A must-read for sellers! Review the important updates of Amazon advertising in 2020 and grasp the new trends in 2021

2020 is coming to an end, and before opening a new chapter in 2021, it is necessary for sellers to review the Amazon advertising updates launched by Amazon this year.

This article will introduce some important updates and trend forecasts about advertising launched by Amazon in 2020 to help sellers seize traffic opportunities in 2021.

The 2020 Sponsored Products ads update includes several new targeting features, including:

Product Targeting: The first major change is the ability to target customers by product (similar to Sponsored Display Ads). Advertisers can target customers by specific ASIN or general category, and can further segment their target customers by price range, brand name, or star rating.

Automatic targeting: The second new feature is an improvement to automatic targeting for sponsored product ads. Negative product targeting now allows sellers to choose between automatic targeting for products or automatic targeting for keywords.

Despite the postponement of Amazon Prime Day in 2020, many sellers reported an increase in year-over-year sales from sponsored product ads.

In addition, surveys show that in 2020, most of the product categories with the fastest growth in sponsored product advertising sales were related to home care, such as home and garden, groceries, health and personal care products, etc.

In 2020, Amazon made the following updates to Sponsored Brands:

A survey shows that Amazon's US sponsored brand advertising spending increased by 47% year-on -year (in 2020), most of which was driven by a 46% increase in clicks, while the cost per click increased by only 1%. In addition, the corresponding sales growth attracted more attention from sellers. Compared with the first quarter of 2019, sellers attributed 57% of their sales growth to advertising formats.

Sponsored brand ads will become an indispensable marketing tool for sellers. Currently, Amazon only displays one video content on each search result page, and its position is one quarter of the page, which is a prime position. In addition, data shows that the click-through rate of video ads is 5 times that of traditional sponsored brand ads. For Amazon, it will be more important to allow sellers to direct video traffic to the store homepage so that sellers can continue to build their own brands on Amazon.

Sponsored Display ads automatically generate audiences based on relevant Amazon shopping activity. Use Sponsored Display targeting options to reach audiences based on interest segments and product page views, which can give brands an edge over competitor targeting.

Sponsored Display Ads offer an easier and faster way to access Amazon’s display inventory without the strict requirements of Amazon DSP.

“Amazon continues to create more ad types and advanced targeting strategies, and will continue to expand sponsored display products to enable brands to more easily build awareness for their brands and products,” said Courtney Macfarlane, senior marketplace specialist at Tinuiti. “As the Amazon marketplace becomes more saturated with brands, sellers should adopt sponsored display early or work with an agency that has access to new beta and targeting features.”

In 2020, Amazon launched a self-service tool called DSP Audience Builder. Sellers can set the advertising audience range based on buyers who have viewed the product, buyers who have purchased the product, similar products, and product searches, and push product ads to the audience.

Amazon DSP also allows you to create competitor audiences in Audience Builder, which allows you to create product listings based outside of your own product categories.

An Amazon brand presence is essential for sellers to expand brand awareness, engage with buyers, and build trust. The good news is that in 2021, there will be more tools than ever to help sellers build a unique brand presence on Amazon.

Amazon encourages sellers to tell their brand stories and build brand assets through content (such as videos in sponsored brand ads, sponsored brand custom images, A+ content, Amazon posts, Amazon OTT, etc.) on its platform, and introduces and adopts "New-to-Brand" campaign indicators to track the impact of these efforts. I believe that as sellers are more interested in understanding the impact of their advertising and creative strategies on attracting new consumers to purchase, the tracking indicators will be further expanded.

For a long time, it has been a challenge for sellers to analyze the effectiveness of Amazon's external traffic. The emergence of Amazon Attribution enables sellers to analyze the effectiveness of various advertising channels for the first time and understand the impact of advertising on sales in various channels.

Amazon Attribution will report the performance of each advertising channel based on the needs of sellers, enabling sellers to maximize sales growth (in-flight optimization) by continuously optimizing key variables in advertising.

Sellers can also use Amazon Attribution to review the performance of each advertising channel and analyze relevant Amazon audience segments to plan future marketing strategies to maximize return on investment.

One of the biggest trends affecting advertising right now is the rapid rise in streaming video viewership , which now accounts for 80% of all internet traffic . An estimated 147 million U.S. adults now access streaming video through Hulu , CBS All Access, Sling, and devices like Roku , Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV, a format known as OTT (over-the-top) video advertising.

Amazon OTT video ads were first launched in 2019 and quickly gained attention due to its unique features and Amazon's first-party data. OTT video ads are beneficial to support sellers' brand performance plans and broader coverage goals.

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