Amazon Ad Types: What You Need to Know to Successfully Boost Your Sales

Learning the ins and outs of Amazon ad types is crucial to hitting your big sales goals.

In this article, we’re going to explore the types of ads available to you and give you the information you need to decide which is right for you and your business.

Amazon Ad Types

There are over 142.5 million Amazon Prime subscribers in the United States alone. With Amazon’s services only continuing to expand, it’s not surprising that most expect that number to grow.

If you are a retailer, you need to know how to get your products noticed on Amazon in order to boost your sales and hit big goals. But with so much competition taking over the platform, SEO and listing optimization are not enough to increase your search results growth.

To get the maximum exposure, you need to look into one of the three types of pay-per-click Amazon ads.

• Sponsored Products
• Sponsored Brands
• Sponsored Display

Let’s take a deeper look into these types of ads.

Sponsored Products

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to promote a single product, Sponsored Products are the way to go. It appears directly in the user’s search results as any other listing would.

This Amazon ad type doesn’t require any additional copy or graphics than what you’ve already credited for your listing, which makes it a great place to start for first-time ad-creators.

Amazon Sponsored Products Ad

Starting in your Amazon Advertising dashboard, you’ll follow these simple steps to create your campaign:

• 1. Determine duration and budget. – How much do you want to spend on this promotion? How long do you want this promotion to last?
  2. Select which keywords to target. – What search terms do you want your ad to be associated with? If you aren’t sure, you can always have Amazon select the terms for you.
  3. Choose the products you want to feature. – This is where you’ll select which listing you want Amazon to use.
  4. Launch your campaign! – That’s it! Seriously. It’s that simple!

Amazon claims that this type of ad is effective — for most advertisers, within the first year of launching a campaign, see an average weekly +54% lift in views and an average weekly +40% lift in orders.

Results of ASINs Use of Sponsored Product Campaigns

Sponsored Brands

Have you noticed the large banner ads at the top of your search results? Those are Sponsored Brand ads!

Sponsored Brand Ads

This Amazon ad type includes a logo, a customized tagline, and multiple products from one brand. This type is a bit more exclusive than Sponsored Products, as it is only available to sellers enrolled in the Amazon Brand Registry, vendors, book vendors, and agencies.

This type of ad is great when you have multiple, similar products to promote and when you want to build or increase brand awareness. By providing the browser with multiple products, you can use this to show off your brand depth.

You’ll create your ad in four steps within the Amazon Advertising dashboard:

1. Set your budget and duration. – How much do you want to spend and how long do you want this to run?
2. Design your ad. – Because this Amazon ad type is more involved, you’ll need to take the time to craft enticing copy, draft noticeable graphics, and come up with a tagline.
3. Pick which keywords to target and how much you’ll bid for clicks. – Pick which keywords you want to be associated with your ad. You can also ask Amazon to suggest a few.
4. Submit your ad for review. – Since these ads are more exclusive and take up more space on the site, they need to be reviewed and approved by Amazon.

Making sure that you’re picking products to feature that really apply to the assigned keywords will help ensure your success with Sponsored Brands.

Sponsored Display

This Amazon ad type helps you reach audiences on and off Amazon. It is also the most exclusive type — only available to vendors, Amazon Brand Registry members, and agencies.

Sponsored Display Ads

Sponsored Display ads don’t function off of keywords. Instead, you chose between two targeting options: Product Targeting and Audience. If you’re looking to promote your brand to audiences who are actively searching for companies similar to yours, this is a great type of ad to focus on.

Since these ads are featured on both Amazon and on third-party websites and apps, Sponsored Display ads are perfect for re-engaging with old leads. Anyone who searched for your product, or products similar to yours, will start to see your ad in their Amazon search results as well as on other pages they frequent.

The hardest part of creating this ad is selecting your target strategy. Once you have that figured out, the creation process is very similar to the process for Sponsored Products:

1. Set your budget. – How much do you want to spend on this campaign?
2. Create your ad. – Choose which products you want to promote.
3. Launch! – Depending on your targeting strategy, your campaign will either go live immediately or be sent to Amazon for review.

It really is that simple!

Top Five Tips for Amazon Ads Success

Each Amazon ad type is different but these five tips will help you reach success regardless of the ad type you choose.

1. Outline your budget ahead of time.
2. Use the correct keywords or targeting strategy for your audience.
3. Give it time! You won’t see results overnight.
4. Monitor your results! If something isn’t working after you’ve given it a decent amount of time, try changing your keywords or targeting strategy.
5. Don’t be afraid to re-evaluate your strategy or call in a professional for help if you aren’t seeing the results you want.

As a retailer, it is possible to get overwhelmed by all of the bells and whistles that make up Amazon but their team really wants to see you succeed and they make it easy to do so with the available Amazon ad types.