Brands sometimes assume that display ads alone are sufficient to generate awareness, often overlooking the impact video marketing efforts can have when strategically implemented across campaigns. With Amazon’s recent launch of leading video ads such as Prime Video, brands can generate significant awareness at-scale. This may very well be the missing piece of the puzzle in branding when it comes to curating a narrative and maximizing reach beyond Amazon.

Video ads inherently equip brands with the creative flexibility necessary for brand and product positioning via dynamic components (audio and visual) of the ad. This allows brands the freedom to create compelling and creative stories, showcase product versatility, and help humanize the brand which is essential in attracting New-to-Brand customers. With the right positioning and investment, brands can see a significant lift in engagement, reach, and potential New-To-Brand acquisition in conjunction with their conventional sponsored and full-funnel Amazon DSP display strategies.

Types of Video Ads

Brands can activate three different video types through the Amazon DSP to reach new audiences and capture new-to-brand consumers. 

Amazon Streaming TV (STV)

STV provides the ability to cast a wide reach through diverse inventories such as Freevee, third-party streaming TV apps, and Twitch. These ads are served on large screen inventory, and are not clickable or skippable which helps maximize brand visibility. Like display ads, STV can utilize all 1P audiences, allowing for customization as needed.

Prime Video Ads (PVA)

Prime Video is the latest extension of Streaming TV Ads which offers enhanced scale and reach through exclusive premium inventory. Prime Video is now the leading supply source of Amazon Streaming TV ads, expanding access to include TV shows and movies such as Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Boys, and 21,000+ titles from MGM premium titles and exclusive originals. 

Amazon is positioning Prime Video as the modern-day equivalent of a broadcast network to help meet evolving consumer behaviors and advertiser goals. In other words, the advantage here is the reach - with Prime Video Ads brands can expect to reach a highly engaged and more qualified pool of users tapped through contextually predefined preferred deals (comedy, drama etc). All 1P targeting is still available for use for PVA, so brands can customize their strategy as they deem fit. And brands that work with Perpetua can take advantage of our preferred partner discounted CPMs for Prime Video activations. 

Online Video (OLV)

Through Online Video you can reach highly active users in an interactive environment (online) allowing for greater engagement with a clearer path to purchase. Online Video Ads allow you to direct traffic to Amazon (product detail pages and/or specific landing pages), or to your DTC site, depending on your objective. It is highly recommended to have OLV run concurrently with large scale video marketing efforts such as STV as we’ve seen users are 2-3x more likely to purchase once served both video ads and then re-engaged with a display ad. And with OLV you can see direct sales attribution, although this tactic is still very much awareness-focused. 

When is the right time to implement Video Ads

If you’re finding that your Amazon DSP Display ads have hit the ceiling in visibility and awareness generation and are looking for further growth avenues, it is time to consider launching video ads. Video ads can be a great tool to: 

• Curate a compelling brand story that users can resonate with

• Attract new-to-brand customers

• Expand reach and visibility beyond Amazon.com and meet users where they are in their content consumption

• Build product awareness for hero ASINs or to generate visibility for new product launches

• Educate and double down on brand narrative through always-on campaigns 

• Generate awareness ahead of key-tentpole events 

• Help with brand recall

• Prevent ad fatigue (diversify ad portfolio)

5 top recommended Video Ads strategies

The beauty of the Amazon DSP is that it provides you with the freedom to curate and control your narrative on and off Amazon. You can customize your video strategy, refresh your creatives, and adjust targeting as needed. Below are some common video strategies across peak events and always-on. 

Lead up to Peak Events like Prime Day, Black Friday Cyber Monday, and more

Amazon becomes an increasingly competitive space during peak events–with eCPMs often skyrocketing. To keep your brand top of mind, we strongly recommend increasing investment in awareness efforts leading up to events such as Prime Day(s). This includes activating video campaigns, like STV or PVA at least a month prior to the event in congruence with increased investment in your full-funnel display campaigns. Bonus points if OLV is activated simultaneously (as mentioned above users are 2-3x more likely to purchase when shown an STV and OLV ad and then re-engaged with a display ad). The increase in awareness efforts will work to maximize brand and product visibility during this critical customer research phase and high traffic period leading up to the event which in turn will aid in influencing purchases during the day of.

Strategies during peak events

How should you approach key peak events with Video and Display ads? With Prime Day fast approaching, we recommend implementing a three-phase approach:  

Phase 1 - Lead Up

• Video Ads: Highly recommend STV or PVA activation a month prior to fuel and scale brand presence beyond amazon amongst high value users. Utilize relevant Inmarket/lifestyle segments to maximize reach and negate brand purchasers to ensure targeting is intentional for net new users

• Display: Heavy up investment on awareness & consideration display tactics 2-3 weeks prior to the event to drive up visibility and brand education 

• Video Remarketing: Maintain STV visual continuity (brand story) by utilizing same branding (imagery) via display ads. We can re-engage video viewers with display ads that can lead to the product or brand store. This aims to drive brand education and brand recall within a clickable environment.

