Mars UnitedSM Commerce cuts to the chase by identifying the five product announcements with the greatest potential for driving ecommerce success
The stars were most definitely shining bright deep in the heart of Texas last week as Amazon moved its annual unBoxed event to the entertainment-friendly city of Austin, where the undisputed ecommerce leader sought to further position itself as a top-tier media partner for upper-funnel brand advertising as well.
Previously held in the apparently less-trendy confines of New York City, unBoxed is the annual conference that Amazon Ads hosts for advertising clients and ad tech partners. The company uses the forum to unveil the new ad solutions and innovations it will roll out over the coming year. The event also features a host of training and certification classes for users of Amazon’s various platforms and tools, along with product demonstrations, thought leadership presentations, and the requisite networking events and entertainment.
Amazon’s clear intention this year was to demonstrate its unique ability to operate effectively as both a media company and a retailer, not just within the sandbox of retail media networks but across the entire media playground. And with an unparalleled audience reach of 275 million (roughly 82% of the U.S. population), Amazon certainly has the necessary audience scale to stake a claim.
And while its vast media ecosystem and massive data sets can be overwhelming, the company clearly recognizes the need to help brands and their agencies simplify the task of creating, building, managing and measuring ad campaigns — as well as identifying, tracking and growing their target audiences.
The 20-plus new tools and technologies that Amazon Ads showcased at this year’s event exemplify the company’s commitment to developing user-friendly ad solutions that will help brands drive engagement and conversion across the entire purchase funnel.
Mars United’s Ecommerce team attended unBoxed in full force and came home with the following key takeaways for commerce marketers whose primary goal — despite all the buzz about full-funnel advertising opportunities and audience-driving media properties — is still to grow their ecommerce sales through Amazon’s ever-growing ecosystem.
Among the numerous new product announcements at the show, here are the five we believe could have the greatest impact on ecommerce success.
1. Bid Boosting with Amazon Marketing Cloud Audiences:
This new tool lets advertisers use AMC to define and create audiences (new buyers, brand loyals, video watchers) that better align with their brand objectives. Advertisers can then target these audiences more effectively by selectively modifying their bids for sponsored products and sponsored brands campaigns.
Our POV: This new capability expands AMC use cases by helping advertisers better reach the most valuable target audiences among Amazon’s many browsers and shoppers.
2. Multi-Touch Attribution:
Amazon promised that advertisers “will soon be able to” access multi-touch attribution metrics in sponsored ads and Amazon DSP reporting. The new campaign measurement will divide “credit” for Amazon purchases across Amazon Ads touchpoints in proportion to their likely contribution to the decision.
Our POV: We’re excited about gaining the ability to demonstrate to clients the benefits of coordinating and collaborating across national and ecommerce media teams rather than measuring performance at the tactic-specific level. We also look forward to using this tool to facilitate upfront planning that can benchmark the impact of full-funnel campaigns. (For more about the benefits of multi-touch attribution, read Mars United’s recent white paper.)
3. Conversion Path Reporting:
This new tool in sponsored ads and Amazon DSP presents all the touchpoints on a customer’s 30-day path to conversion, allowing advertisers to identify the most frequent and efficient aspects of multiple-ad programs and the best ways to drive shoppers down the funnel.
Our POV: Pairing conversion path reporting with MTA will help Mars United and our clients begin to understand how shoppers are engaging throughout the funnel and the strongest conversion-driving tactical combinations.
4. Long-Term Sales:
Amazon is using predictive analysis to estimate the 12-month incremental sales and sales ROAS impact of ad campaigns, based on the historical 12-month return of a given customer’s brand engagement (including product detail page views, branded searches, add-to-carts, and purchases).
Our POV: This will help Mars United answer one of our clients’ most frequently asked questions: “What does this mean for long-term growth?” We’ll then be able to have conversations that look beyond the immediate campaign period to evaluate estimated vs. actual long-term sales benefits.
5. New Product Campaigns:
A new service designed specifically to get new products to market faster will let brands selling on the Amazon Store unlock optimized full-funnel media plans and creative visuals for new product launches on- and off-platform within 90 days.
Our POV: We’re always looking for the fastest, most effective way to launch new products on Amazon and often end up trying to “game the algorithm” to accelerate discoverability. The combination of guaranteed inventory, New Item badging, and full-funnel media allocations available through this service should be extremely beneficial in driving new-product success.
Among some of our general takeaways from UnBoxed:
The technology Amazon is using to grow, refine, and engage with its audience is as unique as the audience itself. The personalized, interactive approach it’s taking with Prime Video advertising is truly compelling: The many calls to action — click to try, click to buy, click to schedule a test drive, and even voice-enabled response — take media advertising to places where even consumers who detest traditional analog “commercials” are embracing the message. And Amazon is focused on helping advertisers navigate the complexities of audience engagement in the evolving streaming landscape — where it plans to be a leading player, of course.
Measurement is another critical area. “If you can’t measure it, don’t do it,” advised keynoter Allie Miller, Director of Global Brand Media at Dell Technologies. One key goal is making it easier for brands and agencies to demonstrate the effectiveness and impact of full-funnel campaign integration on growth. Amazon’s measurement tools can now help determine the impact on conversion of upper and mid-funnel campaigns and the long-term impact from new-to-brand shoppers of multi-tactic/engagement experiences.
An overarching theme across nearly all new product announcements is simplification, as Amazon seeks to make it easier for brands and agencies to:
- Build campaign creative assets. (Announcements: AI Creative Studio, Audio Generator, Video Generator, improved Amazon DSP Experience, Amazon DSP Performance.)
- Create custom audiences through data and insights that then facilitate unique messaging. (Enhancing AMC audiences with publisher data [in beta], audience bid boosting, AMC for sponsored ads.)
- Integrate, measure, and deliver full-funnel experiences (multi-touch attribution, conversion path reporting, long-term sales estimates, AMC Solutions, Amazon Ads Data Manager).
Amazon also wants to make it easier for shoppers to buy at any time by delivering a truly connected commerce experience (Prime Video interactive ad solutions, Amazon DSP ad relevance).
And on the content side, Amazon continues working to amass a broadcast TV-level library of viewer-driving properties: expanding its NFL and NBA partnerships and adding NASCAR to the sports lineup while building up its streaming series, movie, and podcast offerings. Elsewhere, a new opportunity called “The Glitch on Twitch” will let brands integrate into the playing experience of the wildly popular Fortnite game.
To learn more about these product announcements, check out the official announcements from Amazon Ads.
To learn more about how Mars United can help your brands win at ecommerce across the Amazon ecosystem, contact Melissa Wightman at [email protected].
