3 Ways to Get Started with Amazon Advertising

May 2, 2018

When buyers search for a product, they’re increasingly turning to Amazon as their first stop. There’s no doubt that Amazon advertising is on the rise, but is it enough to loosen Google and Facebook’s iron grip on the digital advertising landscape?

We think so. Amazon's ad revenue is now $2 billion, and it's the largest online marketplace in the world. While still modest compared to Google ($40 billion) and Facebook ($21 billion), Amazon is growing faster than both, according to Fast Company. With its climbing market share, digital advertisers and global brands are starting to flock to this online retail behemoth.

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Source: Synergy group, Forbes, TechCrunch[/caption]

As always, the early adopter catches the worm! Here’s more information on Amazon’s advertising solutions and how Marin can help you get in on the ground floor of this growing opportunity.

What Is Amazon Advertising?


Amazon Advertising provides several targeted, CPC advertising solutions to Amazon vendors and brands in order to grow sales. Amazon offers a range of different ad types to fit your retail goals and objectives, including Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Products, and Product Display Ads

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The Amazon Marketing Services Ecosystem[/caption]

1. Sponsored Brands (for Brands Only)

Sponsored Brands ads allow brands to feature a headline and an image above a shopper’s search results. You can link your ad to a landing page where people can get more information or make a purchase. The daily minimum budget required is $100, so this is an affordable way for brands to test the waters with Amazon advertising.

Sponsored Brands ads are a great way to showcase your logo and align your ad directly with specific keywords. This way, you can reach the people more likely to be interested in your products and drive more sales.

2. Sponsored Products

Amazon also offers the “Sponsored Products” option that displays your products at the top of a search results page. Sponsored Products work the same way as Sponsored Brands ads: you select the products you’d like to highlight based on specific keywords, and you set bids and a daily budget.

At a daily minimum of $1, this is a no-brainer for SMBs or those wanting an inexpensive way to test this placement. Sponsored Product ads can be useful for conquering competitor brand terms or improving your ranking on broader category searches, so keep both these goals in mind when mapping out your Amazon advertising strategy.

You can run either a manual or an automatic Sponsored Products campaign:

  • Manual: You select the keywords you’d like to bid on. By bidding manually on individual keywords, you can optimize real-time based on performance.
  • Automatic: Amazon automatically finds keywords that match your product’s category, related products, and product descriptions. Here, Amazon does the heavy lifting of collecting data on which keywords perform the best, so that you can apply them to future campaigns.


3. Product Display Ads

With Product Display Ads, you can target consumers by product or interest. Your ads will appear on relevant product detail pages across the Amazon platform. Like Sponsored Brands ads, the minimum daily budget is $100. Product Display Ads can be an effective way to reach potential customers more inclined to purchase a complementary item, allowing you to gain brand reach and find customers showing clear buying intent within related product categories.

Advertise Where Your Customers Are


Marin Software supports Amazon ad solutions—and full-funnel reporting alongside your search and social channels. If you’re a Marin customer and would like to set it up, just touch base with your Customer Success representative. Or, if you’re new to Marin, request a demo of our Amazon ad solutions today.

Caroline Delacroix

Marin Software
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