For online retailers, Amazon is equivalent to what Google means to SEOs worldwide. It is the one platform that can turn their small businesses into a force to be reckoned with. Practically the entire world uses Amazon if the need to buy something online arises. It has become synonymous with online shopping in the same way search is juxtaposed with Google.
Interestingly, Amazon offers its merchants the opportunity to promote products on its platform. While the subject is not given a lot of traction in digital marketing, it is a well-documented practice amongst e-commerce marketers. Since there are so many products listed on Amazon, small retailers often find it difficult to get traction amongst their audience.
Take a competitive niche like shoes for instance. There are simply too many shoe retailers on Amazon. A small shoe retailer trying to make money selling products on Amazon will not be guaranteed to get traction from the relevant audience.
This is why Amazon has an advertising option. Retailers are allowed to post ads on certain product searches. While digital marketing institutes do not cover Amazon marketing or advertising in great detail, it is certainly a good way to reach interested sellers.
Since people on Amazon have a much greater chance of buying something than someone just searching for something on Google, advertising on the former is a good option. In this article, we will give a brief guide on Amazon advertising and marketing for small retailers and businesses.
Amazon Ads – What You Need to Know?
To existing Amazon retailers, there are three different types of ads that can be run.
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Sponsored Product Ads
These ads appear when someone searches for a product. For example, if you are selling model train sets on Amazon, you can choose to make your product ads appear when someone searches ‘model train sets’ on Amazon. Amazon offers a lot of different ad placement options. Advertisers are supposed to pay on CPC-basis.
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Amazon Stores
If you wish to add an Amazon-like store to your own website, Amazon has the solution for this as well. The Amazon Store option allows advertisers to export the code of an e-commerce website to their own domain. The UI of this store is the same as the main Amazon portal. Advertisers can then upload products on their own personalized Amazon store under their own domain. This model is very similar to Shopify which offers online retailers a similar service.
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Sponsored Brand Ads
These ads appear on Amazon’s product pages or on the landing page of an Amazon Store functioning on another domain. These ads are useful for increasing brand recognition amongst a core audience. Again, advertisers have to on a CPC basis.
For those who are not sellers on Amazon, there is still the option of pushing display and video ads on Amazon, other websites that are run by them, and third-party platforms that accept Amazon ads. Amazon is open to allowing advertisers that are within its ecosystem and outside it as well.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, this article covers three ways an Amazon retailer can advertise on the platform.
About the Author – Sriram Ramesh is a freelance marketer and SEO blogger currently writing weekly guest posts for DCA, an institute known for its digital marketing courses in Delhi.
