Amazon's new Sponsored Display Ads Offers Product Targeting Tools

Thursday last week, Amazon launched a beta version of its Sponsored Display ads in the United States.

As impressive as Amazon’s pay-per-click advertising suite may be, it doesn’t have a retargeting tool – a feature that’s available on display ad networks, Google and Facebook. That means advertisers have to look to the company’s Demand Side Platform (DSP) for this feature.

But DSP is far from ideal for most users. Not only does it require a significant monthly spend, but only a skilled media professional can effectively manage the channel too.

As such, it became necessary to fill the gap in Amazon’s pay-per-click ad offers, and that’s what Sponsored Display ads does. It uses buying and browsing signal to retarget promoted products automatically.

The company only launched its new ad campaign type in the United States. That means only the advertisers within the country will be able to access Product Display Ads audience as well as the product targeting features within Sponsored Display.

In a statement, the online retail company wrote:

“With this launch, advertisers are able to access Product Display Ads audience and product targeting features within Sponsored Display. All Product Display Ads campaigns are now part of Sponsored Display without any additional action required.”

How Amazon’s Sponsored Display Ads Works

Since ads are available on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, advertisers only have to pay when a customer clicks on an ad. Also, the advertisers will have an option of selecting their daily budgets and bids without any minimum requirement.

According to Lynly Schambers-Lenox, senior product marketing manager at Amazon, it only takes a couple of minutes to create an ad.

During this process, advertisers have to select the product and target audience along with the bid and daily budget. Then, based on the targeting strategy, the ad could appear on and off Amazon on desktop, mobile sites and in apps.

It’ll target consumers who viewed the detail page of an advertised product in the last 28 days without making a purchase. Also, consumers that showed interest in a product category may see ads that are related to their search result pages or product detail pages.