Top Amazon News & Updates For Sellers (October Edition)

Hope October wasn’t spooky for you at all and was full of treats :) Well, for most of the third-party sellers, October was the best month of the year, of course, because of Amazon Prime Day. Unarguable, the biggest sale of 2020 raked in more than $3.5 worth of sales for small and medium-sized businesses! Ain’t that great? Because Prime Day was so hectic and now you are all in the zone to prepare for the Black Friday weekend, you must have missed out on the important updates taking place in Amazon, especially in the advertising department. Read on to catch up on all the latest happenings in Amazon and the advertising world:

#1: Amazon Launches Sponsored Display Ads Globally

On October 31st, Amazon announced the launch of Sponsored Display Ads to sellers who sell on Amazon in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, India, Japan, and Canada. Sponsored Display Ads that were launched in beta in the U.S. earlier this year are a self-service advertising tool that lets advertisers reach relevant audiences by product targeting. By launching across multiple marketplaces, more and more sellers can now take advantage of Sponsored Display Ads and increase their product reach and traffic on their detail pages.

#2: Sponsored Display Ads can now be customized with a Headline and logo

A few days before launching Sponsored Display Ads in multiple marketplaces, Amazon had introduced the ability to customize Sponsored Display Ads by adding a custom headline and a brand logo. These customized sponsored display ads can be run on product detail pages, search result pages and under the featured offers. Sponsored Display Ads can be targeted by views, products or interest, but when a custom headline and logo are used, only product targeting is available. Why should you care: Black Friday & Cyber Monday weekend is just around the corner and now is the best time to boost page views for new or underexposed products in your catalog. Besides, the addition of a logo can also help brand awareness and recall. Schedule a meeting with our Amazon Seller Consultantt to know how you can make the most of the deal-fueled online shopping days ahead.

#3: Additional placements for Sponsored Display

The advertisers in the U.S., U.K., DE, F.R., I.T., E.S., CA, and J.P. using the customized creatives with logo and headlines can now also have additional placements on the very top of the product detail pages as a thin banner. This placement is visible on both desktop and mobile devices for better reach and conversions. To try on these placements, use Sponsored Display Ads with a custom logo and a headline. Please note that the logo and headline are only available in the product targeting option. 

#4: Sponsored display reporting spotted (Not official yet)

Looks like Amazon has been continually making changes in Sponsored Display Ads. After launching in several marketplaces and enabling customization, Amazon has also tried to add Sponsored Display Ads reporting. Along with Sponsored Brand, Sponsored Product & Sponsored Brand Video reporting, now Sponsored Display reporting might also be available. One of our Amazon Marketing Consultants spotted this report for a few minutes and then it disappeared abruptly, so we believe that Amazon is still testing everything and it should be out soon, within a few weeks or months. The launch of Sponsored Display Ads reporting will be a big help for the advertisers wanting to optimize the performance of their campaigns.

#5: New Amazon Sponsored Ads Report - Brand Category Benchmark

A new report is introduced in Amazon advertising called Brand Category Benchmark. As we all know, Amazon is increasingly encouraging sellers to create brand-customer trust and the introduction of this report is proof of the same. It contains detailed branded data that can help us improve our brand visibility.This report includes detailed insights on:

• How fast Amazon advertisers spend.

• The year-over-year growth in ad revenue and in CPC.

• Campaign targeting countries outside of the U.S. versus the US-focused campaigns across formats.

• The recently released new-to-brand metrics and how advertisers on Amazon are using them.

• The growth of the Amazon DSP and how performance differs between Amazon’s owned-and-operated properties versus other websites.

Where to find this Report:Advertising > Reports > Create Report > Campaign Type > Sponsored Brands > Report Type > Brand Category Benchmark

#6: Amazon suggests campaign type for Amazon Sponsored Ads

The success of your Sponsored Advertising mainly depends on the type of advertising you choose. Amazon offers three types of advertising, including Sponsored Product Ads, Sponsored Brand Ads (brand registry required and Sponsored Display Ads (brand registry required). But which advertising type is right for your products and brand? Don’t know? Not a problem! Amazon now provides suggestions for the campaign type you should use for the best results. Amazon has inside-data on campaigns and advertising, which no one has, so it’s worth taking its suggestion into account before you start making a campaign.

