If you or your client are selling on Amazon, then you may already familiar with advertising via Amazon Seller and Amazon Marketing Services. For the most part, these are the standard, run-of-the-mill self-service PPC ads available from Amazon. However, there is another Amazon advertising channel that you may be less familiar with: Amazon Advertising Platform (AAP).
Amazon has 20 years of watching shopping patterns and consumer behaviors. Now, multiply that across multiple devices used to make purchases, read, watch, and then share all of that across social media and you have a global powerhouse of predictive buying behavior and shopping patterns.
To capitalize on all this information for advertisers, Amazon developed the AAP. It can help you reach your target audience by placing your display ads or videos on sites or apps, including Amazon itself, the sites Amazon owns (Whole Foods, IMDb, Zappos to name a few big ones!) and other high-quality third-party sites.
Amazon Advertising Platform Key Features:
The Power of Amazon
Amazon has changed how people shop. Their longevity, efficiency, and innovations make them a mighty force. The AAP leverages Amazon’s history, learnings and expertise to get your message out based on their predictive models.
Targeting Options
Utilize a variety of targeting methods, including retargeting and lookalikes:
Not Just for eCommerce Advertisers
The AAP is a way for you to advertise via Amazon regardless if your products or services are currently being sold on Amazon. This opens up the door for many companies which don’t fit the “traditional” model of promoting products directly on amazon.com.
Exclusivity
The AAP is the only means to access to Amazon ’s owned sites and a network of “high-quality” sites. This comes with the promise of brand-safe sites. (Have you also been horrified at the some of the Adwords Placement sites that have come up despite all the exclusions you have in place? This guarantee is nice).
Reporting
Reporting features include consideration, add to cart rate, total purchases, ad-attributed sales data, Amazon Product Metrics and “more.”
Disadvantages to the Amazon Advertising Platform:
“Premium Ad Solution”
Think of the AAP as a high-end PPC channel for those who have big advertising bucks to spend. They describe it as a “premium ad solution.” By high-end, I mean Amazon prefers a minimum $35,000/month commitment. I was told they are willing to stretch that to every two months if needed to help you get started. But, this amount gives no room for small or many medium-sized businesses to play in this arena at all.
Limited Self-Service
There is limited self-service access to the AAP. For most advertisers, your campaigns will be created and managed by Amazon by their campaign management teams. You have input, but no control. If you’re a big enough company or agency, in time, they might train you on their platform. That’s not an option for most right now.
Limited Account Access
With that said, for managed accounts, advertisers are only given access to the reporting platform. Granted, the reporting seems more robust than what is available in Seller or AMS (and with that type of ad spend, it certainly should be), but I’d still at least like to see how things are set-up.
If the AAP might be a good fit for you or any of your clients, you can fill out the form here to learn more. Amazon responded quickly when I did that recently. I’m glad to be familiar with this platform for future clients.
Until then, just like Google and Facebook, remember that Amazon is also watching. They are an up and coming force to be reckoned with.
Have you used AAP yet? Managed or self-service? Comment below to let us know what you think about it.
