Sponsored Brands is a very versatile ad type on Amazon and is one of the better options that Amazon provides for building brand awareness. This makes Sponsored Brands the go-to campaign for increasing visibility on Amazon. Unlike Sponsored Products ads, you can add lifestyle images and videos to Sponsored Brands ads, which makes showing off your brand easier, especially compared to Sponsored Products where the ad only features your product on a white background. Sponsored Brands can also send customers to your Amazon brand storefront in addition to product pages.
Sponsored Brands ads also get some of the best real estate on Amazon’s search page as well as on product pages. Before we get too far into this, remember that you need to be brand registered to have access to Sponsored Brands ads. Now let’s look into the different ways you can use the Sponsored Brands ad type to get more eyes on your products and storefront on Amazon.
Ad Format Options
There are three different ad format types you can pick between. When you start building a Sponsored Brands ad in the advertising console, you have all the usual prompts, like Campaign Name, Ad Group Name, Budget, etc., that you are used to dealing with in other campaign types. The difference with Sponsored Brands ads is that it asks you to choose an ad format.
There are three options to pick from – product collection, store spotlight, and video. With each format, you do get the option of keyword targeting or product targeting. Remember that keyword targeting is how you show on the search page results, and product targeting is how you show on related product detail pages.
- Product Collection
One of my favorite ad placements on Amazon comes from using the product collection option and keyword targeting.
This can give you a big banner ad right at the top of the search page, where the customer is beginning their search. With Sponsored Brands ads, you get a nice combination of showing off your brand with your logo, a headline, a lifestyle image, and a link to your storefront, in addition to showcasing three products with their ratings and reviews. A downside of this ad format is the top of the search page is the only place this ad can show. With the other two formats, ads can show on product pages as well as at the top of the search page.
- Store Spotlight
In a recent change to this ad requirement, you now need to include a lifestyle image for a Sponsored Brands campaign to run. That is also one of the main differences between product collection and store spotlight formats. Another main difference is that with store spotlight, instead of showing off three specific products, you are showing three of your product categories. Each one will take you to that designated page of your storefront.
- Video
We are starting to see some video ads get that top headline placement occasionally as well, but video ads are much more common to pop up a little further down on the search results page. Even though video ads don’t get that prime (pun intended) real estate as much, they are effective at capturing the attention of the customer. Read Shannon O’Connell’s blog to learn why Video ads are great for engagement on Amazon.
If you don’t have video assets and would like to still take advantage of this ad format, Amazon has a video builder tool to help you get started. Video ads showing on product pages seem to be getting more common every day on Amazon as well. If you scroll down on most product pages, you will eventually run into something like this.
It can be a little hard to tell the difference between Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display ads these days. A giveaway here is that they use the term “brands.” Even though it is getting less common, you can still find store spotlight ads here as well.
By utilizing lifestyle images and video, Sponsored Brands ads are a great way to not only get more eyes on your brand but also show what separates your brand from the competition. In addition to being able to showcase your brand with images and videos, ads that have images and videos tend to get more engagement. This ultimately gets more customers looking at your products and your storefront. Take advantage of Sponsored Brands ad placements at the top of the search results page today.
