Your Guide to Amazon Vendor Central Advertising

Online sales have climbed consistently over the past few years, with digital shopping reaching unprecedented levels during the COVID-19 pandemic and continuing to thrive beyond. According to Statista, worldwide eCommerce shoppers grew by more than one billion between 2014 and 2021. As the opportunity continues to increase, retailers are working extra hard to get their market share on Amazon.com, the most significant eCommerce site in existence when it comes to net sales revenue.

Selling on Amazon can be lucrative as either a third-party seller or a first-party vendor on the platform. But both sides have had to adjust their marketing levers as Amazon evolves. With a now unified advertising portal, some vendors wonder how best to navigate Amazon’s increasingly pay-to-play business model. This article will share the ins and outs of Amazon Vendor Central advertising, including the top ad options and the key differentiator for merchants.

What is Amazon Advertising for Vendors?

It’s not enough to list products on Amazon and hope your brand organically flourishes. If you want to climb the sales rankings and actually compete in search and browse, you must advertise your products aggressively to customers both on and off Amazon.

Paid marketing on Amazon used to be controlled through separate portals for vendors and sellers, much like other services are controlled through Vendor Central and Seller Central, respectively. As of 2020, Amazon scrapped separate Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) and Amazon Advertising Platform (AAP) portals and launched Amazon Advertising as a unified platform for advertising types.

While vendors and sellers used to have different capabilities tied to their accounts, the current setup allows for both types of businesses to take advantage of the same types of advertising systems, campaigns, and reporting metrics.

This is ideal for vendors because it makes transitioning from seller to vendor much easier. It also allows better leveraging of a hybrid account setup where a business maintains both a seller and vendor account on Amazon.

It’s important to note that to take advantage of all that Amazon Advertising offers, a business must be set up through the Amazon Brand Registry. The Brand Registry is for brand owners. Registration is a crucial part of being able to create many marketing placements as well as unlocking a suite of self-service brand protection tools.

If you have an existing Vendor Central or Seller Central account, simply log in to the Amazon Advertising portal using the same credentials (and using the account you also use to access your Brand Registry) to learn more and schedule your advertising options.

Types of Ads Available via Amazon Advertising

There is a range of different ad types available to vendors on the Amazon Advertising platform. Businesses should create a vigorous and tailored advertising strategy and budget that reaches the maximum amount of customers with the best return on investment.

To do this, Amazon offers different advertising types, allowing brands to blend campaign types into a cohesive strategy. Whether you are looking to entice new customers, shout about a deal you’re running, re-target customers that didn’t convert, or single out customers browsing your competitors, there’s an advertising type for you and your business.

Differences Between Seller and Vendor Amazon Advertising

From the options laid out, there is a nearly endless variety in what advertisers can create. As of 2022, all of these advertising types are open to both sellers and vendors. There is only one main difference, and that comes down to the attribution window. If a customer clicks on an ad, the attribution associated with that campaign will be activated. If a customer makes a purchase, it will attribute the sale to that campaign. For vendors, the attribution window is 14 days, while for sellers, it’s only 7 days.

Vendors must also be Brand Registry approved to access a number of Amazon Advertising features, such as Brand Stores and Amazon Posts. As Amazon has become much more focused on brand protection, the company has moved to promote and expand the Brand Registry suite. It’s imperative that vendors register to unlock all of the advertising types.

Furthermore, there are a number of advertising software options available to help vendors or sellers optimize their budgets and campaigns. This can take some of the guesswork out of running advertisements, especially if a vendor has an extensive catalog, a large business, or cannot devote time to running Amazon-specific marketing.

Learn More about Amazon Vendor Central Advertising

Whereas Amazon used to be a lot more reliant on promoting products that customers organically supported, the whole platform has become focused on paid promotion.

As of March 2022, the average Amazon seller in the US spent $268.21 per day on Amazon Advertising, according to Influencer Marketing Hub. In reality, sellers and vendors both must allocate a decent budget to spend on advertising, especially if they want to sustain sales and grow their businesses.

Once a vendor has started advertising, they might quickly realize the scope and complexity of the opportunity available. If a vendor is in over their head when it comes to lowering average cost of sale, optimizing a PPC bid, increasing conversion rates, boosting products, or incorporating advertising into an overall marketing strategy, it may pay off to invest in an agency to manage your Amazon Advertising. At eCommerce Nurse, our experts can dive into your Amazon Vendor Central advertising with an AI-powered approach. We offer full-service advertising support and specialize in integrating our work for a holistic Amazon and DTC approach. Please contact us for more information.