The way we consume advertisements has changed significantly over the past 50 years. With advancements in technology and shifts in media consumption habits, advertising has become more important than ever. As Henry Ford once said, “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time”…

This is why simply releasing a flashy, innovative product is not enough - you have to have a strong and loyal brand behind it. Customers want to connect with a compelling story, and building a strong brand is crucial to conquering the ever-competitive market.

If you look at any product - whether it's a TV, a chair, or a bag of popcorn - the amount of choice that gets presented to you during an Amazon search can be overwhelming. If we simply think about our own shopping habits, we often go for the best-reviewed products, the best price and truthfully what looks the best. 

But why is building a strong brand so important?

It’s expensive to convert new consumers, so once you have them, keep them! A great brand builds trust and credibility with consumers over time through consistently delivering quality products and positive experiences. Consumers are more likely to choose products from brands they trust, even if they are unfamiliar with specific products within the brand's portfolio.

Over time, brand loyalty can lead to habitual buying behavior. Loyal customers develop a routine of automatically choosing their preferred brand without actively considering alternatives. 

But brand loyalty is more than just a rational decision based on product performance. It's also about emotional connection. Whether it's shared values, brand personality, or memorable experiences, loyal customers feel a genuine bond with the brand. This emotional connection motivates them to support the brand through repeat purchases, driven by a sense of belonging and affinity.

Ok, so how do we build a strong, trustworthy brand on Amazon?

Target the right keywords

The key to success in building a brand as well as general targeting is to ensure you are focusing on the correct targets.

Conducting keyword research or using tools such as Perpetua’s Search Insights will help you save time. The idea is to focus on unbranded traffic to build up generic awareness as well as competitor traffic. However, in this particular scenario, we recommend focusing a sizeable budget on a mixture of brand-related terms as well as category and competitor ones. 

Optimize your product listing

Based on the keywords you identify, edit your product listings to incorporate your target keywords. This step is crucial to ensure your product stands out among the sea of competition and attracts potential buyers.

Optimize your product title

The product title serves as the first point of contact with the shoppers, making it a key element in your listing’s success. We recommend incorporating 2-3 high-volume keywords in the title to enhance discoverability. However, avoid stuffing the title with unrelated keywords to maintain clarity and readability. Finally, include the brand name and showcase the product’s unique selling point in the title to build brand recognition and increase your click-through rate.

Optimize your product description

Use the product description section to provide additional details that couldn’t fit in the bullet points. Brand-registered sellers also have the opportunity to add A+ content to the product description to make it more engaging to shoppers.

This helps increase conversion rates and boost sales by providing a better understanding of the product. It also presents an excellent opportunity for you to showcase your brand messaging to shoppers and differentiate your products from similar offerings by competitors.

For example, an essential oil brand, “Edens Garden,” showcases its key values in the A+ content section: women empowerment, charitable initiatives, and commitment to organic, natural, and chemical-free products. This fosters trust, boosts brand loyalty, and sets them apart from their competitors.

Create an Amazon Brand Store

Think about your Amazon Brand Store as a curated space where your brand takes center stage, and customers can seamlessly explore your entire product lineup while understanding your brand story and values.

Previously, only Amazon Vendors had access to Stores, but now, brand-registered sellers can create an Amazon storefront and enjoy all the benefits.

One of our client’s, Corsair, has built its brand on a foundation of performance and quality. Corsair’s products are known for their high performance, reliability, and durability, making them highly sought after by PC enthusiasts, gamers, and professionals who demand top-notch performance from their hardware.

Corsair also knows the power of what great branding can do on Amazon, especially in incredibly competitive periods like Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

Kieren Wells, Digital Marketing Specialist, Amazon at Corsair

"At Corsair, we are consistently exploring ways in which we can improve our brand presence and engagement with our customers. Once we had a successful Brand Store experience and foundation, we looked to improve the path to purchase for our customer by optimizing pages, featuring key products on category pages, and simple, yet effective graphics/videos that engage our customers. 

From here, we started working with Perpetua to explore how to increase traffic coming to our store pages with Sponsored Ads and the Amazon DSP. We had some amazing success around Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday with a bespoke page design for each of these key deal periods. We created dedicated graphics for products we wanted to push, which included key product information, as well as an "add to basket" option directly on the tile, allowing us to keep the customer on the page without having to be redirected away. Products were also included within Amazon’s pre-built store widgets (such as Featured Deals), but giving the extra thought and time to create the bespoke assets proved to be a winner for us."

