2022 brought on economic headwinds and uncertainty of consumer demand, but it also gave brands the opportunity to hone in on their strategies, take a deeper look into budgets, and encourage creativity and innovation in the advertising space. Brands advertising on Amazon are currently in a balancing act of having foundational elements in place as well as testing out new opportunities without unlimited resources.
As we head into the new year, we know a lot can change within the Amazon ecosystem, but let’s hear a few predictions* from our experts.
*Note: All predictions and responses listed have not been confirmed, denied, or provided by Amazon.com.
2023 Trends for Amazon Advertising and Fulfillment
The Amazon landscape is ever evolving and while we can’t be exactly sure what to expect this year, we asked our leading industry experts what trends they predict will shape Amazon Ads (and beyond) in the near future. Take a look at the emerging trends they are noticing to see if they can help you prepare your future marketing strategies.
1. Multichannel Advertising is Becoming Essential for Sellers
2023 is both the year of response and creativity. In the past, advertisers focused on methods to reach people on Amazon, but now, brands are asking themselves, “how do we get in front of these consumers anywhere?” This is where multichannel marketing comes into play.
Multichannel marketing gives brands the ability to reach consumers more widely, and through a variety of mediums. Let’s learn why it will be crucial for brands in 2023…
“We’re in the new era of Amazon Ads—this new era of being able to measure, reach customers on-and-off Amazon, reach customers through video, and more. Today, the prize is bigger, and the ecosystem is more complex. Because it’s more complex, you need a more sophisticated approach. If you keep using a simplified legacy approach, it’s no longer going to work the way it once did.”
— Pat Petriello, Director of Amazon Strategy at Tinuiti
“Amazon will continue to dominate the digital retail marketplace as Walmart, Kroger, and Instacart attempt to break through more than 10% total market share respectively. These retailers are set to compete with Amazon through increased advertising placements, programmatic capabilities, and strategic partnerships. Amazon views their competitive landscape in a different light, as they are poised to compete for digital ad dollars not with other retailers, but with Google and Facebook.”
— Mark Gray, Specialist at Tinuiti
In the new year, many brands may expand their Amazon marketing efforts into offline channels, too…
“Omni-Channel Metrics (OCM) is just the start of Amazon’s journey to connect their media with offline impact. Amazon wants to be able to tap into ad dollars outside of retail media and will work to provide the measurement to prove advertisers should spend their dollars within Amazon platforms.”
— Joseph Elmquist, Strategist at Tinuiti
2. Using Social Media Platforms to Influence Consumers
Social media has an undeniable impact on consumer purchases and social commerce, the act of buying or selling a product or service within the native social media experience, is expected to rise exponentially in 2023. We will continue to see brands hone in on the importance of social media marketing, especially when it comes to Amazon products, in the new year.
“Strong social media presence, engagement, and followings will continue to be crucial for driving sales as product offerings increase online, particularly on Amazon. With so many products to choose from and people being more cautious on where to spend their money as talks of a recession circulate, they will look to others for recommendations on what to purchase. TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram reels showing content like “top 5 things worth your money on Amazon” will strongly influence consumer interest. Winning top of search placement on Amazon search results will no longer be as strong of an influence as it once was to convince a shopper to buy.”
— Meethila Rahman, Sr. Specialist at Tinuiti
“Amazon will begin to incorporate short-form video content into its Amazon Posts in order to begin the TikTokification of its current Beta. The hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has over 26 Billion views and has been a great driver of off-site purchases for various products. Imagine if you could add the item to your amazon cart right from the video instead of having to track it down by exiting TikTok and searching on Amazon.”
— Christian Lopez, Team Strategist at Tinuiti
3. Amazon Sellers Will Invest More in Video & Streaming Ads
There’s simply no denying the growth of streaming services and the impact streaming advertising has on consumers and this trend will undoubtedly carry into 2023. If you’re not in the streaming game, there’s no better time to get started to ensure you have a full-funnel approach.
“Video is the future – Amazon will look to increase video placement opportunities with premium STV deals and placing video ads mid-roll with Amazon Live. Also, Amazon will look to break out into podcasting with live video capabilities allowing for additional video ad placements.”
— Karen Hopkins, Strategist at Tinuiti
“Amazon will be looking to acquire more sports rights and add to the NFL games they currently stream to provide advertisers with a better cost of entry for streaming ads where they bucket the games in a package.”
— Christian Lopez, Team Strategist at Tinuiti
“Continued innovation for Sponsored Brand placement. Sponsored Brand Video (SBV) ads are now eligible to show on the top of search pages, but still in a limited fashion. Video is becoming more prominent in the Amazon ecosystem, with the introduction of video Sponsored Display, so look for those SBVs to be much more common on the top of search as the year goes on. The evolution of normal SBs as well, with a shift to brand “following” is something I anticipate by the end of 2023, as Amazon looks to make the shopper experience easier for their own personal top brands.”
— Ken Magner, Sr. Specialist at Tinuiti
“The World Cup will kickstart a trend of moving to ensure your ads are reaching Spanish Language Audience and not only English speakers on Amazon.”
— Tony Heuer, Marketplace Channel Analyst at Tinuiti
4. Great Inventory Management Cultivates a Competitive Advantage
Over the past few years, many brands have experienced everything from supply chain issues to inventory shortages to production delays. Inventory management can make or break sellers so the importance of being strategic in 2023 cannot be overstated.
