For most Amazon advertisers, winning the top keywords in Amazon.com search results has long been the cornerstone strategy of promoting products and brands on the website. But recently, product targeting has emerged as an excellent opportunity to grow businesses in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
In fact, according to Amazon, campaigns using Amazon’s product targeting averaged two times higher impressions and a 1.5 boost in clicks than those who stuck with more traditional ad campaigns. And 82 percent of those sales came from customers who were new to the brand.
Here’s everything you need to know to get started with Amazon product targeting.
What Is Product Targeting?
Product targeting is an alternative to keyword targeting, which is the more traditional form of Amazon ads. With keyword targeting, advertisers bid on the keywords that audiences are most likely to search for. So if a brand imagines their customers might be searching for “yellow women’s parka,” they would place a high value on those keywords.
But with product targeting, advertisers can bid to have ads served alongside search results for specific products, categories, brands, or other product features. And product targeting doesn’t necessarily have to exist within the Amazon ecosystem. Sponsored Display ads reach new audiences both on Amazon and on websites, they visit or even in select apps.
What is negative product targeting?
Alternatively, Amazon product targeting allows advertisers to refine their criteria based on brands, products, and categories they don’t want their products to appear next to. This feature is known as negative product targeting and can be a useful tool for managing campaigns.
For example, if a brand exclusively sells women’s outerwear, it likely won’t do much good for a yellow women’s parka to appear in the ads served to people who searched for yellow men’s parkas.
Product Targeting for Sponsored Display
Sponsored Display is an easy-to-use ad format that helps Amazon sellers reach customers considering similar products and product categories, both on Amazon’s website and across the internet, Twitch, and apps. Using product targeting for Sponsored Display helps capture audiences in the discovery phase of the buyers’ journey and helps keep your product top-of-mind. These ads also help customers find special offers relevant to both their searches and preferences.
To create a campaign in Sponsored Display, simply set your daily budget, choose which products you’d like to target, select your category (either product targeting or audiences), and then specify your bid. You can also create a custom headline and logo, which helps your product stand out from competitors. If your product earns the winning spot, it will reach audiences as they browse the internet, research and buy products on the Amazon home page, or on Amazon product detail pages, shopping results pages.
Product Targeting for Sponsored Products
Sponsored Products help Amazon sellers promote individual products throughout Amazon. Product targeting for sponsored products helps businesses grow sales by placing ads within shopping results or at the bottom of product detail pages and categories similar to those most commonly associated with your product.
To get started with product targeting for Sponsored Products, simply set your campaign duration and budget, then decide which products and keywords you’d like to target or let Amazon’s algorithm automatically match your ads to relevant search terms and products. From there, simply choose which products you’d like to promote, set your bid, and launch your campaign.
Additionally, advertisers can refine campaigns by choosing which brands to target, star reviews, price, or Prime shipping eligibility. Sponsored Products automatically creates ads from your product listing, so once you decide which products to promote and set your bid, then you’re all ready to discover new audiences.
When should you use product targeting?
There are quite a few use cases for product targeting. First, sellers should consider using product targeting when promoting new products if it’s not quite clear which keywords will work best in the promotion. Product targeting is an excellent way to get your product in front of customers while still researching keyword efficacy.
Product targeting is also great for brands looking to offer an alternative to competitors’ products. Research has shown that bargains especially drive Amazon shoppers, and if a product is well-reviewed and eligible for Prime shipping at a slightly lower price point than competitors’ similar products, there’s a good chance that shoppers will click on a targeted product ad while still in the research stage of their shopping process.
And finally, product targeting is an excellent way to boost traditional keyword search campaigns. While keywords are still king when it comes to Amazon ads, product targeting could be the extra effort that makes your business the one that buyers remember when it comes time to make a purchase.
Skai’s Retail Media solution for keyword, audience, and Amazon product targeting
As part of Skai’s intelligent marketing platform, our Retail Media solution empowers brands to plan, execute, and measure digital campaigns that meet consumers when and where they shop. Built with best-in-class automation and optimization capabilities, our unified platform allows you to manage campaigns on 30+ retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Instacart all in one place.
To learn more or to schedule a brief demo to see our platform for yourself, please reach out today!
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