Tips for Selecting the Right Amazon Agency Partner

Amazon is increasingly becoming a critical channel for CPGs & OEMs, and Amazon’s marketing solutions (Sponsored Ads and Amazon DSP) are growing at a rapid pace. Brands are now spending millions of dollars to capture Amazon customers to drive profits and sales volume.
 
With this exploding growth, brands are evaluating the best path to scale sales on Amazon while maintaining efficiency, and many brands are choosing to work with agencies or partners. There are two types of partners we see brands turning to—digital media agencies that have expertise in ad buying strategy and management, or Amazon-only agencies that have services across Amazon including fulfillment, logistics, and more. Maximizing the ROI on Amazon advertising investments requires a deep understanding of how to build search and programmatic account structures, analyze performance at a granular level, and leverage technology to automate processes and adjust bids at scale... and more!
 
We have distilled this evaluation to 5 key questions you should ask a potential Amazon partner, and we’ve also provided our point of view on how we solve for these challenges.

1. How have you helped brands specifically grow their spend while maintaining profitability, and how are you managing this process at scale?

The ability to scale successfully really comes down to having the right account structure that allows advertisers to have granular insights into their campaigns, the right product mix to limit wasted spend and maximize profit, and a reporting infrastructure that will enable success. Any potential partner worth working with should be able to provide case studies of how they have leveraged account structure, insights, and product mix best practices to drive more sales without sacrificing profitability.

2. How are you integrating Sponsored Ads & Amazon DSP?

With Amazon’s robust first-party data and targeting capabilities, there are some quick win strategies brands can implement using Amazon DSP to capture customers or re-engage them to drive them back to their Amazon PDPs. Based on the brand’s goals, we would recommend a different Amazon Advertising ad mix. The right Amazon agency will be able to recommend the right tactics that leverage both Sponsored Ads and Amazon DSP, such as:

• ASIN-based retargeting strategies with Amazon DSP to have ad coverage to hand-raisers who have navigated away from a brand’s PDP, leaving their basket with items still in it.
• Using Amazon data to create targeted strategies within both DSP and Sponsored Ads to fill the top-of-funnel. Leveraging learnings from each Amazon tool will allow brands to spend their marketing dollars more efficiently.

3. How are you integrating other digital marketing investments with Amazon?

There are pros and cons to running Amazon advertising via an Amazon-only partner; however, where we’ve seen brands have the strongest success is when they are able to integrate and evaluate advertising performance across other platforms like Google, Bing, or other trade desks. Having a more holistic view of a brand’s entire digital marketing program gives them better insight into which channels are performing well and are providing the best return on their investments.

4. What experience do you have leveraging organic and content-driven strategies to create momentum for the Amazon flywheel?

Unlike traditional search engines (Google and Bing), Amazon organic performance is influenced by paid metrics, so being able to connect organic and paid data is very important for brands to develop an efficient plan. Having well-optimized PDPs that rank within Amazon organically before using Amazon Advertising is important for your campaigns’ success. Products that grow sales with ad spend may then, in turn, rank higher organically.

5. How do you manage reporting in a way that is actionable and better than what Amazon already provides?

To get the most ROI out of investing in a partner to manage your Amazon advertising, it is critical they are able to provide granular and actionable optimization insights. Being able to illuminate opportunities at different levels (ASIN, brand, and/or category) allows brands to create efficiencies and maximize performance. At Rise, we also know it’s important to be able to measure cross-channel insights to extract extremely rich insights which also gives brands a competitive advantage.

Many brands are in the process of determining if and how they want to invest in hiring a partner to help them with their Amazon advertising. To make sure you’re getting the best ROI out of that partnership, these questions serve as a guide to maximize your value.

Contact Rise if you’d like to learn more about our Amazon advertising practice.