Introduction to The Amazon DSP
First of all, if you ask anyone at Amazon, you’ll soon learn that DSP and Amazon DSP are not the name of the platform. No, it’s THE Amazon DSP. Nevertheless, many sellers either aren’t aware of the platform or know very little about it, so here’s the five W’s for the Amazon DSP.
Who uses Amazon DSP?
Amazon’s DSP (Demand-Side Platform) has only been used by very large advertisers. We’re talking about companies that have an ad-spend of over $100,000 per month on Amazon. So why should you care? Companies like Ad Badger have found ways to let every seller access the platform, and we will be announcing that feature soon!
What is Amazon DSP?
Simply, Amazon DSP is a display advertising network, but there’s a little more going on. The most popular display ad network today is Google AdSense. Well, just think of Amazon DSP as a platform similar to Google’s but on steroids. We’re talking about Arnold levels of juice behind DSP. Amazon leverages its wide array of popular platforms (Prime Video, IMDB, Twitch etc.) and allows sellers to reach audiences on those platforms through the Amazon DSP.
Sponsored Display ads are different from Amazon DSP ads. Sponsored Display ads are auto-campaigns. You can’t change the creative or set an audience for a Sponsored Display ad. Amazon DSP ads give you more control and you can manually set the creative and audience for them.
When did Amazon DSP become available?
The Amazon DSP has been available for several years now, and it’s currently thriving. However, it’s been unavailable for most sellers.
Where does Amazon DSP display ads?
Sellers who use Amazon DSP have their ads populate on all kinds of pages across the interwebs, similar to Google AdSense, but DSP will also display your ad on Amazon and sites Amazon owns.
Why should you use Amazon DSP?
There’s a few reasons to use the Amazon DSP. For one, the reach of the platform is amazing and better than any other display network. Second, Amazon DSP can help sellers who want to reach a very specific, high-converting audience.
Targeting in Amazon’s DSP
When we refer to targeting, we are talking about what is triggering your ad to appear in front of a website visitor. Generally you have an ad and a trigger. What triggers that ad to appear? Your targeting!
So much information
When you jump into the world of Amazon’s DSP, the first thing you’ll notice is just how much data Amazon has at its disposal. Amazon basically has everyone’s shopping behavior, and by extrapolating from that data Amazon can determine your lifestyle choices, interests, and demographics with relative ease.
Amazon also gathers data from sources like Prime Video and uses TV and movie choices to gain insights into a users behavior.
That’s without factoring in everything Alexa hears you say.
In-Market and Lifestyle targeting
Being “in-market” essentially identifies people as being in the market for certain products or services. Let’s say you are a long-time vegan and have been in the vegan food market for awhile. Amazon DSP would identify you as “in-market” for a vegan food product.
Lifestyle targeting on Amazon’s DSP is nothing short of insane. Based on a person’s browsing history, shopping, and streaming habits Amazon determines what kind of lifestyle they fit into. Sure, large swaths of people like video game fans or movie lovers have been easy to identify before on other platforms, but Amazon DSP goes DEEP.
Let’s say you are trying to find a very specific audience for your new Tom Hanks t-shirt. With Amazon DSP, you can serve your ad to people who have watched a Tom Hanks movie in the last thirty days on Prime Video. Crazy.
Automotive targeting (and what it tells us about Amazon DSP)
Through Amazon Garage and purchasing habits, Amazon can determine what kind of car you have. That’s pretty straightforward.
What’s surprising about automotive targeting is that it shows the true power of Amazon DSP for sellers who aren’t even on Amazon.
A local mechanic could use Amazon DSP to target car owners within a certain radius from their shop and further refine that search by narrowing down the make and model of the car. A truly invaluable tool for brick and mortar operations.
Demographics, Devices, and Education targeting
Demographic targeting on Amazon DSP is pretty straightforward. Age and Gender are the only two demographics tracked by Amazon, but it gives you a great place to start if your product only appeals to certain groups.
When looking at device targeting, Amazon DSP allows sellers to segment groups by the type of device they use (iPhone or Android and different operating systems for computers) and by the type of connection the user has. For a large mobile app, targeting people on a cellular connection wouldn’t be ideal, but a customer on WiFi could immediately start downloading the app.
Finally, Amazon DSP lets you target people with different education backgrounds. You can choose between people with high school degrees, bachelors degrees, and graduate degrees.
