Amazon Sponsored Display Ads Now Offer Optimizations for Viewability

Sushil Kokate | March 15, 2022

Sellers can now buy and optimize Sponsored Display ads on Amazon based on whether they were viewed. 

Amazon Advertising Sponsored Display format is a workhorse in retail media: reliable and effective for most products and campaigns. The highly visible ad format has historically transacted on a cost-per-click basis. To meet the demand of a new wave of brand advertisers, Amazon Advertising recently included a new custom rule to optimize bids for viewability, e.g., viewable cost-per-mille (vCPM), a transaction method primarily used in display advertising on the open web.

This post will break down what this means for sellers and how they can best use vCPM for their Sponsored Display brand campaigns.

Amazon Sponsored Display Update: Viewable Bid Optimizations

Amazon Advertising recently launched two new key features to their Sponsored Display campaign capabilities:

• vCPM Billing: vCPM Billing helps advertisers understand the cost of their awareness efforts when using the “Optimize for viewable impressions” bidding option. While all other bid optimizations use CPC (cost-per-click) billing, this pricing option bases transactions on a vCPM (“Cost per thousand viewable impressions”) basis. This means Amazon Advertising charges an advertiser for an estimate of when shoppers have viewed their ad. Amazon Advertising recommends starting with a bid of $5 per vCPM, meaning that advertisers will be charged $5 for every thousand estimated views of an ad versus being charged for every click in CPC.
• Viewable Attribution: To help advertisers understand the value of their awareness efforts when using “Optimize for viewable impressions,” we report on estimated viewable impressions. In addition, this optimization utilizes click + estimated view attribution instead of just click-based attribution for metrics such as ROAS. This helps equip advertisers with data on how viewing or clicking ads influences audiences.

Which Amazon Sellers should consider switching to vCPM billing for their Amazon Ad business?

For most sellers, buying Sponsored Display ads on a CPC basis will still make sense. However, there are specific situations where buying Sponsored Display on a vCPM will be advantageous:

1. Create product awareness: If you’re launching a new product that might have a higher click-to-buy ratio, e.g., as shoppers learn more about your product, vCPM may help lower your total advertising cost of sale.
2. Competitive detail pages, categories, and audiences: Buying on a vCPM basis can help make your campaigns more predictable for budgeting purposes, preventing you from running out of budget at critical buying periods when CPCs are expensive.
3. Enable bidding on new channels: vCPM can lower entry barriers on premium channels like Twitch, enabling advertisers to reach in-market shoppers on various devices and media.

How can Sellers implement vCPM into their media plans?

Quartile account managers are standing by and ready to assist you in determining if launching a Sponsored Display campaign on vCPM is suitable for your Amazon Seller account.

Not a Quartile client, but think a combination of AI-built and automated campaigns with robust strategic support from expert account managers bought on vCPM can work for you? Schedule a demo today!

Source: Quartile

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