Here are the news presented by Amazon Ads, and an analysis on how they can be game-changers both for veteran brands to the platform and for small brands new to the retail universe.

AMAZON MARKETING CLOUD (AMC)
Amazon Marketing Cloud, is the suite that offers brands a safe and protected environment for privacy to plan, measure and optimize their campaigns both by leveraging Amazon advertising events and their own proprietary data sets. There are two main innovations related to AMC: Uploading the Proprietary Data Set, for a greater analysis of the effectiveness of cross-channel marketing; The new library of instructional queries, which provides model-driven analytical queries for a wide range of measurement options and is easily accessible in the AMC user interface.

REWARDED SPONSORED DISPLAY
Brands will be able to add an Amazon purchase credit directly into their Sponsored Display creative. Customers receive the reward by clicking on the ad and purchasing the featured product. This is one of the news never seen before. Offers and coupons have been highlighted for some time in creative on Amazon and have confirmed high conversion rates and a better return on ad spend (ROAS) when these offers are clearly visible. Additionally, in a 2021 Amazon Ads survey of adult U.S. Amazon shoppers, 92% of respondents said they were more likely to take action if offered an Amazon purchase credit, demonstrating the value and usefulness of this type of experience. What's interesting to note though is that Amazon only launched this feature with Sponsored Display ads, not Sponsored Product ads. Amazon has a tendency to invest in features for Sponsored Display rather than other types of ads.

SPONSORED DISPLAY FOR NON ENDEMIC BRANDS
Amazon Ads is introducing Sponsored Display for Brands that don't sell to the Amazon Store. Previously, sponsored ads were only available to brands selling products on Amazon. Now, businesses that sell products and services not available on Amazon, such as restaurants and hotels, can use Sponsored Display to reach highly engaged Twitch audiences. For now, this is only an experimental phase offered to some advertisers only on Twitch, but if this feature extends to placements on Amazon.com it will certainly be an advantage for non-endemic brands. Many brands are facing higher customer acquisition costs, but Amazon has continued to offer a stable return on ad spend (ROAS). Amazon is therefore likely to open up to a wider range of potential advertisers looking for a good return on investment.

SPONSORED DISPLAY VIDEO
A video creation tool that allows advertisers to easily create video campaigns showcasing their products and stories to millions of customers on Amazon and elsewhere online. With this feature, advertisers can run immersive video ads, such as tutorials, demos, unboxing, and measure campaign performance with new video metrics. Amazon's data confirms that regularly updated product content and store pages improve sales. Having fresh and engaging content (especially video content) is something Amazon users are starting to expect.

DIGITAL SIGNAGE ADS IN AMAZON DSP
These are ads in Amazon Fresh stores, now available for programmatic purchase through DSP. Programmatic buying gives brands more flexibility and control over where their ads are shown. Campaigns can be programmed based on store location, time of day, or in-store digital signage location. This creates more opportunities for brand discovery and will improve the customer's shopping experience by creating a wider variety of in-store ads. Although for now this feature is limited to Amazon Fresh, Amazon could eventually implement it on Whole Foods and its other sectors of the Store.

SPONSORED PRODUCTS CAMPAIGNS WITH PRESETS
Presents are campaign settings directly recommended by Amazon, such as the inclusion of daily budgets and bidding strategies. Presets now automatically appear in the ads console for new products. Amazon Ads recommends campaign settings, including daily budgets and bid strategies, that aim to remove the ambiguity of starting a new campaign or launching a new product on Amazon. Amazon Ads found that campaigns launched with presets saw a 77% increase in clicks and 29% increase in conversions compared to campaigns that didn't use presets. This feature could be very useful in some situations, such as the launch of new products, which usually require much higher initial offers to get attention; and it's a critical feature for brands that are just getting started with Amazon ads and need more guidance.

PERFORMANCE RECOMMENDATIONS
These are best practices recommended within the console and actionable for Sponsored Products campaigns. Recommendations work in the background, constantly looking for suggestions for Sponsored Products campaigns that can be adopted with one click, such as keywords to prioritize or bid suggestions, providing advertisers with immediate feedback to improve campaign performance based on rigorously tested and validated best practices. This is nothing new: Amazon has long provided performance recommendations, but it seems that this new version is focused on bringing recommendations to the forefront, to better guide advertisers.

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