How to Launch a Vendor Central Ad Campaign?

June 12, 2024
By The Badger

Okay, so you’ve had enough time to process all the information on Seller Central. Let’s move on to Vendor Central and focus on first-party sellers.

Yes, first-party sellers. If you remember from my last post, there’s third-party sellers (regular people who want to take a crack at selling products) and first-party sellers (manufacturers and developers).

Third-party sellers use Seller Central to optimize their ad campaigns. So you can probably guess Vendor Central’s purpose. That’s right! Vendor Central is where first-party sellers optimize their ad campaigns.

The Ins and Outs of Vendor Central

Check out the registration page to become a seller on Vendor Central. As you can see, Amazon becomes the full-time distributor of your products. Welcome to the big leagues.

Here are some facts about first-party sellers:

As a first-party seller, you’re selling items in bulk to Amazon and Amazon sells those products under its own brand.
If “Ships from and sold by Amazon” is in the product description the product is provided by Vendor Central.
Amazon puts standard pricing terms on first-party sellers, which makes your individual sales less profitable.
You will be able to sell larger amounts of products.

From Vendor Central, distributors can set up Sponsored Product, Headline Search and Product Display Ads.

Vendor Central interface for first-party sellers — Here is the interface first-party sellers experience when choosing an ad campaign type.

Differences in the Types of Ads

With Vendor Central, comes great power. Being a vendor, you have access to Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), which essentially provides more support when building an ad campaign than you would find being on Seller Central. Find out more about the features of AMS here.

Amazon Marketing Services homepage — Amazon Marketing Services has your back, The Badger has your back. The possibilities are endless.

I’m going to compare Seller Central and Vendor Central ads to badgers. In my last post, I mentioned first-party sellers and third-party seller’s differences are like that of the European and American Badger. Each has common ground, but are separated by geography and have different badger traits. Sellers that choose to advertise on Seller or Vendor Central operate in different parts of Amazon, thus producing different results for the same breed of ads.

Amazon search - diagram of the types of ads displayed — To recap, here is a diagram of the types of ads you would see from a simple Amazon search. Headline Search Ads live at the top and Sponsored Product Ads live below as well as to the right.

Headline Search Ads on Vendor Central

With Vendor Central, you also have Headline Search Ads. For a while, Headline Search Ads were only native to Vendor Central, but have recently been introduced to the Seller Central wilderness.

Headline Search Ads are similar to those you control in Seller Central and now have increased competition from third-party sellers. Like I said at the beginning of this section, you’ll have AMS to back you up if you’re not feeling comfortable doing it on your own.

Product Display Ads on Vendor Central

Moving on to Product Display Ads. These types of ads are only native to Vendor Central and aren’t targeted with keywords. I mentioned in my last post that Headline Search Ads and Sponsored Product Ads were optimized by keyword bidding. With Product Display Ads, you select where you want your products to appear.

How Advertising Works in Amazon Vendor Central

Advertising on Amazon Vendor Central operates on a keyword-based auction system. This means that to display your ads, you compete with other sellers by bidding on the keywords that potential buyers use to search for products on Amazon. Let’s break it down in more detail.

Keyword-Based Auction

The auction process begins when you select a list of keywords you want to target. Each of these keywords has a maximum bid, which is the amount you are willing to pay for a click on your ad.

When a user searches for a keyword, Amazon’s system determines which ads to display based on several factors:

Your maximum bid for a click determines your competitiveness. The higher the bid, the better the chances that your ad will be displayed.
The ad must match the user’s query and the product you are advertising. Amazon assesses relevance by considering the keywords, ad text, and content on your product page.
Amazon also considers how effective your past ads were for these keywords. Higher conversion and click-through rates can improve your auction positioning.

Audience Targeting

You have the option to target your ads to specific audience segments. For example, you can choose to target people who have searched for or viewed certain products or those who have previously visited your product pages.

Cost-Per-Click Payment

The cost-per-click (CPC) model means you only pay when users click on your ad. This ensures efficient use of your advertising budget, as you only pay for actual interest in your product. Each click directs users to your product page, where they can make a purchase.

Summary

There you have it, all the information on the types of ads in Vendor Central. Now combine what you learned with my last post. No really, I’m tired of saying it. Go look at my last post if you haven’t by now.

To be clear, Ad Badger doesn’t help first-party sellers in Vendor Central—at least not yet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t refer to The Badger Burrow for all the information you need about being a first-party seller.

Badger out.