Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads: 2024 Complete Guide for Sellers

Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads offer a significant opportunity to amplify your product visibility and drive sales. Various sellers have seen their ROI soar by leveraging these ads.

So today this blog will unravel the different ad formats: Product Collection, Store Spotlight and Video Ads. Each format is strategically designed to cater to diverse marketing objectives. Importantly, It also shares strategies that have helped sellers optimize their SB ads performance.

Let's delve deeper into the world of Sponsored Brands Ads and uncover their potential.

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What is an Amazon Sponsored Brands ad?

Amazon Sponsored Brands is a special form of banner advertising, mainly composed of the brand's logo, product images, product description, etc. The main purpose of this advertisement is to increase the brand's visibility and product exposure in Amazon's search results, thereby attracting more consumer attention and selection. In this way, brands can stand out from a large number of products, gain consumer attention, and further improve sales performance.

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Three Formats of Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads

There are three formats of Amazon sponsored brands ads. Each of them aims for different advertising goals.

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Product Collection Ads

This ad format allows sellers to showcase up to three products on a customized landing page. Sellers can freely choose the products to display. Product collection ads are particularly suitable for those products that have less natural traffic or lower sponsored ad exposure, because they perform well in attracting traffic. A small tip is to display several well-performing products in the ad at the same time, which can increase the attractiveness of the ad and thereby increase the possibility of consumers clicking on the ad. When shoppers click on the ad, they are directed to a landing page on Amazon, which can be either the brand's store or a custom page showcasing a selection of products. Ideal for advertisers who want to promote multiple products simultaneously.

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Store Spotlight Ads

This ad format is only applicable to sellers who have created an Amazon Storefront, as its purpose is to drive traffic to the brand's store page. If sellers have not set up their own Amazon Storefront, they cannot take advantage of this ad format to generate traffic.

For sellers who sell a variety of products, cover multiple categories or subcategories, using the "Store Spotlight" ad format is a very good choice. Compared with the "Product Series" ad format, which can only display up to three products, "Store Spotlight" allows sellers to promote products in multiple categories at the same time, providing greater flexibility and coverage.

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Video Ads

Video ads are a new format in Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads, which make products more prominent in search results, thus providing sellers with a significant advantage in a competitive market. These ads feature a video that plays automatically in mute when visible on the shopper's screen.

Amazon recommends that the duration of video ads should be controlled between 15 and 30 seconds, and it is necessary to ensure that the video content is informative. An effective video ad should be able to convey all the product information that potential consumers need to know in the first few seconds, and avoid including content that is not relevant to the product.

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Eligibility of Amazon Sponsored Brands ads?

1. Amazon Brand Registration: This is a basic requirement for using brand promotion. Brand registration not only allows you to use brand promotion ads, but also helps to establish and protect your brand on the Amazon platform. It provides additional tools and permissions, such as more control over product listings and management of brand content.
2. Own a brand logo: This means that you must own the registered trademark of the brand, and this trademark should represent your brand. This helps potential customers instantly recognize your brand and ensures that you have the corresponding legal rights when using brand promotion.
3. Eligibility in Product Categories: Ensure your products fall within the categories Amazon deems eligible for brand promotion to maximize effectiveness.
4. Fulfill Minimum Product Criteria: Diverse advertising and brand consistency are key. For Amazon's sponsored brand ads, you're required to have a minimum of three products under the same brand. For promotional videos, a single product suffices. This requirement ensures a varied yet coherent brand representation.

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Is Amazon Sponsored Brands worth it?

If your business environment or sales scenario meets any of the following conditions, we strongly recommend that you consider turning on sponsored brands advertisements as a strategy to tap into greater business growth potential.

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Product Promotion Encounters Bottleneck

You might have already tried standard advertising tactics like Sponsored Products (SP) ads. While they offer stable promotional effects, you're likely facing the challenge of escalating costs. The Cost Per Click (CPC) is on the rise, and optimizing the Advertising Cost of Sales (ACOS) is becoming increasingly difficult.

This is where Sponsored Brands ads come into play. They offer a more prominent display of your brand, not just showcasing individual products but highlighting your brand and product range together. This strategy can enhance both the click-through and conversion rates of your ads, potentially lowering your overall ACOS.

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Struggle to Stand Out in a Competitive Market

In a crowded marketplace, it's common for consumers to end up purchasing a competitor's product after initially considering yours. This could be due to a lack of brand recognition or your ads not being engaging enough.

Sponsored Brands ads offer a solution. They allow for a more impactful presentation of your brand's story and the unique features of your products. By leveraging customized brand content and creative strategies, these ads can help you differentiate from competitors, capturing the attention of consumers who might have otherwise gone to your rivals.

