New Retargeting Ads in Seller Central

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Brian Johnson goes into details around Amazon’s new approach to retargeting ads

Inside Seller Central in Campaign Manager
If part of the beta program and go create a campaign
External ad network / display ads has been cooking for over a year
If you have this feature – you have a different ‘display ads’ external advertising retargeting ads that Amazon are retargeting for you
It didn’t used to be the 3rd option in Create Campaign
It started out over a year ago and it was a checkbox for ‘run on Amazon’s external ad network’
Brian had tested it over a year ago and then they turned it off
Then it came back on in 2018 and Amazon contacted beta big sellers and offered to run ads for you in a single big pool and set it up for you and all you had to do was go turn it on (i.e. Give permission)
The challenge on this was then Amazon creates something for you it’s usually geared for Amazon and over-bearing
Price-gouging to make you spend ad money was the approach
The new option of campaign manager if you see it means you’re in the beta program
Inconsistent as to who gets into the programme

Experience with These Retargeting Ads

Testing a year ago – had better results than now
There might be many factors for this not all Amazon
Additional 5% in sales on larger accounts – significant revenue
These are with existing accounts and so not a new feature as such but new as to how it’s run – now a separate campaign as opposed to co-mingled
An additional 3-5% in the number of ad impressions from these retargeting ads
Seems like a small number but big volume (‘000s or even millions)
The ads are getting out there but conversion rates are a 10th of what you’d see in sponsored or headline ads – as they are shotgunning these ads out there
What is the mindset of the shopper when they see the ads? Not in the context of a shopping intent as if they were on Amazon itself
Amazon headline and sponsored ads will have higher conversions due to this context
Amazon recommends $100/day on the retargeting ads
But don’t go crazy on the bid price as the ROI will not be the same as native ads on Amazon

More co-mingling of ad space that Amazon is doing
Especially where you are in a space where your products are in a less competitive or less mature sophisticated environment for ads
Becomes an opportunity in lesser competitive niche can take advantage of this co-mingled ad space
There are 36+ slots on the page on desktop for ads space now
All the organic positions have been pushed down

Try to get the best organic position we can
Also run sponsored ads and sponsored brand ads to multiply the chances shoppers buy us
Amazon continuing to test large banner ads, product display ads and store pages
Can’t get great conversion rates on store pages – not sure people scroll down to see the content like Enhanced Brand Content
Consider – the longer the page, the further away you are from the buy box! Short scroll is better…
…it does also push down the sponsored ads at the bottom of the page too
Anything that throws a shopper off their buyer intent while on your product listing….it reduces conversions