Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads: A complete guide for 2023

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Are you looking to boost your brand’s visibility and drive more sales on Amazon?

Look no further than Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads.

These ads allow you to feature your brand name, logo, and products at the top of search results, giving you a prime spot to grab the attention of potential customers.

But with so many brands vying for that top spot, how can you ensure that your Sponsored Brand Ads reach the right audience and drive the most conversions? In this guide, we’ll walk you through the ins and outs of Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads and provide you with the best strategies for maximizing your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

What are Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads?

Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads, formerly known as Amazon Headline Search Ads, is an ad type that enables brand-registered sellers to promote their brand and a collection of their products on Amazon.

These ads typically feature a brand’s name, a brand’s logo, a custom headline, and up to three products in the showcase.

Why Should You Use Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads?

There are several reasons why you should consider using Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads as part of your advertising strategy.

Increasing Brand Awareness: Sponsored Brand Ads play a vital role in achieving the crucial goals of brand recognition and recall. By prominently displaying your brand name and logo at the top of search results, these ads leave a lasting impression on customers. When potential buyers repeatedly encounter your brand, they are more likely to remember it and consider it for future purchases.

Targeting the Right Audience: With Sponsored Brand Ads, you can target specific keywords to reach customers who are actively seeking products related to yours. This increases the likelihood of conversion, as these customers are already in a buying mindset.

Impactful Sponsored Brands Video ads: Lastly, Sponsored Brand Video ads (which are available only in Sponsored Brands campaigns) have by far the biggest impact on the customer psyche. These ads are highly effective for capturing potential customers as they provide a great opportunity to showcase products and their features in a visually appealing manner, with up to 30 seconds of display time.

Placement of Sponsored Brand Ads

SB ads are placed prominently on the search results page and on product detail pages, making them highly visible to shoppers.

Search results page placement

SB and SBV ads appear at the top, middle, or bottom of the search results page. They are triggered by products and keywords relevant to the products being advertised and are designed to increase visibility and drive sales for the brand. In the illustration below, the SERP real estate within the blue box shows SB Ads appearing at the top of the page, within the green box you see Sponsored Brand Video ads appearing in the middle of SERP, and within the yellow box, you can see the bottom of page Sponsored Brand ads.

Sponsored Brand Ads Illustration

Product detail page placement

SB and SBV ads can also appear on the product detail page of the targeted ASINs, usually below the fold. On the Product detail page, this type of ad appears exactly as shown in the illustration below.

Goals

Campaign goals enable you to clearly define and achieve the objectives behind your campaign. They provide a framework to communicate your campaign’s purpose, fulfill its requirements, and drive optimization by focusing on key performance metrics such as new-to-brand orders, top-of-search impression share, clicks, and sales.

When creating campaigns, you can choose from three key goals, each designed to align with specific objectives:

1. Acquire New Customers

This goal focuses on reaching new-to-brand (NTB) customers—those who haven’t purchased your brand’s products in the past year. The campaigns are optimized to increase NTB orders, making them an effective way for businesses of all sizes to grow their customer base and expand their reach. The primary success metric for this goal is new-to-brand orders.

2. Grow Brand Impression Share

Designed to enhance brand visibility, this goal helps increase your brand’s presence in search results, particularly at the top of search pages, within your categories. By driving brand discovery, these campaigns strengthen your brand’s share-of-voice in the Amazon store. The key success metric for this goal is top-of-search impression share.

3. Drive Page Visits

This goal focuses on encouraging customer engagement by leading shoppers to your brand store and product detail pages. Ads are displayed across search results, product detail pages, and the homepage, helping to increase consideration for your brand. The primary success metric for this goal is clicks.

Each campaign goal comes with tailored targeting and bidding recommendations to help achieve desired outcomes. For Amazon advertisers, attribution varies by goal: Grow Brand Impression Share measures performance based on clicks and views, while Acquire New Customers and Drive Page Visits are measured solely on clicks.

Cost Control

Sponsored Brands cost controls empower you to optimize campaigns to achieve specific goals within your desired budget. By defining your success metric for each goal in terms of a target cost, the system adjusts bids automatically to help you meet your objectives at or below your target cost. 