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Gain Awareness for your Brand

When you notice that consumers are frequently searching for your brand's keywords or specific long-tail phrases, it's a clear sign that your brand is gaining recognition in the market. This presents an excellent opportunity to amplify your brand's influence. By utilizing Sponsored Brands ads, you can take greater control over these keywords and intensify your brand's visibility through targeted marketing efforts. This strategy is not just about boosting sales; it's also about fostering stronger brand loyalty among your customers.

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Ready to Establish a Brand Store Presence

Setting up a brand store for your brand is a significant step towards carving out a distinct brand identity and offering consumers a comprehensive view of your product range and brand narrative. Leveraging Amazon Sponsored Brands ads allows you to direct potential customers straight to your brand store. This approach does more than just elevate your brand image; it deepens consumer understanding of your product lineup, potentially leading to increased opportunities for cross-selling and encouraging repeat purchases.

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4 Strategies to Improve Sponsored Brands Ads Performance

Here we provide you four essential strategies to boost your Amazon Sponsored Brands Advertising performance. By following these tactics, you can significantly improve product visibility, drive sales, and maximize your return on investment, transforming your Amazon business.

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Use of Brand Keywords

When using Amazon sponsored brands advertising, a key strategy is to segment brand and non-brand search keywords and match the corresponding landing pages according to the user's search intent.

Suppose someone searches for "Nike sneakers" on Amazon. This indicates that they already have some knowledge and interest in the Nike brand, but they may not have decided which sneakers they specifically want. In this case, it is appropriate to guide users to the dedicated Nike brand store page, where they can browse different styles of sneakers. On the other hand, if the search is more specific, such as "Nike Air Max sneakers", this shows the user's clear interest in a specific style. For this specific search, the best practice is to guide users directly to the specific page displaying the Nike Air Max series.

The core of this strategy is to reduce user errors when looking for the products they need. If a user's search range is wide, providing a page with a variety of choices can help them make decisions. For those users who search for specific products, directly guiding them to the product's page can increase conversion rates. In addition, separating brand and non-brand keywords for management can more accurately measure the advertising performance of each. Brand searches usually have higher purchase intentions and lower advertising cost of sales (ACoS), and mixing them with non-brand ads may mask their true performance. Through this segmentation strategy, advertising budgets can be allocated more effectively, improving the overall return on advertising investment.

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A/B Testing Various Elements

Sponsored brands ads involves multiple elements, including titles, images, and the number and selection of products (ASINs). By A/B testing different elements, you can understand which elements have the greatest impact on ad performance.

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Elements That should Be Tested

1. Title: Test different ad titles to see which one attracts more clicks.
2. Images: Try different images, including brand logos and product images, to see which is more effective.
3. Number of ASINs: Test the effect of displaying different numbers of products (ASIN) on advertising effectiveness.
4. Order of ASINs: Change the order of product display to see if it affects the click-through rate.
5. Selection of ASINs: Showcase different products for testing to see which products are more popular.
6. Custom Landing Page Selection: Experiment with different landing pages to see which one can better convert traffic.

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Tips in A/B Testing

For less well-known brands, product images often perform better than brand logos in non-branded searches. And also you should consider that ads appear differently on different devices and locations (for example, ads on mobile devices may only display one image). You need to decide on the best image display strategy.

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Best Practices for Testing Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads

1. Launch Multiple Campaigns Concurrently: Initiate several ad campaigns simultaneously, each employing distinct variable combinations.
2. Adjust One Component at a Time: To accurately evaluate the impact of each variable, make alterations to a single component at a time.
3. Allow at Least a 2-Week Testing Period: Ensure you give enough time - at least two weeks - to gather sufficient data and monitor performance.
4. Establish a Standard for High-Quality Ads: Based on your business objectives and the configuration of your test, identify which metrics signify high-quality ad performance.

By A/B testing different combinations of ad elements, you can more accurately understand which strategies are most effective in improving click-through and conversion rates, thereby optimizing your Amazon Sponsored Brands ads strategy.

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Increase the bid for the Top of Search placement

In addition to the Top of placement, the position of sponsored brands ads in Amazon also includes the left sidebar and the bottom of the page. Advertisers can manually bid according to different positions.

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‍The importance of the Top of Search placement

• High exposure rate: Advertisements located at the top of the search results page usually have a higher exposure rate and click rate.
• Cost consideration: Although the new advertising positions (such as the left sidebar and the rest of the page) have increased the exposure opportunities, they may have a lower click rate for your products. A lower click rate may cause the advertising cost to increase relatively, because this may send a signal to Amazon indicating that the advertisement is less relevant.