“Amazon’s notorious inventory limits are back in full force, challenging brands to do more with less here in Q4 and into 2023. It is critical that brands are able to (1) be more agile in their fulfillment strategy by restocking more frequently, and (2) pivot their advertising and promotion strategies to their priority ASINs with more flexible inventory limits. All brands have been and will continue to be severely affected by these constraints, but those that are able to be most nimble in response will stand out from the competition.”
— Mark Russo, Sr. Specialist at Tinuiti
5. Accurate Marketing Measurement Will Be Top of Mind
As browsers begin blocking third-party cookies, advertisers are struggling to measure conversions and access the information needed for in-depth reporting. And as the industry continues to change, it’s getting more complex and challenging to measure attribution and campaign performance across channels. Luckily, Amazon introduced Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) to help remedy attribution problems on the platform.
“If you find yourself looking at reports trying to string together various metrics—especially if it’s across search and display—and really trying to make a story out of it when it’s not clear, this could be a great indicator that you simply need more than what’s available to you. This is where AMC can come in and provide a huge variety of reporting and metrics that just aren’t available in the standardized reporting we have today.”
— Jen Acosta, Senior Strategist, Marketplaces at Tinuiti
“This new year may bring drastic changes to the advertising environment that will increase its standing against some of the other major ad platforms, some of which may be propelled by video streaming, additional on-platform advertising capabilities, ability to reach new audiences with additional ad inventory and deliverability, and a huge component would be measurability and attribution.”
— David Yu, Team Strategist at Tinuiti
“With the highly anticipated demise of the third-party cookie, we are going to see a significant push for new innovations that combat the difficulties of a post-cookie era. I think Amazon will be leveraging first-party data to build out even more robust contextual targeting capabilities as well as improve upon their lookalike model methodology.”
— Natalie Samson, Sr. Manager at Tinuiti
“Brands will have to redefine what it means to be successful on Amazon. Increased ad budgets no longer guarantee incremental sales. Rising CPCs, heightened competition, and a heavier push towards upper-funnel tactics have lowered the return for many sellers. As these trends likely continue, non-sales metrics such as impressions and share of voice may become the new north star for advertising.”
— Brandon Jaksim, Specialist at Tinuiti
6. Amazon Posts and Stores Will Gain Momentum
Brand building on Amazon can be a challenge for many sellers, but with Amazon Posts and Stores you have the ability to stay top-of-mind for shoppers in creative ways. But how will Amazon Posts innovate in 2023?
“Underutilized content opportunities will continue to present themselves in 2023. Brand follow will become more powerful with the ability to communicate directly with highly engaged customers, Posts will have increased placements and become more dynamic in nature, MYCE (Manage Your Customer Engagement) will continue to get enhanced functionality. Advertising on Amazon will not be going away, but brands will find a new arena for differentiation via leveraging branded content opportunities.”
— Pat Petriello, Director of Amazon Strategy at Tinuiti
7. Consumers Will Cut Spending and Competition Will Rise
Inflation is top of mind for both consumers and advertisers this year and we will see that theme carry into 2023…
“Customers will be less willing to spend on high AOV items given the instability of the economy. If customers do decide to buy a higher priced item, they will likely be willing to wait until a tentpole event so that they can purchase the product on deal. This will make promotional strategies during tentpole events all the more important in 2023.”
— Courtney Macfarlane, Sr. Strategist at Tinuiti
“Amazon Ads will have its most competitive year to date for sellers and vendors. Recession and inflation looming over consumers will lead to less sporadic purchases and more product research before a final purchase. Brands will need to shift focus from increasing efficiency and growing sales to maintaining category share for organic and paid placements. Defending your branded placements will become increasingly important as smaller brands attempt to steal market share from the top sellers in each category.”
— Wyatt Burley, Specialist at Tinuiti
8. Sellers Will Explore New Ad Types & Targeting Options
While it’s important to have your foundational Amazon advertising in place, it’s also important to test new ad types and targeting opportunities to see what works best for your brand.
“Continued iteration & development of existing tactical levers & targeting options. The recent activation of expanded product targeting presents a very interesting opportunity to expand up-funnel thanks to the inclusion of search terms as results of product targeting bids in Sponsored Brand Campaign search query reports. Further synergies between advertising & brand store performance thanks to the recent expansion to include the store as a landing page option for Sponsored Brand Video Ads. Furthermore, the growing capabilities of Sponsored Display Ads now enables CPC advertisers to help backfill for many more strategic gaps which may occur for clients with more frugal DSP investments.”
— John Kivimaki, Sr. Specialist at Tinuiti
“The nature of Amazon Ad Types are constantly shifting due to the rollout of new betas and targeting opportunities. Currently, I’ve been seeing increases of budget support in the Sponsored Display campaign type. Sponsored Display has become increasingly popular among Amazon Advertisers due to the dynamic targeting opportunities it offers, such as categorical, audience, and re-targeting capabilities. Another benefit to this targeting type is the capability to target both on and off of Amazon, making it a great option for advertisers who are not utilizing DSP and want to expand off of the platform. Sponsored Display has continued to roll out new targeting betas throughout 2022, with Sponsored Display Video being the newest addition. With this in mind, I would predict continued increases in ad placements for this campaign type, along with categorical targeting being included for SDV.”
— Arianna Silvestri, Specialist at Tinuiti
Want to see more predictions from our team? Be sure to download the 2023 Amazon Guide. Got a prediction of your own to share? Contact us here!
