May 2024 Roundup
This May Roundup is sending you into the busy summer months with helpful inspiration from case studies, consumer insights, ad tech trends and a "Get GO-ing" to spur you on.
Let's get GO-ing.
Posts from the GO Team:
GO works with a hardline brand that leaned into a wide variety of Amazon advertising units, including Streaming TV, Online Video, US Spanish, Demand-Side Platform, and Search, but they were unsure how much their campaigns were contributing to their brick-and-mortar performance.
We employed a Beta within Amazon’s Omnichannel Metrics (OCM) to quantify the impact of Amazon ads.
We partnered with a brand facing several challenges, including:
GO reprioritized our client’s strategy toward a full-funnel approach that balanced multiple goals, including boosting new customers, increasing conversion, and retaining loyal shoppers all while prioritizing efficiency.
Posts by others that stood out and sparked our curiosity:
EMarketer Sr. Analyst Arielle Feger released a short read on the growing prioritization of shoppable media across several CTV platforms, including Paramount for the CMT Music Awards, NBCUniversal for the upcoming summer’s Olympics, and Amazon for sports -streaming.
The highlights of the article name a few key things for brands to always consider:
As we continue to see CTV users climb (with +80% of people in the US currently living in a connected TV household) and TV ads remaining an influence on the full path-to-purchase, these growing opportunities for shoppable videos will become more critical for any brand looking to simplify the buying process for shoppers.
Claire McBride , VP of Research Education at Stratably , shared the chart above which compares the last two years of Amazon’s operating income for retail without ads and retail with ads. It’s no secret that the advertising revenue has been filling the gap for Amazon in many ways, but the climb back to profitability shows a remarkable progression when comparing Q1’s YoY.
McBride also rightfully notes that “this means AVNs [Amazon Vendor Negotiations] remain challenging, with asks getting bigger and bigger each year.”
That truth is all too real and one of the reasons why we prioritize AVN support for our clients.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Yes, Amazon’s growth is a good thing for brands but it’s also creating another set of difficulties to navigate. How are you working to protect your margin and business model as AVNs are becoming more challenging?
Jeffrey Cohen highlighted Amazon’s announcements at Upfronts that included a dual focus of both content and a commitment to making ads more interactive and shoppable.
The content priority was clear, with star-studded representation including Alicia Keys, Jake Gyllenhaal, Dale Earnhart, Will Farrell, and others that showcased Amazon’s investment in programming that caters to a wide range of audiences.
While Cohen doesn’t mention this in his recap, a strong assumption is that Amazon’s choice to prioritize the value of its content is highlighting their broader push to increase the average time a prime user spends watching prime video. While Prime subscribers are 10x the number of Netflix subscribers, the average prime user only watches an average of 22 minutes per day compared to Netflix’s users watching an average of 63 minutes per day. (see this post for data)
With the bar-raising content, Amazon also shared new ad formats that Cohen expertly recaps along with some advantages for advertisers:
“Shoppable carousel ads - Brands can present a sliding lineup of their products that customers can explore on Amazon and add to their cart using most living-room remotes. The ad automatically pauses so customers can browse and automatically resumes play when the ad interaction stops.
Interactive pause ads - Viewers who pause on their living-room remote will see a translucent ad featuring brand messaging and imagery, along with an ‘Add to Cart’ and “Learn More” creative overlay. These ads extend the engagement opportunity beyond a traditional ad break, as the interactive overlay is available to customers as long as the content is paused.
Interactive brand trivia ads - help advertisers elevate their storytelling by entertaining customers with factoids about their brand while allowing them to shop on Amazon, learn more about services and products, and even unlock rewards.”
Cohen summed the announcements up well by stating: “The living room remote becomes our newest conversion point, reimagining the streaming TV/shopping experience.”
Andrew Lipsman ’s recent article for Media, Ads + Commerce outlined the struggle many brands are facing related to their growing priority of off-site retail media and the chosen measurements of success.
Citing the Path to Purchase Institute ’s 2024 State of Retail Media Report, Lipsman highlighted that 53% of brands are opting to increase their investment in off-site media. At the same time, brands are frustrated by the performance of off-site media.
Lipsman unpacks that paradox by explaining that the source is likely in the KPIs used to measure the impact of their off-site media investment. Research by TripleLift showed that KPIs like Conversion Rate and ROAS were being utilized for off-site media by more than half of brands. Those metrics, however, are not reflective of the impact off-site media is intended to have on the average consumer. Instead, Lipsman offers the challenge to brands to shift their measurements of success to incremental ROAS and in-store sales, which less than 1/3 of brands currently prioritize for off-site media.
Use Lipsman’s insights as a chance to reflect on your own strategic utilization of off-site media. Are you judging its impact against the wrong metrics? If you zoomed out a bit further, what would the broader story tell you?
We all have those recurring problems that keep popping up in our lives. Instead of dealing with them head-on, we often choose to put up with the inconvenience, thinking it's too time-consuming to fix the root cause. But if we know our current approach isn't working and that the problem we’re ignoring today could create a bigger problem tomorrow, why do we keep hesitating? What's really holding us back?
This month, pick one recurring issue you've been putting up with. Instead of brushing it off, take the time to understand why it keeps happening and figure out a way to fix it for good. Think about what's stopped you from tackling it before and work on overcoming that obstacle. It might be uncomfortable at first, but embracing that discomfort is a step towards real growth.
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Amazon Ads Tech Evangelist | Amazon Ads | Keynote Speaker |
6moThanks for the great round up.
Closing the eCommerce knowledge gap for consumer brands
6moGreat roundup, thanks for the share!