With cost controls, you can maintain a clear focus on your goals by setting a maximum cost over a 7-day rolling average. This feature eliminates the need to calculate individual bids for each target, simplifying campaign management. Instead of translating goals into detailed bid strategies, you can rely on cost controls to optimize performance while staying within your budget.

Types of Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads​

Product Collection

The Product Collection ads type enables brands to promote up to three products in a single ad. You also get the option to direct customers either to a dedicated landing page that exclusively showcases the products featured in the ad or to a store page that showcases other products apart from those advertised in the ad.

This proves particularly valuable for brands seeking to enhance visibility and sales for products that have low visibility through organic or sponsored product ads. Here is an example of how a product collection ad looks on the search result page:

Vitals of Sponsored Brand Product Collection Ads

  • Use a high-quality lifestyle image to impact shoppers’ buying decisions positively.
  • Craft a creative headline that subtly mentions what customers love most about your product.
  • Make the headline highly relevant and attractive, avoiding emotionally charged statements like “Hurry! Offers ending soon.”
  • Create multiple sub-pages that intelligently segregate your products and direct shoppers to these sub-pages using relevant creatives and headlines.
  • Keep an eye on the inventory of advertised products, as Product Collection Sponsored Brand Ads will continue running even if some advertised products go out of stock (OOS).

Store Spotlight

As the name suggests, the Store Spotlight Ad enables you to promote your store pages instead of individual products like in product collection ads. These ads prove highly effective for brands that offer a wide range of categories and subcategories within their product catalog.

Vitals of Sponsored Brand Store Spotlight Ads

  • Build highly engaging store pages if you are running Store Spotlight Ads to get the most out of it.
  • Boldly use your brand headline and keep your overall messaging positive and welcoming.
  • Experiment with all the variables that allign with your brand story as there’s nothing that is sure to work or not to work in this ads type and double down on what works for you.

Insights

According to Amazon, in 2022 advertisers who used the combination of Store Spotlight and Custom Image saw an increase of 57.8% in conversion rate & 5.5% increase in Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

Video Ads

Video Ads are a type of Sponsored Brands ad that allows businesses to create and run video ads on Amazon. These ads can appear in various locations across the Amazon site, such as on product detail pages and in SERPs.  

Video Ads offer an excellent opportunity to showcase products in action, effectively demonstrating their features and benefits. It is important to keep these videos concise, ideally ranging from 15 to 30 seconds, while effectively conveying all necessary product information. 

When a shopper interacts with your video ad by clicking on it, Amazon redirects them to the corresponding product detail page. 

However, In a recent update, Amazon has introduced the option for advertisers to display Video Ads at the top of the search result page and redirect shoppers to the store page. To use this campaign, select “Store on Amazon” as the landing page when creating a Video Ads campaign.

Vitals of Sponsored Brand Video Ads

  • It is usually recommended to leverage Video Ads on your top-performing products. 
  • Educate, inspire & engage your audience intelligently in the video ad.
  • To keep the video engaging, it should be between 15 – 30 seconds and well-lit.
  •  In the video, the messaging should be around the product and not on the problem your product solves.
  • Please bear in mind, the video ads play in a loop on Amazon, so make the video appear seamless.
  • You should keep subtitles in clearly visible fonts, as by default video will play on mute.

Insights

According to Amazon, In 2022 advertisers who used the Sponsored Brands video ad format saw a 108 % increase in click-through rate (CTR) compared to advertisers only using the Sponsored Brands product collection ad format.

How to make effective Sponsored Brand Ads Campaign

Effective Headline Copy

  • Amazon prohibits references to specific pricing promotions, such as deals or offers, in Sponsored Brands.
  • Amazon permits the use of certain types of promotional messaging in Sponsored Brands, such as:
    • “Product savings”
    • “Savings on Product”
    • “Save now”
    • “Great prices on Products”
    • “Great savings on Product”
    • “Great bundles on Products
    • “Buy Product and get Additional free product”.
  • The offer that is being pitched in the ad must be visible on the product detail page and valid for the duration of the campaign.

