Since the advent of Amazon Advertising, Amazon has been providing automatic and manual targeting for sponsored product ads.
In 2019, Amazon cheered up the advertisers with some really cool targeting options for Sponsored Product Campaigns. Let’s together find out the secret of ‘how can these features be leveraged effectively’ for better audience reach, as we walk through each one of it in detail.
So, what has changed?
Introducing – Product Targeting and Automatic Targeting defaults
Product Targeting in Manual Campaigns
Manual campaigns, which previously had only keyword targeting, now have a product-targeted campaign option. Product-targeted campaigns can target individual ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Number) or similar group of ASINs (better referred to as categories).
Psychographic Segmentation can be carried to intellectually build up the campaigns manually focusing on a high-revenue oriented approach, which basically means, “explicit control on ad spends!”
The product which is to be advertised can be assigned to a set of categories. This eases the process of reaching buyers as they browse detail pages and filter search results for specific products.
Perks of adopting product-targeted campaigns:
More targeting options
Advertisers can refine their category targets to only include products with certain star ratings or prices, meaning they can go after competitor products that are less desirable either because they’re priced higher or rated lower than the advertiser’s comparable offering.
Negative product targeting feature
Brands can now choose to prevent ads from appearing on specific search results or detail pages that don’t meet desired performance goals.
Performance-based advertising
With ASIN level performance, advertisers can only choose to invest in those ads that show higher CVRs. Price-range and star rating-based Ad optimizations are now enabled, providing a sophisticated and accurate targeting approach.
Automatic Targeting Defaults
Earlier, Automatic Targeting Campaigning was substantially a black box. Automatic targeting defaults use multiple strategies to match ads to buyers looking for very specific products. Amazon has raised four new match types in Automatic Product Targeting.
Loose Match / Close Match
This option allows your ad to be shown in the search results if your ad product closely or loosely matches searches results from shoppers.
Substitutes / Complements
This option shows your ad on the detail pages of products that are substitutes or complements of your ad products.
Fig: Automatic targeting defaults
One of the crucial features of automatic campaigns is individual product targeting. In the products tab, you can target suggested individual products that are similar to the product in your ad. You can also search for specific products in the search field.
Fig: Individual product targeting
Now that more transparency is introduced in terms of categorization, advertisers are provided with visibility to audiences who are potentially interested in their products. Due to the exposure of such massive data, users who are likely to buy the products can be reached effortlessly.
The advertising industry is leveraging the relevancy of the search queries by adopting the automatic target campaigns. Now, advertisers can choose if they want Amazon to show on close match search terms, loose match search terms, substitute products, or complementary products.
With all these new features being introduced by Amazon in the advertising industry, marketers are pretty excited to restructure their funnel movement strategies.
If you are looking forward to edging out your competition in the world of Amazon advertising, the new ‘Amazon Ads Playbook’ launched by Merkle can help you for free.
Authored by:
