NeoPerformance Explore the Future of Advertising at Amazon's unBoxed Event

Last month, our team attended unBoxed, Amazon Advertising’s annual event. It was an exciting showcase of new features and trends in the world of digital advertising.

AI Asset Creation for Sponsored Ads

A standout announcement from the main keynote was the AI asset creation for Sponsored Ads. It’s common knowledge that products are more appealing when presented in a contextual environment rather than against plain white backgrounds. However, creating such imagery has always been challenging, even for big brands with substantial budgets. With Amazon Ads’ new AI asset creation tool, advertisers can now generate engaging images with just a simple prompt. This innovation promises to level the playing field, offering smaller advertisers a significant advantage in the marketplace.

Small Advertiser Inclusion and Sponsored TV Format

On the topic of small advertiser inclusion, Amazon is reducing the barriers by lowering the minimum budget requirements and introducing the brand-new Sponsored TV format. Advertisers of all sizes can now reach the vast audience of Amazon Prime and its associated channels. With more than 115 million viewers, Amazon Prime is the largest streaming service available, and now, even NFL broadcasts will be open to impression-based bidding.

Introduction of Lookalike Audiences on Amazon

Perhaps the most anticipated update is the introduction of Lookalike Audiences on Amazon, a feature that advertisers have come to rely on in platforms like Meta. This addition will greatly enhance the sophistication and effectiveness of Amazon Ads campaign planning.

Expanding Campaign Reach with Non-Endemic Ads

Sponsored Ads will now also permit non-endemic ads, meaning that advertisers can extend their campaigns to websites beyond Amazon. This is a significant step forward, as Amazon Ads positions itself as a comprehensive 360-degree advertising platform, ready to challenge the likes of Google and Meta.

Power of AWS and Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)

Supporting these advancements is the powerful AWS infrastructure behind Amazon’s advertising platform. A key focus was the Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), which acts as a clean room, providing advertisers with detailed, pseudonymized impression-level ad spend data. This enables advertisers to analyze user behavior and campaign responses without compromising privacy. Additionally, advertisers can enrich this data with their own organic sales information, first-party data (like SalesForce user history), and website pixel event data. This integration opens up new avenues for analysis and was a highlight of many event sessions, showcasing how AMC insights can significantly increase conversion rates.

Advanced Campaign Analysis and Insights

 Advertisers are now better equipped to answer questions such as the most cost-effective conversion paths, the lifetime value of new-to-brand customers, and the correlation between website subscriptions and Amazon purchases. And with the new lookalike audience feature, you can use AMC data to create and expand your target audiences.

Comparative Analysis with Google and Meta 

This is a positive trend that diverges from the paths of Google and Meta. With initiatives like Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, campaign optimization is becoming more opaque, where creatives are fed into the system and the algorithm is trusted to do the rest. While this approach can be effective, it often lacks transparency and doesn’t leave much room for highly customized strategies. Amazon’s AMC, in contrast, empowers advertisers with deeper insights, allowing them to truly understand and determine where and how to allocate their budgets. This is achieved by connecting not only the extensive data from all of Amazon’s formats but also the advertiser’s proprietary data. The question now on many minds is “When will Google and Meta offer something similar?” As Amazon continues to enhance its advertising offerings, it may well set a precedent that pressures other platforms to follow suit.

So, is NeoPerformance utilizing AMC? The answer is an emphatic yes. Our team is already AMC certified and actively deploying our initial use cases. Connect with our sales team to be part of this exciting development in advertising!