New Feature for Amazon Ads Partners - Partner Opportunity

In November, I did a user survey, and you told me that you 1) wanted to learn more about some of the products and features that Amazon Ads is releasing and 2) you were looking for insights into what they mean and how you can apply them. This year I will focus one newsletter per month on an Amazon Ads product. Some may be new, and some may be a reintroduction. My goal is to inform and educate, from my perspective.

Here we go, our first product is Partner Opportunity. This feature is targeted to Amazon Ads Partner Network (PN) members. Advertisers can find similar opportunities in the Ad Console under the “Opportunities” icon.

What are Partner Opportunities?

The launch of Partner Opportunities provides partners with a scalable way to see recommendations for all the advertisers they manage with a single call or via the user interface (UI). Previously, partners could only get recommendations through the Ads Console UI (which required them to log into individual advertising accounts) or email.

TL:DR - Let’s start with my take:

• These are recommendations. For example, you may see a recommendation for out-of-budget. It may be logical to say, “increase the budget”, but maybe you limited the budget for a reason. Personally, I see these as best practices, there may be valid reasons you may deviate from them for specific campaigns, advertisers...etc. Every agency/technology provider should determine what to do with these.
• New recommendation types are being released regularly, so keep an eye on Partner Network and the API Newsletter or set a reminder to check these so that you can evaluate each new recommendation.
• Recommendation data is continuously refreshed. The recommendations use the latest data available and will be added to the UI or API throughout the day. Consider the cadence for repeating the process as you set a process to use the recommendations.
• You can explore this new feature and become familiar with it. When I was a service provider, our clients would always reach out and ask us about Amazon Ads recommendations. This new feature provides a simple way to see everything your clients see.

What launched?

The Partner Opportunities API launched last summer, providing any tool provider integrated with the Amazon Ads API and a registered member of the Amazon Ads Partner Network programmatic access to recommendations across their book of business.

In December, the program was expanded to include the Partner Opportunities user interface (UI) in the Partner Network (PN) Portal. With this update, all PN registered partners who’ve linked their advertisers to their PN accounts can receive actionable insights without an API integration.

Both of these releases provide partners with a comprehensive source of opportunities to optimize their advertising activities, such as campaign management and product/feature adoption, for all the advertisers they manage per their Partner Network manager account.

As a Partner, why should I care?

This feature aims to provide you with a scalable source of recommendations to improve advertising outcomes for the advertisers you manage. Partner Opportunities are science-based recommendations and insights so that you can act for your clients.

Why is this important?

Advertisers have historically received recommendations directly through the Ad Console, but Partners have previously been unable to access these insights across their full books of business. Without a method of accessing and receiving actionable recommendations for all clients in a single interface, a partner would have to log in individually to each advertising client to access recommendations and act upon them. These new tools provide insights, transparency, and a tool to scale growth.

How can I learn more?

The Partner Opportunities API overview provides more details on how partners interact with the Partner Opportunities API to source opportunities and their datasets.

To access the UI, log into Partner Network, Opportunities will be listed in the left-hand navigation if your user role is Developer or Admin. Each opportunity comes with a description for the audience, a specific recommendation, and proof of why the partner should act.

Not a partner but would like access? You will need to join the Partner Network and link your accounts.

What are some examples of recommendations?

As of today, Partner Opportunities includes over 50 opportunities focused on Performance Advertising Products and Partner Growth. For the most up to date information, you can refer to current opportunities in the Partner Network Resource Library, which is updated every two weeks, the API monthly newsletter, and the API monthly webinar. All of these require PN access.

Recommendations will vary by the advertiser, but an example is the ability to identify all the excess inventory ASINs, as defined by Amazon Ads, for all advertisers managed by a given partner and prompts the partner to enroll the ASINs in Sponsored Product campaigns to sell through the excess inventory and more optimally manage storage costs.

It's easy to dismiss these recommendations as "useful" or "not useful," but I challenge you to look beyond the recommendation and think of them more as signals. What is the signal? What is it trying to tell you? What can you do with the signal? Now, if you put this lens on this product, you can see that Amazon Ads provides 50+ signals that you can use to improve your advertising.

Okay, let's recap this...

• In a nutshell: This gives partners access to Amazon Ads recommendations or signals, as I described above.
• More signals = good: Partner Opportunities currently has 50+ signals for you to take action.
• All clients / one place: Whether you use the API or UI, you can use Partner Opportunities to view all of your client's recommendations in one place. This is very useful and scalable.
• Optimize your process: Partner Opportunities allows you to receive custom insights to improve overall campaign performance, helping you prioritize and view all client accounts in a single dashboard.
• Your job, if you'd like to accept it: Schedule some time to explore this feature. Learn what’s available and the science behind it. Think of these as a way to fact-check your work.
• With signals, comes responsibilities: Determine how you can best use these signals to improve your internal operations or technology. If I were a technology tool, I would see these signals as ways to improve my AI or create new internal recommendations. If I was an agency, I would build a process to review these signals and determine which ones need to be added to my daily operations.

Are you already using this feature? Let me know how it's going in the comments below.