Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads: The Complete Guide
Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads (or Headline Search Ads, as they were called before) are an expensive extra way to show your product to potential customers on Amazon.com.
Any case where a seller has managed to squeeze sales from Brand Ads – is a maverick. Very rarely, do you see ACoS below 50-80%, even on the best exact keywords and the best products.
So Why Bother with Sponsored Ads?
Flying Your Brand Colors
Every mature Amazon product category has a distinctive set of branded sellers. These guys are head and shoulders above the drop-shipper and no-name sellers.
Showing your brand above the rest of page one gives your product an aura of confidence and perceived quality by all potential customers.
Selling Expensive Products
A little trick about products in Brand Advertising real estate – is that there is no price tag. A situation like this is unique. So if you are selling a premium top quality product that is, yes, priced above the rest of the competition – Brand Advertising is your opportunity to grab that buyer’s interest and charm them before they see the price tag.
You’ve Mastered Sponsored Products Already and Want More Sales
Plain and simple – you need more sales to keep climbing to the top position in your subcategory. If you’ve done all you can with Sponsored Product Ads? Go for Sponsored Brands and get a little bit extra out of your marketing money.
Setting up the Brand Ad
As you know, Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads are only available for sellers with a brand registered with Amazon. And since you’re reading this – it’s likely you’ve been selling for some time already. And you are probably familiar with more straight-forward Seller Central advertising tools, like Sponsored Product Ads, and how to set one up.
The Budget
Indeed, Amazon.com recommends spreading your PPC budget like this:
70% to Sponsored Product and 30% to Brands Ads
Actually, we believe that 80/20 is a better budgeting ratio – being that Product ads do generate positive income, while Brand ads are typically working at a loss (in the narrow PPC spending sense of things).
The Targeting
Since we assume you already know what keywords generate the best sales for you with Sponsored Product Ads – selecting keyword pools for Brand Campaigns should be an easy job.
- Pick the best-performing keywords in exact form + competitor ASINS (advertising that brought you the most sales);
- Copy the individual bids (you will be optimizing them later anyways);
- Paste that into the targeting section of your new Brand ads. Oh – and don’t forget to add your brand name keywords!
If you are not sure, or you KNOW that an effective pool of keywords for your product is a large one – you can always cut corners and start your PPC Campaign really fast by using advanced keyword search services, like Profit Whales Zero to Hero.
This will save you hours of time to arrive at a wide and relevant set of keywords, negatives, and even rival ASINs. You can start the PPC Campaign right away, as they also assign keywords to groups and set the bids, depending on the level or keyword relevancy.
The Sponsored Brand Ad
At its biggest size (laptop screen, above search results position), Brand ads show your logo, your title text, and at least 3 products you’ve selected to partake in the ad (a Product Collection and Store Spotlight).
At its smallest size (smartphone, side box position) – all a customer would see is your logo and the text next to it.
Regardless of future effectiveness, there is the minimum amount of items a PPC Manager will need to get the Brand Ad running:
- Brand logo (just a picture actually)
- Title text
- Selecting 3 or more products to partake in the ad
There is no definite guideline for picking a logo picture or writing the title text (except for Amazon’s restrictions). The only thing to remember is that they are both there to spark interest and lure customers into wanting to learn more about your product.
Speaking of which: when picking the products to go with your Ads – make sure you select the best selling ones (your Acos will not be happy if they aren’t). And the ones that correspond to your keywords too.
Why Don’t we Provide Examples or Guidelines About the Text or Logo Image?
Here is where it splits for most Sellers. You see, some products will sell better with Brand Ads if you optimize the ad for a solid top position: with a clear logo, strong punch line, and 3 best variants of your product.
And this will establish your brand domination amongst the top players of the subcategory.
For others, however, the most effective way could be to replace your logo with a product pic (!) and write the text that tells the customer about this particular product, so that they will want to learn more…
Therefore any Amazon PPC manager wanting to capitalize on Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads truly is in for A LOT of experimentation.
The Products on Display
Product collection – a custom created page where users go after clicking your ads. Just pick your best products (preferably with some deals) – and observe the results. A default for Sponsored Brand ads.
Amazon Store Spotlight – a New Type of Brand Ad That is Mostly for Mobile Users.
A carousel of products. If Seller Central offered your brand to use this ad and you KNOW your product will sell well with mobile buyers – go for it!
Single product – a destination for the Video Brand Ads. Plain and simple.
The Neverending Experiment for Best Results
Sponsored Brand Ads are the most creative kind of Amazon ads. And guess what this means? Lots of chances to experiment.
This is more important than it seems. There are 7 different places (real estates, as Amazon, calls them) where your ads may be shown. And there is no knowing which will work for YOU (and often why).
So consider this type of Ad as a black box. A box in need of many varied Ads to produce meaningful results and find the product-text-logo combo that works best for you.
Oh – and don’t adjust your bids or your keywords while you run these experiments! It’ll be REALLY hard to tell which change brought which result if you do.
Try experimenting in waves: set a bunch of Sponsored Brand Campaigns (as many as you can come up with, ideally) with the same keywords and bids to run in parallel to the best Ads combo. And then twice the keywords and bids of the winner. Then, rinse and repeat.
A Word on Video
Although called a Sponsored Brand Ad, a video ad is quite different. First, you need to create an excellent quality clip that will draw your customers’ attention and have them click it to learn more. And when talking about making such a clip – be prepared to invest upwards of $2000. Because the “best-performing 50-80% ACoS Sponsored Brand” curse is still there – you will end up spending significantly more if the video is not up to the mark.
The other issue of course is that the video leads only to one product, which makes this kind of ad a laser-focused, high-level advertising tool in the Manager’s arsenal. The only time one would bother with this type of ad – is if the product is really good, the clip-makers know their stuff, and well… it makes you look really impressive (compared to the rest of the competition).
If you want to get started with Amazon Sponsored Ads, Payability can help. With our fast funding and easy daily payments, you can get the cash flow you need to invest in your business. Apply today to see how we can help you grow your Amazon sales.
