Amazon Advancements in 2018

2018 Saw Big Advancements From Amazon

When looking at the biggest advancements that Amazon made in 2018, it’s easy to see that most of them were made in relation to advertising on the ecommerce platform. Before now, Amazon wasn’t often considered to be one of the key places to advertise online. Ask most businesses who advertise online and their first port of call was usually Google. However, 2018 was the year that this changed in a considerable way. As one of the largest online retailers worldwide, we knew it wouldn’t be long before Amazon solidified itself as one of the largest ad sellers out there. Alongside the likes of Google, Amazon is now one of the top spots for those using advertising as part of their digital marketing campaign. In fact, a number of digital marketers are already planning to increase their Amazon advertising budgets going forward. With more people heading to and spending on Amazon, it only makes sense to spend more on advertising. After all, advertising online only works if the ads are seen by potential customers.

Amazon Unified All Branding and Systems

Towards the end of 2018, Amazon unified all of its branding and systems. This brought Amazon Media Group, Amazon Marketing Services and the Amazon Advertising Platform together under the larger Amazon Advertising Brand. As well as doing this, Amazon also turned Headline Search Ads into Sponsored Brand Ads and the Amazon Advertising Platform into Amazon DSP. These were huge changes for Amazon, but one that simplifies a lot of things for advertisers and sellers. It is thought that Amazon will go one step forward in the coming months, by bringing all of its seller platforms together also. Instead of having a Vender Central and Seller Central, it will launch One Vendor. Though this may seem to be a giant overhaul for such a large ecommerce platform, it’s all part of Amazon’s plan to present themselves as one of the top ad sellers online.

Amazon Updated Its Interface and API

For a while now, experts have thought that Amazon’s campaign management features have been a little behind those of Google. This meant that a lot of advertisers favoured Google. However, in 2018 Amazon went a long way towards changing this. In fact, some argue that the biggest advancements that Amazon made in 2018 where related to improving its user interface and API for advertisers.

• Amazon’s updates to the UI have made it simpler for advertisers to manage their accounts. It’s now a lot easier to filter and customise date ranges, set portfolio budgets and control all campaigns. Advertisers are now able to set an overall budget across the entire account for a specific date, rather than having to worry about spreading out their spending.

• Amazon’s updates to the API have given integrators the opportunity to improve account management and bulk updating, through building better tools. For example, bulk updates can now be made at multiple account levels, reports are easily produced and searches are simpler.

Amazon Gave Sponsored Brands More Inventory

A key advancement that Amazon made was by giving sponsored brands more inventory. As well as allowing sponsored brands to show at the top of search results they can now also appear on the left hand side of a desktop page, below the fold on both desktop and mobile, and as every 13th result on a mobile device. As sponsored brands consistently have high click through rates on Amazon, this is a change that is hugely beneficial to those advertising. This additional inventory will benefit advertisers by showcasing more ads, more advertising copy and more products. In return, Amazon will benefit from larger campaign budgets and more product ads.

Amazon Stores Analytics Boomed

Amazon Advertising has gone through a number of changes since it first became popular, but it has now settled its focus on helping large sellers and brand manufacturers that want to advertise on the platform. Amazon launched analytics for its online stores back in March. This allows sellers to see a range of statistics such as page views, sales, traffic source and daily visits. Before then, this information was not readily available. Brands can now use this information to drive traffic from other channels outside of Amazon directly to Amazon Stores, something that’s sure to boost Amazon’s overall success as a large retail platform. It’s now possible for Amazon to take a step back, allowing brands and sellers to drive even more traffic to the platform from elsewhere.

Amazon Launched Storefronts

As a way to help small and medium sized businesses to sell their products online Amazon launched Amazon Storefronts, a way for businesses to sell products directly through Amazon. Amazon Storefronts is a separate section of the website that highlights smaller businesses, unique products and providers shoppers with a small business shopping experience.

Amazon Marketing and Advertising at Peaky Digital

As you can see, Amazon showcased a lot of impressive advancements in 2018. These helped the ecommerce giant to grow even further, staying well ahead of a number of competitors. As well as selling on their own individual websites, a number of small and medium sized businesses around the world are now also using the Amazon platform to sell and advertise. With unmatched website traffic and a whole host of marketing tools, Amazon has everything a lot of businesses need in regards to ecommerce digital marketing. A lot of shoppers head straight to Amazon when looking for products online, which is why it is one of the top platforms for online retailers to make use of. Even if you’re only using Amazon to advertise, there’s no shortage of website traffic. That’s not to say that achieving success on Amazon is easy, as there’s a lot of competition, but we are here to help. At Peaky Digital, we’re able to help you with ecommerce digital marketing and advertising. Contact us to find out more.