• Budget Recommendations: We recommend a 60% upper-funnel / 40% bottom-funnel split across your advertising tactics. And front-loading your spend towards the upper-funnel can help maximize brand visibility during the critical customer research phase.

Phase 2 - Day of Event

• Video Ads: Maintain investment level and increase frequency to maximize brand recall

• Display: Front-load spend on conversion tactics, retargeting and contextual targeting in particular, to maximize sales and drive up new-to-brand conversion 

• Video remarketing: Maintain investment level and increase frequency to maximize brand recall 

• Budget: 40% upper-funnel /60% bottom-funnel 

Phase 3 - Lead Out

• Video Ads: Continue to maintain investment level and frequency to maximize brand recall

• Display: Overall investment focus will be bottom-funnel heavy. Maintain heavy focus specifically on Retargeting, Remarketing, and Video Retargeting as you can still expect increased traffic post-Prime Day. However, we recommend reducing your overall spend as conversions tend to slow down leading out of a peak event.

• AMC audiences: Through AMC you’re able to capture Abandoned Cart users during peak events (with customized lookbacks) and retarget during the lead out phase to push purchase intent and capture conversions. To learn more about how to use AMC for peak events check out our latest strategy deep dive.  

• Budget: 40% upper-funnel /60% bottom-funnel split 

Brand Building and New-to-Brand customer acquisition

Aside from lead-up efforts, video marketing can become a regular part of your always-on brand building strategy, along with your display strategies. For brand awareness, we recommend launching an “always on” Amazon STV or Prime Video Ads campaign due to their inherent scale in reach. These campaigns are great at helping continuously drive New-to-Brand viewers which feed into and fuel your Amazon DSP strategies and New-to-Brand customer acquisition. 

We suggest brands allocate a significant testing budget here as eCPMs are expensive due to the premium nature of the ad formats. When it comes to your targeting approach, we strongly recommended utilizing relevant and broad In Market and Lifestyle audience segments to help cast a wider reach while implementing rigid targeting restrictions (for example excluding users who have already viewed and purchased from the brand in the last 365 days) to ensure only net new users are reached. In addition, we recommend implementing a lower frequency at the campaign level to maximize unique reach.

Drive Brand Consideration 

To drive consideration, we recommend targeting a wide variety of competitor product viewers and competitor brand viewers whilst still negatively targeting your own brand viewers and purchasers. Since the targeting audience is much narrower here, reach will be lower but more specified allowing you to double-down and one-up your competitors, potentially gaining more market share and New-to-Brand customers. We recommend implementing STV and or OLV with a smaller test budget due to the reduced reach.

Drive Brand Recognition & Recall

To keep your brand or product top-of-mind in the New-to-Brand user journey, we recommend targeting users who have engaged with your brand or specific product recently (last 30-day viewers) and negatively targeting brand or product purchasers in the last 365 days to ensure you’re not reaching existing customers. Since targeting is focused here, investment should be lower for STV as reach is lower.

Alternatively, if you’d like to strengthen brand recognition amongst your pre-existing customer base we suggest targeting users who have purchased from your brand in the last 365 days and negate users who have recently purchased within the repurchase window to prevent cannibalization of sales and over-exposure. You can also leverage this targeting to cross-promote products or promote new launches, however, this will not result in New-to-Brand acquisition.

Lastly, we recommend implementing an “always on” video remarketing campaign as soon as you launch an STV campaign. As mentioned above, you’re able to capture STV viewers and re-engage them with display ads with the same imagery. With this additional exposure, you can maintain parallel visual continuity with STV and more importantly drive brand education and strengthen brand recall in a clickable environment by leading video viewers to an Amazon product listing or an amazon-specific landing page. 

Reporting

Once you’ve launched your Video Ads, it’s equally critical to measure the impact of your ads through the Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). AMC provides a deeper dive into the user path to conversion by analyzing various ad touchpoints, providing insights into the influence of Sponsored Ads vs Amazon DSP vs Video across each stage of the funnel. Research has shown users are more likely to convert when exposed to all ad types, thus it is imperative to have a diversified ad strategy to maximize conversion and prevent ad fatigue.

Final Thoughts

In the ever-evolving and competitive Amazon ecosystem, brands must recognize the need to humanize themselves as much as possible through compelling storytelling that resonates with users. This is where video marketing shines; implementing Prime Video or Amazon STV with the right positioning and right investment curated towards the right audience, can help your brand stand out amongst the competition at scale, expediting your reach and accelerating your New-to-Brand acquisition.

To learn more about how to launch Streaming TV and Prime Video ads, email us at hello@perpetua.io