Alignment of Custom Image

In order to boost click-through rates, it is highly recommended to incorporate custom images that are aligned with the products being advertised. By doing so, you can create a stronger visual connection between the advertisement and the product, capturing the attention and interest of your target audience more effectively.

Selection of featured Products

  • It’s important to choose products that align with the overall campaign’s goals and target audience. For example, if the campaign is focused on promoting a new product launch, that product should be prominently featured in the ad.
  • It’s important to consider the product’s performance metrics such as sales, conversion rate, and reviews. Products that have a proven track record of success are more likely to perform well in the ad.
  • You can use A/B testing to determine which products are most effective in driving clicks and conversions. By experimenting with different product combinations, you can gain insights into which products are resonating most with your target audience.

Targeting Options in Sponsored Brands Ads

Similar to Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands allow you to target specific keywords, products, or categories. Let’s delve into each targeting option to gain a comprehensive understanding.

Keyword Targeting

Keyword targeting is one of the most effective targeting options across Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands ads because it allows you to target shoppers who are specifically searching for the product you want to promote. Therefore, it is essential to have a deep understanding of it.

Let’s understand the various categories of keywords you can target and the strategies that can be developed around them.

Keyword Categories

  1. Branded Keywords
  2. Category Keywords
  3. Complementary Keywords
  4. Competitor Keywords

Branded Keywords

Branded General Phrases: These are keywords that include the brand name, but do not specify a particular product. For example, “Nike shoes” or “Samsung phones”. These keywords can be used to target customers who are familiar with the brand, but haven’t yet decided on a specific product.

Strategies

For Branded General Phrases, the following strategies can be implemented:

  • You can redirect shoppers to a sub-page for new products to test the feasibility of your newly launched ASINs.
  • You redirect shoppers to your store page showing best-selling products in your catalog to increase the likelihood of conversion.

Branded Specific Phrases: These are keywords that include the brand name and a specific product. For example, “Nike Air Max” or “Samsung Galaxy M21”. These keywords can be used to target customers who are already familiar with the brand and are searching for a specific product.

Using a combination of branded general and specific phrases can be an effective strategy to target customers in different stages of the buying journey.

For Branded Specific Phrases, the following strategies can be implemented:

  • Highlight the specific product that corresponds to the keyword you are targeting.
  • You can showcase other products within the same category.
  • You can also showcase complementary products that are often purchased with a specific product by leveraging Brand Analytics – Market Basket Analysis.

Category Keywords

Category keywords are terms or phrases that are used to describe a product or group of products within a specific category or industry. They are used to target customers who are searching for products within a specific category, such as “running shoes” or “smartphones”.

Strategies

If you are a well-known brand, you should run Store Spotlight ads otherwise run Product Collection Ad as shoppers can see reviews and prices in the latter.

  • Run ads on exact and phrase match-type keywords after performing deep keyword research to target a lower-funnel audience.
  • You should showcase best-selling products and other products from the same category on the landing page.
  • You should use Brand Analytics to identify complementary products and include them on the landing page, alongside main category products and best-seller ASINs.
  • Your keywords target should closely match the advertised products to have a high return on ad spend.

Complementary Keywords

Complementary keywords refer to terms or phrases that are related to a specific product or group of products but are not necessarily the same.

Strategies

  • Complementary keywords campaigns tend to have higher Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS) and thus invest a limited budget for testing.
  • You should segment complementary keywords into groups based on search volume and create separate campaigns for each group.
  • You should target with only the exact match to ensure that the ads are hyper-targeted.
  • You should ideally run Product Collection ads as it allows customers to see reviews and prices for multiple products.

Competitor Keywords

Competitors branded keywords refer to terms or phrases that include the names of a brand’s competitors.

Strategies

  • You should run this campaign with a limited budget for testing as these campaigns often result in higher ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale) due to the lower purchase intent of potential customers for your products. 
  •  You should target two different audience segments: those who are actively searching for your competitor’s general brand name, and those who are searching for specific branded keywords related to competitor’s products.