#7: Amazon advertising launches in Brazil

Amazon.com.br launched back in 2012 and on October 30th, Amazon announced the launch of advertising. Before Amazon advertising, the retail giant launched Amazon Prime in September and Alexa in early October and now advertising is launched as a part of efforts to increase the brand’s share in the Brazilian market. This new marketing solution has been launched to compete with local ad solutions as well as Google. 

#8: New deal messaging options available for Sponsored Brands

Your Sponsored Brand Ads will now also display deal messaging and badges without having to create deal-specific campaigns or headlines. The ads that display and showcase these live deals will have an updated call to action (CTA) saying Save up to X% on Brand. This message will be applied automatically and advertisers cannot make any changes in that as of now. As Black Friday is getting nearer, these ads are a great way to promote your discount offers and reach more audiences while also increasing brand awareness. 

#9: Sponsored Brands search terms report now available in campaign manager

We all know how precious the search term report is to us, especially during the bid and campaign optimization. Until now, the search term report was only available for Sponsored Products Ads, but now it’s also available for Sponsored Brand Ads. A quick look at this report will help you identify the keywords that generated clicks and sales as well as the keywords that are not profitable. This insight can help you fuel your campaign with relevant keywords and decrease ACOS by adding negative keywords. The search term report can be accessed in the report center or through the Amazon Advertising API.Sellers can now also view the conversion rates and ROAS directly in the campaign builder. These metrics were previously available only in the report center. 

#10: Vendor account linking to Vendor Central

Good news for vendors! Vendors can now link their advertising account to their vendor account via the advertising console. Linking your accounts will make it convenient to select and search for products while building the campaigns. To link your account, first go to the Account Controls option to the left of your advertising console. Then select the Selling Account and link your advertising account to your Vendor Central account. After linking the account when you create a campaign, you will see all the available products from your linked account. Easy, isn’t it?

#11: Despite the hurdles, Prime Day 2020 was the grandest ever

Because of the shipping issues and nation-wide lockdowns, Amazon Prime Day was pushed back several months. Nevertheless, it still managed to set a record-breaking sale. The 13th and 14th of October marked the biggest two days ever, especially for small and medium sized 3rd sellers. The third-party sellers minted $3.5 worth of sales, which means a 60% increase compared to past years. Overall, Prime Day 2020 outperformed Prime 2019 in several ways:

• The purchases were increased by 51%, year over year

• The uber-competitive categories like Home & Kitchen and Electronics increased sales by 62% and 27%, respectively

• Art and Craft and handmade had the highest growth rates

• Health & House category grew by 137%

Date reference: SimilarWebJeff Wilke, the CEO of Worldwide Consumer, said, “We are thrilled that Prime Day was a record-breaking event for small and medium businesses worldwide, with sales surpassing $3.5 billion—an increase of nearly 60% from last year. We’re also proud that Prime members saved more than $1.4 billion, and we look forward to providing more opportunities for our selling partners to grow and customers to save throughout the holiday season. I’m incredibly thankful to our employees and partners around the world who helped make Prime Day possible, especially the dedicated front-line teams in our fulfillment centers and delivery operations.”

New content from eStore Factory:

• Your Black Friday 2020 Checklist – Be Prepared For Anything But Normal Holiday SeasonOptimize Your Sponsored Brand Video Ads In 6 Simple Steps

• How To Sell Internationally On Amazon – The Definitive Guide

• Showcase Your Brand Success Story To Amazon Customers

• Top 7 Tips To Manage Post Holiday Returns On Amazon

Staying updated is as easy as reading our blogs

There are so many updates every day; it’s hard to keep up. But with our updated blog, you can stay on top of all Amazon developments and changes. Every month we round up the most important and need-to-know updates for and relating to Amazon sellers. Check-in here every month and catch up on what’s making news on Amazon lately. Our Amazon Consultants at eStore Factory collects all the need-to-know updates that affect you as a seller and we post them on our Amazon Seller Updates page. Bookmark this page and stay on top of everything.