To get the most out of Amazon DSP, you need a strong bidding strategy that wins the ad placements you need despite aggressive competitors and market fluctuations. This blog post shows you how to develop a winning Amazon DSP bidding strategy to get the best ad placements and usher highly motivated leads right into your Amazon store!
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How Does Amazon DSP Work?
Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) is an online advertising platform that allows Amazon brands to buy ad placements on websites and mobile apps that are part of the Amazon Advertising network. Simply put, this platform works like Google Display Network (GDN), but the traffic is always directed to your product listings on Amazon instead of your website.
Amazon DSP lets you bid on ad placements in real-time and then displays your ads to people who are most probably interested in them based on data. DSP is also based on the pay-per-click (PPC) model, which means you only pay Amazon when somebody clicks on your ads.
Another advantage of this rich advertising platform is targeting specific audiences based on their demographics and online behavior. For instance, you can use Amazon DSP to target people who have previously purchased products from your brand or people who live in a specific city. So if you are looking for a way to maximize the impression of your brand, Amazon DSP is a wise option for you.
1. Adjust your Amazon DSP bidding strategy with Your Marketing Funnel
When it comes to Amazon advertising, there are many moving parts. And if you’re not careful, it’s easy to get lost in the details and forget about the big picture. That’s why it’s so important to define a marketing funnel of your customer’s journey and have it in front of you for any crucial advertising activity. Only by knowing where your customers are in the funnel can you adjust the aggressiveness level of your Amazon DSP bidding strategy accordingly to save budget and get much better results.
For example, suppose you’re targeting customers at the top of the funnel (aka prospects). In that case, you’d better bid less aggressively since they’re not much determined to convert. Also, the audience is quite large here. But, on the other hand, if you’re targeting customers at the bottom of your marketing funnel, they are already familiar with your Amazon brand and ready to buy. So at the bottom of the funnel, the key to success is to bid aggressively to convert these valuable leads before your competitors do.
So always keep your marketing funnel in mind to be well on your way to crafting a successful Amazon DSP bidding strategy.
2. The Strategy to Win CPM Ad Placements
To win the best ad placements, you need to make sure that your Amazon DSP bidding strategy is competitive enough. A smart way of doing this is to set your CPM (cost per mile, which means the cost for 1000 impressions) bid at least 2-2.5 times higher than the base bid. Based on our experience with dozens of successful DSP campaigns, this will increase your chance of winning the auction.
Also, based on Eva’s Amazon PPC management team, video ad placement requires much higher biddings, sometimes up to 6X more than image-based ad placements.
Additionally, it’s important to remember that Amazon DSP is an auction-based system, so the more you’re willing to pay, the more likely you are to win. But again, don’t forget about your marketing funnel and prioritize the potential customer at the bottom over the top. Nobody wants to overspend, so it’s important to find a balance that works for you. By setting your CPM bid at a competitive level, you can maximize your chances of winning the bid auctions.
3. Optimize Your Amazon DSP Ads for Seasonalities
Seasonal trends can have a big impact on sales as well as ad impressions. And when it comes to targeting seasonal shoppers, Amazon DSP is the right platform. But with several factors to consider, how can you optimize your Amazon DSP bidding strategy to make the most of seasonal opportunities? Here are a few quick and helpful tips:
First, take advantage of Amazon’s data. Amazon has a wealth of data on customer shopping habits and patterns in the past years. So it’d be best to set the KPIs of your seasonal DSP campaigns based on that valuable data.
Second, think about timing. When it comes to seasonal shopping, timing is crucial because your ads should be in front of the potential buyers at the right time – not too early or too late.
Third, adjust your Amazon DSP bidding strategy with the influx in seasonal trends such as Black Friday, Prime Day, and Christmas. On such occasions, the competition gets so intense to win the ad placements. So your usual biddings might not work out anymore. Based on our Amazon Advertising team, it’d be best to increase your usual bids at least by 20% to win the DSP auctions on important shopping events. But again, checking the past years’ data gives you a clearer picture of how much you should raise the bids.
And finally, don’t forget about the mobile responsiveness of your ads. With more and more customers using phones to browse Amazon and shop, making sure your DSP ads are perfectly optimized for mobile devices is essential.
Conclusion
Now that you have a good understanding of how Amazon DSP works and the importance of having a strong bidding strategy, it’s time to put this information into action! Our Amazon PPC experts offer you a free PPC audit so you can get started optimizing your current campaigns for better conversion rates while minimizing the ad spend. So please contact our experts today to get your Free PPC audit.