Product and Category Targeting

Product targeting enables you to target specific products, whether they are your own or those of your competitors. On the other hand, category targeting allows you to target all products within a particular category on Amazon.

Strategies

  • Keep branded and competitor product targeting in separate campaigns to maintain clarity and control.
  • When targeting a category, use refinements such as price and rating to have some control over the products where your ad will appear.

Setting Up a Sponsored Brand Ads campaign

  • Sign in to your Amazon Advertising account: To begin creating your Amazon Sponsored Brand campaign, you will first need to sign in to your Amazon Advertising account. Then, click on the ‘Create campaign’ button.
  • Setup campaign fundamentals: Select the campaign type “Sponsored Brands” from the list of available campaign types. Then, you need to enter your “Campaign Name”, Portfolio, Start and End date, and daily(or lifetime) budget.
  • Choose Bidding Strategy: Then, you can choose automated or custom bidding.

Automated vs custom bidding – With automated bidding, Amazon will automatically increase or decrease the bids for placement other than the top of search. On the other hand, with manual bidding, you can manually increase or decrease the bids by up to 99% for placement other than top of search.

If you want to reduce the visibility of your SB ads on other than top of search results, you can opt to decrease the bid multiplier by up to 99%. This will significantly lower your bids and make it less likely for your ads to appear in these placements. However, please note that there is still a possibility that your ads may be shown in these placements despite the reduced bid.

  • Ad Groups name: Next, you need to enter the name of your ad group. (Update – Now you can make multiple ad groups in a single Sponsored brand campaign which was not possible earlier).
  • Choose the ad format – Now, you have to choose between 3 available ad formats as shown in the picture below. In this illustration, we are drafting a Product Collection ad.
  • Choose the targeting type: Here, you have to choose whether you want to do keyword targeting or product targeting. In the below illustration, we have chosen Keyword Targeting and entered a keyword list.
  • Choose the product you want to promote: Next, you will need to choose the products that you want to promote in your campaign. You can choose up to 3 products from your own catalog.
  • Set up your creatives: Enter a captivating headline under 50 characters and optionally add a custom image.
  • Choose your negative targets: After you have entered your keyword list, you can then add the irrelevant keywords for which you don’t want your Ads to appear.
  • Submit the campaign for review: Once you have set your budget and schedule, you will need to submit your campaign for review. Amazon will review your campaign to make sure that it complies with its advertising policies and make it live after approval.

Forecast

Similar to the feature in Sponsored Product ads campaigns, this tool provides a performance prediction for your metrics based on historical campaign data. However, a key limitation of the Forecast is its inability to account for product seasonality. This often leads to discrepancies between the forecasted metrics and actual performance data.
It is important to note here that forecast is not available when you choose Cost Control.

Monitoring and Reporting

Finally, you will need to monitor the performance of your campaign and make adjustments as needed. This might include adjusting your bid, targeting options, or budget to optimize your performance. Most importantly, Amazon has introduced new-to-brand metrics with Sponsored Brand campaigns. The seven metrics that are currently available are as follows:

  1. Percentage of Orders New-to-Brand

  2. New-to-Brand Orders

  3. New-to-Brand Sales

  4. Percentage of Sales New-to-Brand

  5. New-to-Brand units

  6. Percentage of units New-to-Brand

  7. New-to-Brand order rate.

The new-to-brand metrics help you quickly check the portion of ad sales in Sponsored Brands campaigns that are coming from customers who haven’t purchased from your brand in the last 365 days. This helps you easily gauge the effectiveness of your Brand campaign in acquiring new customers.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, Sponsored Brands ads offer a variety of options for businesses to reach their target audience and increase sales on Amazon. Each type of ad serves a different purpose and can be used to achieve specific goals. 

It’s important for businesses to understand the different options and choose the ad that best suits their needs. Whether you’re looking to increase brand awareness, drive sales for specific products, or showcase a variety of products, Sponsored Brands ads provide a powerful advertising solution for businesses looking to succeed on Amazon.

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