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Originally published on February 21, 2023, updated February 21, 2023
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Mina Elias is a multiple seven-figure seller in the supplement industry, an investor, an Amazon PPC expert, and the founder of Trivium Group, a top Amazon Advertising agency. In this guest article, he shares the biggest breakthroughs in the advertising space in the past year.
In 2022, Amazon shook up its advertising capabilities with the introduction of many new features and updates, ranging from the launch of Amazon Marketing Stream to the highly talked about Search Analytics.
While the improvements were most beneficial to existing advertisers, they have also simultaneously escalated the competition.
In this article, I'll discuss the key Amazon advertising news that occurred in 2022 and how sellers can capitalize on them to stay ahead of the game in 2023.
I would be remiss If I didn’t begin by discussing the introduction of Amazon’s Marketing Stream (AMS). With its beta phase release, AMS provides sellers with campaign metrics and related information through a push-based model in close to real time rather than aggregated over a period of time.
With hourly performance metrics, including targeting expression, performance by placement, and budget consumption, sellers can analyze campaign performance much faster to be more efficient.
Performance metrics on an hourly basis provide insight for more sophisticated campaign optimization. For example, when your conversion rate is higher during certain hours of the day, you can either raise your bids or make sure your campaign follows the budget for that period.
In 2022, Amazon Ads focused on expanding Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) capabilities across four key areas:
Until now, sellers who employ Amazon Customer Engagement have only been able to target buyers who have chosen to "follow" their stores. With Tailored Audiences, advertisers can now reach out to customers who have previously made purchases from their brand.
This free tool offers simple-to-use campaign templates and segmentation options. This permits sellers to contact certain consumers via email with messages regarding new products, discounts, and incentives to purchase again.
Learn More: Amazon Tailored Audiences: New Targeted Email Features
Early in 2022, Amazon launched Creative Services, a directory of trusted service providers who can assist with the creation of compelling creative assets. Users can search and browse services based on their requirements and check out reviews and samples of service providers' work.
Sellers and service providers can communicate within the advertising console to make project management easy. The marketplace categories available include Sponsored Brand, Sponsored Brand Video, Stores, Sponsored Display, Sponsored Display Video, and Streaming TV.
Creative Services provides a straightforward and stress-free way for sellers who want high-quality custom assets but have limited time, resources, or expertise.
For years, Amazon sellers have been redirecting customers on their website to their Amazon store. But with the introduction of Buy with Prime, sellers will have the option of adding a Prime checkout button to their website to offer customers usual benefits such as free shipping and a familiar checkout process.
This is a clear sign of Amazon’s attempt to extend its reach to existing direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites and beyond.
Learn More: Buy with Prime Offers Fast Shipping Outside of Amazon
With the new budget usage feature available in the Advertising Console, sellers can now access their budget usage percentage in real-time for Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display. The ability to identify budget usage information for both campaigns and portfolios assists sellers in gaining insight into daily spending and the ability to make quick budget decisions.
With the release of a new version of Bulksheets in 2022, all sellers on Amazon have the same benefits as advertisers who use API with the functionality of a spreadsheet. Here are some of the updates advertisers can utilize:
The rollout of Search Analytics (Catalog and Query Performance Tools), was one of the biggest Amazon advertising updates of the year. This was a game-changer for advertisers looking for a deeper insight into the search performance of their products.
The Search Query Performance Dashboard provides merchants with an insight into the most popular search terms associated with their products. With this data, advertisers can make more informed decisions in regard to the keywords they use for their promotional activities and discover new avenues to broaden their product portfolio based on consumer interest.
The Search Catalog Performance Dashboard enables brands to examine their sales funnel on a product-by-product basis. Sellers can rapidly pinpoint any problems which might be affecting conversion, along with any points where they are losing potential customers. Additionally, the dashboard can be used to evaluate the price competitiveness of their products and adjust their marketing efforts and inventory management accordingly.
Expanded Product Targeting aims to simplify campaign management and optimization with the ability to automatically target preferred products and reach related products at the same time.
This feature gives sellers the ability to engage with shoppers on a deeper level by guiding additional product target discovery.
Campaign Copy enables advertisers to copy existing Sponsored Product campaign settings and apply them to new Sponsored Brands or Sponsored Display campaigns.
With Performance Recommendations, sellers gain real-time visibility into underperforming campaigns and are presented with detailed recommendations to improve their performance.
Advertisers now have the option to create new Sponsored Products campaigns that come with preset settings such as daily budget, bidding plan, target strategy, and related bids. This feature offers a selection of related products that have the potential to be profitable as well as all the campaign settings for those products.
The pre-filled campaign settings are derived from previous successful campaigns with related items and are customized to the goods being advertised. Additionally, advertisers are provided with estimated performance data like impressions, clicks, and conversions for each campaign.
