Amazon Sponsored Display ads is Amazon’s newest self-service display advertising solution that allows brands to target and retarget shoppers both on and off of Amazon with auto-generated, product-focused ads.
As a participant in Amazon’s latest open beta, Tinuiti now has access to the new Product Targeting feature within Seller Central.
What is the Sponsored Display Product targeting (beta)?
According to Amazon, Product Targeting allows brands to promote product discovery, measure campaigns more effectively by targeting specific products or relevant product categories on Amazon, and gain a greater line of sight into campaign optimization.
For example, you can use product targeting to reach shoppers who are actively browsing similar or complementary products and categories, e.g, a shoe company could target similar ASINs or the running shoe category or even its own ASINs if they want to introduce shoppers to a newer edition of their shoes.
Benefits include:
Where do product targeting placements appear?
Product targeted ads appear alongside relevant ad placements such as product detail pages, customer reviews, search results pages, or under the featured offer. Product targeting ads appear in places that are pivotal in the customer journey (reviews, buy box, etc.) making product targeting placements a great way to stay top of mind.
More on Sponsored Display Ads
Amazon Sponsored Display campaigns are a great way to access display inventory without the time and financial requirements of Amazon DSP.
Brands can use Sponsored Display targeting options to reach audiences based on interest segments as well as product page views, which can give you an edge in competitor targeting.
“Sponsored Display presents an easier, faster way to access Amazon’s display inventory without the stringent requirements of Amazon DSP, although it has less control than DSP. We are already seeing brands pivot spend into Sponsored Display ads to engage mobile and desktop shoppers in new areas across Amazon and its network.”
—Andy Taylor, Director of Research at Tinuiti
Interested in learning how to set up Sponsored Display Ads?
Learn more in our recent blog post: “Amazon Sponsored Display Ads: How-to & Strategy Guide”
Amazon’s Sponsored Display Ads Best Practices
Amazon recently released 5 tips on how to get the most out of your Sponsored Display campaigns. Let’s dive in!
1. Separate similar and product views
Sponsored Display now enables you to separately manage the two default audience segments for views targeting tactics – audiences who viewed your advertised products (product views) and audiences who viewed similar products (similar product views).
Product views and similar product views audiences are available for all Sponsored Display views targeting tactics created on or after October 30, 2019. If you are a seller, click on the targeting tab in your ad group page to see the performance of the two audience segment options. If you are a vendor, click on the targeting tab in your campaign page to see the performance of the two targeting options. You can also add separate bids or pause/restart any of the audience segments from the same page.
2. Ensure your campaign has enough budget to stay live throughout the day
Monitor campaigns that frequently run out of daily budget—they might be missing out on potential impressions. Consider increasing budgets that frequently run out to help continuously drive traffic to your ads, especially for your high-performing campaigns. If you can’t increase your daily budget, consider reducing your bid to help maintain visibility throughout the entire day.
3. Use campaign metrics to make informed ASINs and bidding optimizations
Actively managing your bids is an important step in helping your campaigns perform at optimal levels. Your bid should strike a balance between how much you’re willing to pay for a click and how much traffic you’d like to drive to your ads.
- If your campaign’s ACOS is within your target range and you would like to generate more impressions, try adding more products or increasing your bid to boost the opportunity for your ads to win more auctions and expand your reach.
- If you’re trying to improve your ACOS, try reducing your bid to decrease how much you will pay for each click. Remember that the more competitive your bid is, the better chance you will generally have for your ad to display—so reducing your bid may also mean winning fewer impressions and decreasing your visibility. For the product targeting tactic, refine or add negative targeting to control unwanted impressions to improve your ACOS.
4. Monitor campaign performance regularly
Sponsored Display provides metrics to help you make adjustments to your campaigns as needed. After launching your campaign, let it run until you have collected sufficient traffic and sales insights to help you optimize the campaign. Keep in mind the typical selling cycle for your products when determining how long to get your campaign run before assessing its performance.
Once you have sufficient campaign metrics, review them in the campaign manager every 48 hours to learn how your campaign performs over time and to make informed decisions on improving results.
After adjustments, let your new campaign settings for a few days to see if your campaign starts generating clicks and sales within your target ACOS range. Remember that depending on the product and its typical selling cycle, customers may not complete their purchase immediately and there is a 14-days last-click attribution window.
If some of your products are still not performing at optimal levels, you can consider pausing these individual products and focusing on your top-performing products instead.
5. Measure performance against your campaign goals
Depending on the goal you established during campaign creation, make sure you’re benchmarking your Sponsored Display performance against that objective.
For example, if you’re using Sponsored Display to help drive incremental sales, you can measure how many ad clicks convert into orders, as well as your ACOS, which is calculated by dividing your total ad spend by total sales attributed to advertising. While useful, ACOS should be viewed in context, with a holistic approach. So if you’re using Sponsored Display to promote a new product with limited awareness, it may take additional budget to drive sales, resulting in a higher ACOS.
If creating additional product awareness is your priority, you can monitor impressions or the number of times your ad is shown. Setting strong bids can help you win more impressions.
If you also have Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands campaigns, keep in mind that your Sponsored Display campaign may perform differently since Views campaigns run off of Amazon, rather than in placements across Amazon.