Re-shaping Sponsored Display campaigns to improve efficiency

SUMMARY

Sponsored Display on Amazon Ads are a valuable type of campaign that can be used along Sponsored Product and Sponsored Brand ones in order to achieve the best inventory mix and maximise the efficiency of the channel.

However, the way these campaigns are set up initially is pivotal in order to determine their effectiveness. Also, attribution models can be quite loose on Amazon Ads and their choice might prevent the advertiser from understanding correctly the impact of SDs on the overall channel results.

Setting the right attribution model and restructuring the campaigns following a type of targeting/segmentation approach allowed us to achieve a great impact on account performance and to define more accurately where to allocate budget between the different types of campaigns.

THE CHALLENGE:

The main challenge was related to how to properly evaluate the contribution of Sponsored Display campaigns to the overall Amazon Ads strategy. Default attribution/bidding model for SDs dopes account performance as it encompass CPM/14 day post click or post view conversion. Also, there are no proprietary tools to determine assisted conversions for Amazon Ads campaigns, which becomes a critical point for display campaigns as they are usually working at the awareness/consideration stage of the conversion path.

THE SOLUTION:

Our recipe for success was split in 2 main actions:

• a) to change the attribution model (from post view/CPM bidding to post click/CPC bidding);
• b) to restructure Sponsored Display Campaigns by using and segmenting all the targeting options available: ASINs, category and retargeting.