Amazon are starting to offer a new paid search ad facility “Amazon Sponsored Products“, somewhat reminiscent of Google Adwords. Thanks go to Gemma of ElectricGemZ for spotting the new ads.
Don’t confuse Amazon Sponsored Products with Amazon Product Ads which link to products on your website. Amazon Sponsored Products are a way to promote the products you sell on Amazon.co.uk with keyword targeted ads. Think of the now defunct eBay AdCommerce and you’ll get the picture.
Amazon say that you choose which products you want to advertise, assign keywords to those products, and enter a cost-per-click bid. When an Amazon shopper searches for one of your keywords, your ad is eligible for display alongside the search results. You pay a fee for this program only when an Amazon shopper clicks on your ad, at which point the shopper is taken to the detail page where your offer is listed.
This all sounds great, bar one tiny little detail – you’d better make sure that either it’s a unique product that only you sell, or that you’ve already won the Amazon Buy Box on the product detail page. Read the last line of the paragraph above again “The shopper is taken to the detail page where your offer is listed” and make sure that you’re not paying to drive sales for other retailers or Amazon themselves.
We’re going to watch with interest when the multichannel management providers integrate Amazon Sponsored Products into their products. If they can automate paying for Amazon Sponsored Products ads only when you’re already winning the Amazon Buy Box that could be a killer combination.
Edited to Add: Amazon have been in touch to say that your ad will only be displayed if you’ve submitted a competitive bid and your offer is listed on the detail page in the Buy Box. Great news and makes a lot more sense. They say they’ll review their onsite content to make this clearer.
Amazon provide full metrics of views, clicks and purchases from your Amazon Sponsored Products so you should be able to quickly establish if they’re working for you. Make sure that you also set a maximum daily budget as well as the maximum cost that you are willing to pay when a shopper clicks on an ad for your product.
We’re going to watch this one with interest and we’d love to hear from you if you trial Amazon Sponsored Products. We know that whilst some people had a great experience with eBay AdCommerce, many failed to figure out how to get a return from the program. We’d like to hear the success stories from Amazon Sponsored Products as well as lessons learnt on what not to do.
In the mean time here’s Paul Hochman from Amazon to tell you more about the program:
3 Responses
Just noticed this tab pop up last Friday. Have been using it for around a week now and find that from all the sales it has produced, it has coast about 10% of this to get them.
It seems like it can be worth it to help products rise up the rankings by getting exrat sale. Going to give it more time though.
Signed up for it two days ago, trying it out with some of our higher priced and older stock. No sales from it yet though only cost us 11p so far!
Like any PPC system its possible it can work, will see what happens.
Correction to the above. 11p for a £23.99 sale.