Today we are talking about Ad (advertising) Functions. This is part 3 of our advertising series. If you haven't read part 1 or 2, please go do that before reading this article. The two previous articles are on how to get the advertising module started, working on your brand's foundation, and understanding the three types of advertising (sponsored products, sponsored videos, and sponsored displays). Ad functions allow us to separate the brands further and help you understand what you are trying to target. 

We usually split our campaigns into two areas. The first is direct competition.

Direct Competition Advertising

Direct Competition Advertising is when we're using certain products, ASINs, or a specific keyword, in order to target a potential category. We are also trying to target the relevant audience and do this effectively through sponsored brands.

Sponsor Brand is the first form of Competitive Advertising

Let’s use hand lotion as an example as a setup for a sponsor brand video campaign. To start, we will be bidding on one keyword, “hand lotion”. Our goal with this campaign is to make the video placement on the first few pages of the customer search for hand lotion. You will be directly competing for this specific area on Amazon with other competitors selling hand lotion. 

We are trying to target the audience using the keywords or key phrase, "hand lotion," in a broad category. There are definitely thousands of brands out there with hand lotion products, but if we do it from a sponsored video, there is some sort of placement. This is a direct competitor placement keyword/campaign. What we're trying to gain is some of that market share using a combination of category or other areas, in order for us to be placed higher on the search results.

The second split in our campaign is passive competitor advertising (also known as Auto Placement Campaigns).

Passive Competitor Advertising

Passive competitor advertising is when we let Amazon's algorithm dictate how that campaign is going to be visible to the customer based on their purchase behavior. We let Amazon dictate that on the algorithm because it's easier for us to launch some of those campaigns versus the competitor one, which is highly targeted.

Now, Amazon is extrapolating data from the product title, the product detail page, the product's bullet points, and below-the-fold content, and it all plays within the algorithm, in order for them to know where that hand lotion campaign is going to be placed. 

Campaign relevance depends on the products Title, Bullet Points, EBC (A+ Content), About the Brand/Product or anything that triggers Amazon's SEO

When we’re setting up a campaign for our hand lotion on Amazon, it will show the ads based on close, loose, substitute, or complimentary search terms, for the customer to find our products. Our hand lotion ad could appear when the customer's searching for baby lotion, or for body wash, depending on the restrictions of that campaign. Ultimately, however, Amazon is the one, unfortunately, determining when the ad is placed and where, based on all of the other mentioned factors - title and keyword identifiers, anything that is visible on that detail page, and the relevance to the customer, the trends, the likelihood for the customer to convert. Amazon knows, historically, your tendencies, your customer behavior, and your historical orders, in order for them to place a more adequate product, based on keywords or placement, that will lead you to buy that product.

Depending on the bid, they may place on different pages, but you will always see those ads in the following areas:

Sponsor brand banners show at the top of the page always, and sponsor brand videos show in the middle of the search result. 

As you all know, the sponsor videos and sponsor brand banners will place on every single search result page. Historically, we know that only the top three pages are the most important for conversion before we get to see our customer search for something else. As an example, if you go further than four pages, you're likely to change your searching parameters to find the product that you're looking for.

In our next article, we will be talking about ad management, so stay tuned for that. Hopefully, this gives you more insight into Amazon Advertising but if you have any more questions, please email us at info@trisbell.com or fill out our contact form. This is the first article of four on our advertising solutions. Stay tuned for part one for more on advertising strategy and making better decisions on the Amazon ecosystem. If you're not sure how to get started, be sure to read our other articles. Contact us if you want to learn more about what we do, how we do it, and how we can partner together.