When advertisers told Amazon that obtaining video assets was a challenge, Amazon responded with the creation of Video Builder. This feature allows advertisers to create videos for Sponsored Brands video placements quickly and easily using ready-to-use templates.
Videos can be created by either selecting product images and copy from detail pages or by uploading lifestyle images and other creative assets. In addition, Video Builder provides a variety of themes to customize the aesthetic of the video and users are able to edit the colors, font, and music.
With Stores available as landing pages for Sponsored Brand Video, advertisers now have the ability to create a more branded shopping experience by directing shoppers to their Amazon Brand Store.
Sellers will now be able to reach customers early in their shopping journey and capture their attention with a top-of-search video creative and redirect them to their branded store landing page.
Until Q3 2022, advertisers were limited in their ability to effectively manage and organize their Sponsored Brand campaigns. With the release of Sponsored Brand ad groups, advertisers now have the ability to categorize different creatives into individual ad groups rather than creating multiple campaigns, allowing for improved budget management and performance surveillance.
Sellers who advertise with Sponsored Brands video can now edit their live ads. For campaigns that direct to a product detail page, the videos can be changed. For campaigns that link to a store landing page, the logo, video, headline, and product can be edited.
This option lets advertisers modify an active campaign without having to construct a new one and thus not lose the data and information that had been gathered from the existing campaign. Additionally, advertisers can also choose to keep utilizing the original creative version while the revised version is being approved.
Amazon invested more new features into Sponsored Display in 2022 than any other ad type. With expanded capabilities for campaign management, customizable creatives, and a new targeting feature, Amazon has improved brand awareness possibilities for small and large brands alike.
Below is by no means an exhaustive list of the new updates, products, and features. Click here for a comprehensive view of all the new additions to Sponsored Display and across the board for Amazon advertising.
Amazon introduced the ability for advertisers to organize and arrange all of their Sponsored Display campaigns, along with Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products, into portfolios, enabling better review of metrics and performance across their campaigns.
Amazon introduced two types of budget rules for Sponsored Display campaigns.
Option one is for schedule-based rules, allowing advertisers to set budget percentage increases for specific dates or special events. A second option, a performance-based rule, allows budget adjustments when specified performance thresholds are met using metrics such as advertising cost of sale (ACOS), click-through rate (CTR), and conversion rate (CVR).
With the option for ad groups within Sponsored Display campaigns, advertisers are better equipped to organize their campaigns based on brand, product, category, price range, or other classifications like audiences or targeting strategy.
Sellers now have the opportunity to interact with audiences beyond Amazon while they are shopping and engaging in other activities without worrying that their ads could be presented on websites or mobile applications that do not match their image.
Deny lists offer protection by permitting advertisers to remove websites or apps that may be considered "safe" but are not in harmony with their brand's values.
Sponsored Display campaigns can be created quickly with the help of creative assets that were previously uploaded as part of Sponsored Brands, Stores, or Posts. The "Choose from assets" option, instead of “upload image” allows sellers to select logos and product images while searching, ordering, and filtering assets based on their name, product, type, upload date, format, size, and other details. Anything uploaded will be stored in the "creative assets" folder, which can be accessed for future usage.
With limited visibility of targeted products in Sponsored Display campaigns, the introduction of the Matched Target Report for Sponsored Display provides advertisers with insight into which competitor product detail pages their ads are appearing on and resulting in at least one click. This can be advantageous for identifying negative targets as well as harvesting competitor targets for offensive campaigns.
In 2022, Sponsored Display Targeting evolved to include Contextual Targeting, allowing reach on and off Amazon, when buyers view targeting-related content. Amazon will expand this reach by finding more opportunities to deliver campaigns, beyond a brand store, to web pages and mobile applications.
Advertisers can now take advantage of Sponsored Display's self-service solution to customize their ads with either a headline and logo, an image, or a video, which can be up to 45 seconds long. This allows them to tell their stories to customers in a more engaging way, helping to build interest in their brand and product. Creatives that drive traffic and engagement can be utilized for Amazon ad campaigns. Ads will link directly to product detail pages so shoppers can find out more and potentially buy.
In a similar fashion to Sponsored Display, there was a strong focus on updates and improvements to DSP in 2022.
It is now possible for brands to utilize Amazon DSP Digital Signage Ads to programmatically conduct advertisements on digital displays located in Amazon Fresh and Go stores. Organizations can arrange their campaigns in correlation to their placement in the store, geolocation, related product categories, and the time of day.
Campaign improvements and updates were also introduced to reduce the tedious setup times of DSP campaigns.
All in all, 2022 was a period of major enhancements and the arrival of many new updates, products, and features for Amazon Advertising.
What does the future hold for 2023? Amazon has already declared a few launches are in store, like being able to handle advertising across marketplaces from one sponsored ad account and a new products page inside the advertising console that displays all promoted items at once. If 2023 follows in the footsteps of 2022, this will only be the tip of the iceberg.
I look forward to updating you with more Amazon advertising news soon!
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