What does the launch of Amazon Retail Ad Service mean for advertisers?
By Jasvinder Singh Bindra, Commerce Media Director, M&C Saatchi Performance
At CES last week, Amazon announced the launch of a new advertising product, Amazon Retail Ad Service. This new product, built on Amazon Web Services, allows other retailers to utilize Amazon’s advanced advertising tools and technology to sell product ads on their own e-commerce sites and apps and is a significant change in direction for the billion-dollar business.
Amazon Retail Ad Service is focused on the performance needs of many retailers. It enables personalization by delivering contextually relevant sponsored ads on advertisers’ platforms and also has the ability to show SKU price and availability to drive conversion. The service leverages Amazon’s decades of ad tech expertise and machine learning models that have already been trained on vast amounts of historical shopping data.
The Amazon Retail Ad Service is currently in beta and is being tested by retailers such as iHerb, Oriental Trading Company, and Weee!, showing a focus on small to mid-size retailers (at least for the moment), but with plans to onboard more retailers soon.
What does Amazon Retail Ad Service mean for marketers?
This development significantly broadens marketers’ advertising landscape while giving them more control. By extending Amazon’s ad technology to third-party retailers, marketers can now reach consumers across a wider array of shopping platforms beyond Amazon’s marketplace with the ability to manage campaigns across multiple retailers simultaneously.
The Amazon Retail Ad Service product also offers access to Amazon’s sophisticated targeting and measurement tools, enabling more precise and effective ad placements. Additionally, brands already advertising on Amazon can seamlessly extend their campaigns to these partner retailers, enhancing their reach and engagement with potential customers.
What should marketers be aware of?
The introduction of Amazon Retail Ad Service represents a significant shift in retail media advertising. Marketers now have the opportunity to leverage Amazon’s proven ad technology across multiple retail platforms, facilitating a more unified and efficient advertising strategy. This move also intensifies competition among ad tech providers, potentially driving innovation and better services in the industry. However, marketers should be mindful of data privacy considerations and ensure that partnerships align with their brand values and customer expectations.
We’re here to help
Our expertise in digital advertising positions us to assist marketers in effectively navigating this new landscape. Commerce Media is already a complex space rapidly evolving, with new partnerships and technology being announced at a potentially overwhelming rate.
However, this is where we can assist, providing strategic guidance for developing and managing Commerce Media as a channel within the existing media mix and specific channel advice, for example, how to integrate Amazon’s ad technology into your existing marketing efforts. As with any new channel, it is, of course, imperative to ensure seamless adoption and optimization of new platforms and technology.
We ensure that advertisers seeking Commerce Media assistance are confident in all aspects, including campaign planning, ad placement optimization, performance analysis, and more, all tailored to leverage the capabilities of platforms such as Amazon Retail Ad Service to meet your marketing objectives.
Contact us to discuss your Commerce Media needs with Jasvinder, or the wider media teams in your region.
