4 Real World Learnings for Amazon DSP

If you’re a brand marketer that uses Amazon as a sales channel, you’re likely familiar with the breadth and depth of the Amazon ecosystem and how to capitalize on onsite paid ads to convert new customers as they’re shopping.

But, what happens when you’re trying to capture the attention of a new consumer higher in the sales funnel — someone you want to bring to Amazon to view your products? 

That’s where Amazon DSP comes into play. It’s Amazon’s demand-side platform that leverages Amazon’s rich database of customer data to serve display or video ads to specific audiences on Amazon properties and also across the open web and mobile apps. The combination of Amazon DSP to generate awareness and onsite Amazon ads to capture conversion intent enables marketers to connect with their customers  more fluidly across multiple touchpoints and platforms. 

While there is no single right or wrong moment to start with Amazon DSP, Rise recommends that when building an Amazon remarketing strategy, your media plan should include Amazon DSP in conjunction with Amazon Search. As you scale up the sales funnel, you can adjust your strategies based on prospecting, awareness and consideration goals. 

4 Pro Tips for Amazon DSP

Rise has extensive experience helping brands expand into Amazon DSP, with four real world learning for making the most of Amazon DSP strategy. 

1. Use creative that captures and converts.

As a digital marketer, you’ve likely seen or worked with dynamic product ads (DPAs), a type of ad template that is customizable based on specific individual actions like product page views or products added to cart. Amazon’s version of these is known as Responsive eCommerce Creatives (RECs). These ad units feature product images fueled by your product feed, so ideally, you’ll use them for lower or mid funnel tactics with audiences with higher intent to convert. RECs can be a powerful part of your evergreen Amazon strategy.

2. Determine which products actually convert.

In addition to strategizing for greater awareness across the funnel, it’s also valuable to determine which products are actually converting new customers. The Amazon Ads Product Report provides a pulse about the effectiveness of your conversion tactics and strategies by showing which products are selling best. 

It’s important to note that this approach specifically focuses on the converting products in your ASIN list, and doesn’t account for halo versus non-halo sales. This data will give the best insight on what products are actually converting in general (these can be advertised products or not), and will help guide optimizations based on performance data from audiences. 

Additionally, more concrete data on which products convert best can be found within Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). It’s a unique cloud-based resource that assists with running the pathing of ads on various websites, and it gives you a more holistic view of the data. 

3. Test at scale and learn faster with creative automation tools.

Having a variety of different creatives for prospecting and remarketing is key to understanding what works (and what doesn’t) with your target audiences. 

Amazon’s Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) tool integrates with trusted third-party ad servers that connect to Amazon DSP. The DCO allows you to dynamically plan relative creative messaging throughout the entire buying process. Check out how the flow works:  

Knowing that you can automatically test different ad creative types allows for long-term A/B testing that can shape and perfect your strategy and helps you determine which creative matches with which part of the full funnel. 

4. Validate full funnel impact with advanced measurement.

At Rise, we approach the stories we tell with robust and nuanced data reporting. That’s why we prefer tools like AMC. By using AMC, you can focus on running full-funnel tests that will prove the value of upper funnel campaigns. Rise considers “upper funnel” campaigns to include everything from Amazon DSP prospecting to in-market to contextual.  For multiple Rise clients, performing analysis using the AMC database has proved that conversion rates are highest when a user is exposed to both a DSP ad and a sponsored ad. 

Take the Journey with Amazon DSP

Tracking and knowing where consumers are in their conversion journey has become increasingly complex and nuanced, especially when it comes to an eCommerce giant like Amazon. However, the right tools, like Amazon DSP, gives you more control over how you approach the right strategies and tactics for conversion and awareness, no matter where your potential customers are in the sales funnel. 

We know that tracking data and analyzing it can be an overwhelming task — that’s why we’re proud to offer Connex®, our proprietary cross-channel media optimization platform that lets you focus on what matters most while gathering granular data and insights from platforms like Amazon.