Ensuring strong visibility to the Brand Store with an effective Amazon advertising strategy over key deal periods, Corsair was able to not only drive strong sales from loyal customers, but also convert many new-to-brand customers. Corsair has established itself as a trusted and respected brand in the gaming and enthusiast PC hardware market, earning the loyalty of customers worldwide - both on and off Amazon.

Features of the Amazon Brand Store

Create an immersive brand experience

Amazon Brand Stores provide an immersive brand experience to shoppers with a comprehensive view of your product lineup. Gone are the days of customers searching for individual products on Amazon. Now, Amazon brand-registered sellers can easily create a Brand Storefront to showcase all products in one place and improve the customer experience.

Safe brand space

Unlike the Amazon Search Engine Results Page, where competitors fight for attention, your Storefront is an ad-free zone dedicated solely to your brand. This undivided focus allows customers to explore your brand without any external distractions, reinforcing brand loyalty.

Flex Your Creative Muscles

Amazon Storefronts offer you the creative freedom to design your storefront with enticing branded content like images, infographics, videos, etc. These elements combine to build a compelling brand narrative that resonates with the target audience.

Generate Direct Traffic and Sales

By combining your Amazon storefront with your ads, you can direct traffic straight to your Amazon Brand Store. This allows you to steer shoppers away from your competitors’ products and channel them toward your brand’s offerings – potentially building brand awareness and improving the conversion rate.

Focus on Getting Quality Ratings and Reviews

It’s fair to say that a large chunk of Amazon customers look at numerous reviews before making a purchase. And good ratings and reviews help your product rank high on the Amazon SERP. We recommend focusing on getting more ratings and reviews for your product to build a positive brand image.

If you’re just starting up or need a boost in reviews you can always use Amazon’s early reviewer program and Vine program to get more reviews.

Utilize all ad types to create a full-funnel strategy

Getting Started

Sponsored Products

There is no set rule on how to allocate your budget across ad types, however, we recommend starting with Sponsored Products ads. Because Sponsored Products ads command the most significant share of ad inventory and boast a straightforward setup process, they yield the highest click-through rates and provide newer brands with an optimal chance to realize returns on their initial ad spend, all while generating valuable data for future decision-making. It is generally advised that brands allocate approximately 70% of their budget to Sponsored Product ads.

Sponsored Brands

Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Brands video ads are cost-per-click ads featuring a brand’s logo, a custom headline, and multiple products. We recommended allocating approximately 20% of your overall budget towards Sponsored Brands/Sponsored Brands video.

Sponsored Brands ads are a great way to humanize your product and tell your brand story. And with premium inventory both at the top of and dispersed within the Search Engine Results Page, Sponsored Brands help you increase your share of voice. These ads are an excellent introduction to brand building as they offer more customizable creative beyond a traditional Sponsored Products ad that dynamically pulls details from your Product Detail Page (PDP). 

We recommend linking your Sponsored Brands ads back to your Brand Store, as this acts as your own mini website within the Amazon ecosystem. From your Brand Store you can easily optimize your conversions by leveraging Amazon’s “quick look” and “add to cart” features. Because competitors cannot advertise on a brand’s Brand Store, having your Sponsored Brands ads drive back here is a great way to further your brand storytelling, avoid competitor conquesting, and drive sales.

Sponsored Brands video (SBv)

Sponsored Brand video ads are similar to Sponsored Brands ads but leverage the power of video to bring your brand and products to life, engage shoppers, and drive sales via the PDP or Brand Store. Last year, Amazon introduced multi-ASIN SBv campaigns, unlocking new opportunities to upsell and cross-sell within your product catalog. Since this new format allows advertisers to showcase up to 3 products and link to their unique PDP within a single ad, it’s an efficient way to drive more clicks and improve ROAS. Compared to single-ASIN SBv ads, these multi-ASIN ads tend to see a 43.9% higher click-through-rate (CTR) and a 34.0% higher return on ad spend (ROAS).

Sponsored Display

Sponsored Display ads, utilizing views targeting, promote the most relevant product likely to convert from a brand’s campaign. These ads engage shoppers both on and off Amazon during their purchasing journey. Our recommended allocation for Sponsored Display ads is approximately 10% of the overall Amazon Advertising Budget.

Things to consider

Seasonality is a critical factor in shaping your ad spend strategy. Certain seasons or holidays may drive increased demand depending on your products and industry. To optimize your advertising efforts, adjust your budget allocation to align with these seasonal peaks. Identify key periods of heightened demand, such as holidays or seasonal changes, and allocate more budget during these times to ensure maximum exposure and capture the attention of your target audience amidst increased competition. 

