One roundtable. Four topics for discussion. And a 90-minute debate held under the Chatham House Rule to encourage honest dialogue, safe in the

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2 Swings over the City in Amsterdam. Dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower. London s first ever BBQ at 100ft it would be easy to mistake Kenshoo s latest events as a self-help series for anyone with a fear of heights! All fun aside (and we did have lots of it), the Take Your Amazon Advertising to New Heights roadshow saw over 60 of Europe s top Consumer Product and Retail brands come together for a series of lively roundtable discussions in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Stockholm, Barcelona and Berlin.

3 One roundtable. Four topics for discussion. And a 90-minute debate held under the Chatham House Rule to encourage honest dialogue, safe in the knowledge that anything shared wouldn t be attributed to the speaker.

4 We ve summarised the themes, learning s and discussion points that came out of each event in this handy guide for anyone that wasn t able to attend.

5 As attendees shared their thoughts, we saw three distinct Amazon advertising personality types begin to emerge. Recognise yourself in any of them? The Nervous - Taking traffic away from your own site and sending it to Amazon can be a terrifying prospect due to the lower margins. However, attendees recognised it s here to stay and presents a big opportunity. E-Commerce and Digital teams are working together more closely to define the objectives and goals per channel (own site vs Amazon) and to achieving those goals cohesively. The Newbie - If you think you re the only one in the room who hasn t quite mastered the ins and outs of Amazon Advertising, rest assured you re in good company. At each event brands consistently expressed a lack of mastery, with many still figuring out the role Amazon plays in their digital strategy, both in terms of its revenue and branding potential. The Nonchalant - Some of the more advanced brands in attendance explained that they don t actually care where people buy their products, they just strive to be there at all stages of the customer journey. They don t set sales goals per channel but believe they need to be optimising overall performance across channels, using search, social and Amazon to maximise this.

6 Measuring and testing - the bedrock of a good digital marketer s approach - stood out as a key theme, with brands coalescing around several main points. The KPIs are clear - If you simplify the customer journey down to reach, engagement and sales, attendees believed that Amazon has a big role to play in both reach and sales equally. They acknowledged that their own e-comm sites are becoming much more experiential and a place to engage consumers. Amazon on the other hand is better for attracting convenience shoppers and success should be measured on ROI (which on the whole everyone agreed was very strong!). It is much easier to relate spend to sales on Amazon than any other digital channel. No channel is an island. Oh wait, it still is. Understanding which channel is performing best is an ongoing challenge. Brands still look at CTR and ROI across each channel and compare to see which is most successful. Ideally, brands recognise that one budget - with a mix of search, social and Amazon and optimised holistically - would be best, however there is a lot of work to be done to make that vision a reality! Baby steps - Advertising on Amazon is still in its infancy and almost everyone is starting small, testing, tweaking, and scaling what works. Brands see the need to take calculated risks, but many are treading carefully for now, with some suggesting testing in one market as a starting point.

7 In the midst of everyone s experiments in trial and error, a few sound strategies are rising to the top that brands are beginning to embrace. Play nice with the digital team When getting started on Amazon, brands were more likely to mirror their offline strategies than their Google or Facebook strategies. But while many brands have built teams focused on AMS, they re still working on better integrating them into the overall digital team. Search, social and Amazon advertising should work together to complement rather than compete with one another. Use Stores to know the score A number of the brands use Amazon Stores as a way of being able to better measure traffic going to the site from other channels. Whatsmore, driving to stores ensures less competitive bidding and better brand control. The brands that were already using them warned however that it is important not to treat them like your own website - in fact, you almost need to use it like a category and in turn will see excellent conversion rates (in some cases even excelling your own website!) Downplay display and full steam on social The relative brand safety offered by social platforms has meant less emphasis on display and its sometimes sketchy placements. Facebook, in fact, is increasingly becoming more of a display channel, serving as a way to showcase the brand before driving to conversion on Amazon. The ability to easily attribute revenue directly to the Amazon channel makes investing there nearly a no-brainer. Creating custom audiences in Facebook and driving that traffic to Amazon is working really well.

8 More data, please - It s currently impossible to define customers on Amazon and create audiences to target them as you can on search and social. Brands want the insights that allow them to move towards true audience-first planning. Prime Day numbers - Prime Day is a huge opportunity, but prepare for the dip in sales that happens before and after, and find ways to ensure brand These little nuggets of knowledge are snack-sized and satisfying. preference stays high all year. Content, content and more content! - Optimize your product pages to provide engaging content that helps drive buying decisions. When content doesn t work, sales go to someone else.

9 While brands walked away with many new insights, clearly no one has all of the answers in this dynamic space. Here are some of the top quandaries they re still wrestling with. What will advertising on Amazon look like in 12 months time? The digital landscape is evolving at such a rapid pace all attendees expect to see a whole new world of challenges. How (not should) do we drive better traffic from Facebook and Google to Amazon? How do we shift to one big marketing budget across search, social and Amazon to optimise towards the consumer? In addition to Amazon, what other e-commerce channels will inevitably emerge that will need to be factored into our plans?

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