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How to increase the bid for the Top of placement

1. Access Sponsored Brands Ads Settings: Navigate to your Sponsored Brands ads management dashboard.
2. Switch from Automatic to Manual Bidding: Initially, automatic bidding might place your ads in various positions. Opting for manual bidding, however, grants you finer control over where your ads appear.
3. Prioritize and Adjust Bids for Top Search Results Page (SERP) Positions: With manual bidding, strategically lower your bids for ad spots that are not at the top of the search results page. This approach increases the likelihood of your ads appearing in prime, top-of-page positions, rather than being relegated to less visible areas like the bottom or sidebar.

Monitor your Keywords Performance

To optimize Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads, a key strategy is to identify and leverage quality keywords by analyzing the Search Term Reports in Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads. This process includes extracting well-performing keywords from automatic ad campaigns and applying them to manual sponsored products and sponsored brands ads campaigns.

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The identification of high-quality keywords depends on the analysis of several core indicators:

1. Order Number: This refers to the total number of converted orders for each ASIN corresponding to each keyword or search term. A high number of orders usually indicates that the keyword can effectively attract customers with purchasing intentions.
2. Total Sales: This refers to the total sales of products for each ASIN corresponding to each keyword or search term. This indicator reflects the direct income brought by the keyword, which is an important measure of its value.
3. Clicks: This refers to the total number of clicks for each ASIN corresponding to each keyword or search term. Although a high number of clicks indicates that the keyword is attractive, if there is not a corresponding high conversion rate, it may not be the most effective keyword.

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How to set up a Sponsored Brands ad

Setting up a Sponsored Brands ads can be efficiently done using a PPC tool. M19 PPC tool optimizes your PPC campaigns management by automating keyword bidding, improving your ad's visibility and maximizing your return on investment. Our m19 platform is a perfect example of a PPC tool that you can use.

With m19, you can easily navigate the complexities of setting up a Sponsored Brands ads, from selecting your ad format and entering your basic campaign details to submitting your ad elements and choosing your target audience.

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Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up a Sponsored Brands ad in m19

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Step 1: Access the m19 Platform

1. Log in the M19 platform
2. Navigate to the Dashboard.
3. Go to Strategies.
4. Select Sponsored Brands.
5. Choose the option to Create a New Strategy.

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Step 2: Create Your type of ad format

Let’s take “Store Spotlight Ads” as an example.

1. Select for example “Store Spotlight” as your ad format.
2. Enter the basic details of your campaign, such as the campaign name, algorithm mode and your ACoS Target budget.

Step 3: Submit the Ads Elements

1. Upload Your Landing page which is your Amazon Store
2. Upload your creative assets: Brand name, Headline and your logo.
3. Select ASINs: Choose 3 subpages from your Store, and a product to best represent each page.

Use Theme Targeting to Enhance SB Ads‍

In 2024, Amazon launched a new innovative feature called Theme Targeting. This theme positioning feature uses a template-based dynamic approach, which allows advertisers to more accurately target their users. More specifically, this theme positioning feature is achieved by leveraging Amazon's massive purchase data and advanced machine learning capabilities to continuously aggregate and optimize keywords. Using this method, advertisers can more accurately push their products or services to users who may be interested in them based on the themes they target. This has undoubtedly greatly improved the accuracy and effectiveness of advertising, thereby improving the overall effect and return on advertising.

Keywords Target in Theme Targeting

Brand Keywords: Aimed at those keywords often used to search for a specific brand, helping to improve brand impression.

Keywords Related to Target Web Pages: Aimed at those relevant keywords that can bring traffic to the brand's store page or product page.

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The Benefits of Theme Targeting

1. Simplify the management of SB campaigns
2. Theme targeting allows advertisers to easily create brand promotion campaigns through simplified controls.
3. Advertisers can launch advertising campaigns using a single target group and bid on that target group individually.
4. Subsequently, the keywords in the theme targeting will continue to be optimized, reducing the manual management burden of advertisers.
5. Improve the performance of SB campaigns
6. Finding the right keywords usually requires a lot of time and manpower. Theme targeting uses machine learning and first-party data to automatically find the most suitable keywords.
7. The keywords in the target group will be updated regularly to help marketing campaigns better achieve their goals.

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Conclusion

Using m19 for your Amazon Sponsored Brands ads campaign offers an array of benefits for your business. Not only does it provide a more streamlined process for setting up your ad campaign, but it also allows you to have greater control over various elements such as ad format, campaign details, ad elements, and target audience selection. So, whether you're promoting a single product, showcasing a collection, or highlighting your brand store, m19 can help you enhance visibility, boost click-through rates and ultimately drive sales, making it a comprehensive solution for your Sponsored Brands ad needs.