A data-driven approach based on past performance during specific seasons will guide your strategic budget reallocation, ensuring your ad spend is not just effective but also finely tuned to market dynamics.

Taking brand building to the next level

If you’ve already experimented with SB & SBv ads and have a larger budget for upper funnel strategies, the Amazon DSP is the next step for building your brand awareness. With the Amazon DSP you can expand your reach on and off Amazon to engage users and drive purchases from customers wherever they are. These tactics are best for brands with strong brand presence or who want to expand their audience. The minimum recommended budget to run on the Amazon DSP is about 1/3 of your monthly Sponsored Ads spend, or approximately $15k (USD).

Amazon DSP

This demand-side platform allows you to programmatically target customers both on- and off- Amazon, leveraging highly targeted audiences. Because the Amazon DSP runs on behavioral targeting, you can target customers based on their online actions and behaviors.

For upper-funnel campaigns, you likely want to target shoppers who have not heard of your brand before. We recommend using Amazon’s pre-built audiences to reach shoppers that match your targeted demographics, lifestyle, and categories. Upper funnel targeting types include:

• In-market: People with activity that indicates they’re likely to purchase within a certain category

• Lifecycle: People whose shopping activity indicates a lifestyle similar to the one targeted

• Demographic: People with certain desired characteristics according to age, household income, education, gender, or marital status.

For example, a women’s Skincare brand that sells wrinkle-reducing moisturizer could target women age 40+ who are in-market for skincare creams and anti-wrinkle products.

To strengthen the power of the Amazon DSP’s reach, we recommend running Amazon DSP ads in conjunction with Sponsored Ads as it will help you reach and target a wider, more incremental audience. In our DSP Deep Dive report, we saw that using the Amazon DSP and Sponsored Products together led to a 19% increase in Sponsored Products conversion rate and a 3% increase in ROAS.

Streaming TV (STV)

The goal of Steaming STV ads is to target customers who have never visited your Brand Store or Product Detail Pages. These ads are non-skippable 30-second video ads that appear on connected TVs, publisher channels and networks, and IMDb TV. Because you are not able to click through on STV advertisements, the Amazon DSP is a great tool to use in conjunction with STV. You can retarget customers who have viewed your STV video using an Amazon DSP display ad, and bring that customer to a Product Detail Page to engage and convert.

Measuring impact with Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)

Upper funnel tactics are notoriously difficult to measure, but with Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) you can analyze the true impact of your full-funnel ad strategies. Previously, advertisers were limited to analyzing the performance of their campaigns based on last-touch attribution, which made it nearly impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of ads in generating brand awareness. But with AMC, brands can look at multi-touch attribution, bringing more transparency into how ads perform across the full funnel and how shoppers behave at each stage of the funnel. This allows advertisers to analyze the true impact of brand-building tactics and gain insights to improve their strategy across the customer path to purchase, from awareness to loyalty.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, the era of relying solely on a great product to drive success has evolved into a more nuanced landscape. Creating a successful 'brand' on Amazon demands a unique and strategic approach that goes beyond the inherent value of your offerings.

Here are key takeaways to ensure your brand stands out on Amazon:

1. Conduct in-depth research:

   • Utilize available tools to conduct comprehensive research, enabling you to identify the right targets and optimize your approach. 

   • Understanding your market and audience is foundational to success.

2. Align Product Detail Pages (PDP) and messaging:

   • Ensure that your Product Detail Pages (PDP) and messaging align seamlessly with your targeting strategy. 

   • Consistency in your brand presentation across Amazon fosters a cohesive and compelling narrative for potential customers.

3. Build an immersive Amazon Brand Store:

   • Take advantage of Amazon Brand Stores to create an immersive brand experience for shoppers. 

   • Craft a compelling storytelling experience that goes beyond individual products, allowing customers to connect with the ethos of your brand.

4. Prioritize quality ratings and reviews:

   • Cultivate quality ratings and reviews to build a positive brand image. Positive feedback not only instills confidence in potential buyers but also plays a crucial role in boosting your product rankings on Amazon, enhancing visibility.

5. Embrace a full-funnel marketing strategy:

   • Embrace a holistic marketing strategy by leveraging Sponsored Ads, the Amazon DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud. 

   • These tools are instrumental in nurturing brand loyalty and driving increased sales by targeting customers at various stages of the purchasing journey.

Remember, success on Amazon is not just about the product; it's about crafting a brand that resonates with consumers. By incorporating these tips into your Amazon strategy, you position your brand for growth, recognition, and sustained success in the competitive online marketplace. To learn more about how to execute brand-building strategies with Perpetua, email us at hello@perpetua.io.