With holiday shopping coming to a close, it is time for brands on Amazon to shift their focus to New Year, New You. Shoppers will be preparing their 2022 resolutions and be on the lookout for various fitness, health, nutrition, wellness, and other products. After the decline in sales for some health-focused brands since the height of summer, we will see a shift in traffic and interest from shoppers leading into the new year. With people beginning to think about their new year’s resolutions, they will be on the lookout for the latest and hottest health trends to jump on for the new year. It’s your time to shine with health-centered brands!
Remarketing ads will be the most beneficial ad type for those with health and wellness products. January 1st has everyone thinking about their health. You’ll want to take advantage of this time of the year to bring in new customers.
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Note that we highly recommend running a coupon or deal during the New Year, New You Amazon shopping event to increase your ads’ click-through rates and conversion rates. This time of year is all about bringing in new customers that you can hopefully retain all year long!
Sponsored Display Ad Type
Remarketing ads are a Sponsored Display Ad Type. Placements for this ad type are both on and off Amazon. It means that if you are remarketing to a shopper who has viewed or purchased your product, not only will the ad follow them around Amazon, but it will also follow them on different websites they visit. This is a powerful tool to remarket to shoppers you know are in-market for your product since they already viewed your page or a page for another product (or purchased).
Another benefit of using this ad type is that you can customize your creatives! You have two options when customizing your ad:
- Logo and copy – In the original creative for SD ad type, you can add your logo and copy describing the benefits to your product. Amazon automatically includes your product’s image from your detail page, product title, and your star rating. Here are a couple of examples of this creative type and how they might show up on and off Amazon:
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- Custom Imagery – Custom Imagery for Sponsored Display has only recently been released and is a fascinating update! You can now add a lifestyle image that will capture the shoppers’ attention and increase your chances of a click. Amazon will also include your title, star rating, and the number of reviews, along with any discount in the ad.
Audiences Targeting
To access remarketing targeting, you must choose audience targeting from the two options given. You do not get to choose which keywords or ASINs you target with audience targeting. Instead, Amazon offers you different choices of audiences you can target. You can search categories or audiences that you want to target. Included in the Audiences section is the option to target shoppers that have viewed/purchased the product you are promoting with the ad or targeting similar products that have been viewed/purchased to the one you are promoting.
Bidding on Amazon
There are now three options to determine how you would like to optimize your bids!
- Optimize for viewable impressions – Amazon will optimize bids for higher viewable impressions. It’s a good option to drive brand awareness and reach more shoppers. The cost type is vCPM – cost per 1,000 impressions. You will also see that sales are attributed to impressions and clicks from this cost type.
- Optimize for page visits – Amazon will optimize your bids for higher detail page visits. This option is best to drive consideration of your products to shoppers who are most likely to click on your ad. The cost type is CPC – cost per click and conversions are only attributed to clicks.
- Optimize for conversions – Amazon will optimize your bids for the highest conversion rate. Choose this option to drive sales by showing your ad to shoppers most likely to purchase your product. The cost type is CPC, and conversions are attributed to clicks only.
We recommend testing vCPM cost type and CPC through optimization for page visits or conversions. Running both simultaneously with the same constraints (including custom creatives) will give you the best picture of performance. Testing the bidding optimization will allow you to choose the option that fits your goals!
Views Remarketing Ads
Views remarketing ads allow you to reach customers who have viewed detail pages for your advertised products or the ones similar to yours. Both will be beneficial to target to bring in new customers.
Targeting your advertised product will allow you to reach shoppers who have viewed your products detail page but have yet to make a purchase. You can follow up with remarketing ads to remind shoppers they are interested in your product, hopefully leading to a sale and gaining a new customer.
You may also target similar to advertised products with the views remarketing ad type. This targeting type can be beneficial to run as well during January to bring in new customers by getting them to try your product instead of the one from competitors. If you’re running a deal, you have a higher chance of stealing a sale from your competitor. Running remarketing ads targeting shoppers that have viewed and shown interest in products similar to yours is an excellent opportunity to do just that.
**Note: We now have the option of expanding our lookback window to up to 90 days. You can choose a range of 7-90 days that a shopper has viewed your product’s detail page or the one of a similar product. Choose the option that best suits your product and how often a customer might want to purchase your product.
Purchases Remarketing Ads
Purchases remarketing ads allow you to serve ads to shoppers who have purchased your advertised product or similar products to yours. Use them if you have a product that customers would want to buy again, like CPG brands.
Similar to views remarketing, purchases remarketing ads allow you to target shoppers who have purchased your product. The benefit of targeting shoppers who have already purchased from you if you sell a repeat purchasable item is that you can remind Amazon shoppers to restock your item or buy in bulk if you are running a deal. We recommend choosing a wider lookback purchase window to reach customers who have bought your product but haven’t purchased it in the last few months.
You will also have the option to target related to purchased products. This is a powerful targeting type because you have proven data that the shopper is interested in the product category and has purchased from a similar or competing brand. If you are confident in your brand’s ability to stand up to competitors in your product’s category, then this targeting type can reap great rewards! As mentioned previously, running a coupon will increase your CTR and conversion rate when running this targeting type. So, we highly recommend running a deal during the first couple of weeks in January. Entice shoppers to try your product over a competitor they may purchase from regularly.
Audiences
You’ll see that you can choose audiences to target in both views and purchases remarketing. We recommend not using audiences if you are focused on conversions, as it can get very granular. But if your goal for New Year, New You is brand awareness and acquiring new customers, we recommend testing different audience categories that you believe best suit your product and its category. Within audience targeting, you’ll be able to refine the audience you want to target. You can select the brand you want to target, the price range, review star rating, and whether the competitor has prime or no prime shipping.
Our recommendation for stealing sales away from competitors is to set the minimum price at your product’s price and choose a lower star rating than your product’s. Also, if you have any specific direct competitors you want to go after, you can select them from the drop-down menu!
Conclusion
In conclusion, using Sponsored Display Audience Remarketing targeting allows you to:
- Keep your customer retention high
- Drive more sales from interested shoppers
- Bring in new customers that you know are in the market for your product or similar ones
To best prepare for New Year, New You, make sure to set up remarketing campaigns! If you have time, try to test cost type or different creatives to see what will perform best for your brand on Amazon!
About the author
Natalie Eagle is an Account Executive with BetterAMS. BetterAMS is an Amazon advertising agency focusing on Sponsored Ads and DSP for some of the largest brands on the platform! While currently managing over $60 million in ad spend a year, the BetterAMS team is on the cutting edge of all things Amazon Ads.