Custom Audiences
Creating custom audiences is a really cool feature in Amazon DSP that lets you take an ASIN or a group of ASINs and target people who have clicked on the product, purchased the product, or saw the product and similar options.
Moreover, these custom audiences are based on Amazon users. You’re not just getting people who shop on Amazon, but you can also create custom audiences from Prime Video or any of Amazon’s other services. You can even upload your own data to create a custom audience!
Contextual Targeting
Another great tool on the Amazon DSP is contextual targeting. What the heck is that? Well, if someone looks at a lot of video game websites and reads articles and watches videos about video games, they must be interested in the topic somewhat. However, that doesn’t necessarily make them “in-market” in Amazon’s eyes, especially if they haven’t bought any video games.
With Amazon DSP, you can serve ads exclusively on articles and pages that mention a certain topic, such as video games, and reach people who haven’t bought anything yet.
Key Takeaways
We’ve covered quite a bit about Amazon DSP and the ability it gives sellers to reach the right audience. With the reach of the platform and the unmatched targeting features, Amazon DSP is far and away the superior display ad network.
Along with these features, Amazon also has tons of data! The crazy thing is, as Amazon either acquires more companies in different sectors or branches out, that data set will continue to grow and give sellers an even better idea of who to target.
The only drawback of Amazon DSP is its exclusivity, but Ad Badger has an answer for that too and we can’t wait to get more people started with this amazing platform.
Discover Us on our PPC Den Podcast
If you enjoy supplementing your long reads with audio, we cover this topic on our podcast as well.
Listen to it in the episode below or find us on your favorite streaming platform, like Apple, Google, Spotify, and more!
- 1:05 New Intro
- 4:20 Intro to Amazon DSP
- 7:40 Targeting with Amazon DSP
- 27:35 Summary and key takeaways
- Our free Facebook group
- Amazon’s blog, Day One
- Amazon on price gouging
- Ad Badger app Product Tour [2020 Updated, New Features]
- PPC Den Podcast Voicemails
- Get to know Michael
- Ad Badger’s Amazon PPC Membership Academy
- Ad Badger’s YouTube channel
- Optimizing on a Hunch
- Amazon PPC Stats During COVID-19| April 2020
- Sponsored Brand Ads Update: Now You Can Edit Creatives
- Amazon PPC Stats During COVID-19
- Seller Central Campaign Manager is Moving to Amazon Ad Console in 2020
- Taking Your Amazon Products & Campaigns Global: A Primer
- Best Practices for Selling on Amazon During COVID-19
- Principles and Mindset for Amazon Marketers During Coronavirus
- Coronavirus (Covid-19) and Your Amazon PPC Campaigns
- Incorporate “Adjust Bids by Placement” into Your Keyword Bids (Part 2): Multi-Keyword Campaigns
- Incorporate “Adjust Bids by Placement” into Your Keyword Bids (Part 1): Single Keyword Campaigns
- Grow Your Amazon Campaigns with Demographics Data
- What Consumer Behavior Says About You: Amazon Brand Analytics
- How to Raise Lifetime Value with Market Basket Report
- Search Frequency Rank: How to Identify Most Important Keywords
- Long Tail Search Terms: The Amazon PPC Silent Killer?
- ACoS: Amazon Platform Tax?
- 7 Tips to Get More Clicks on Amazon Ads
- LIVE Amazon PPC Campaign Audit
- Amazon PPC Keyword Research in 2020: RPSB Revisited
- Our Top Predictions for Amazon PPC in 2020
- 7 Bad PPC Habits to Kick in 2020 (And 3 Good Ones to Start)
- The PPC Tasks We Put on Our Project Management Tools
- A Data- Oriented Approach to Advertising in December
- The Wait is Over… Search Term Reports for Sponsored Brand Ads are Here
- What to Do When It’s Time to Sell Your Amazon Business with Coran Woodmass
- Ramping Up for Cyber Monday and Black Friday with Data-Driven PPC Strategies
- Amazon PPC Campaign Structure: 6 Layers of Complexity
- Amazon PPC Today vs. Yesterday: What’s Changed, What Hasn’t
- Make Your Best Keywords Better with Single Keyword Campaigns
- 6 Levels of Amazon PPC Mastery
- How to Advertise Commodity and Unique Products with Lukas Matthews
- Amazon SEO – Bridging the Gap with PPC
- Amazon’s New Sponsored Display Ads (Beta)
- Listener Q&A: Optimizing Placement Settings
- The Problem With Optimizing Low-Converting Products (And How to Solve It)
- 4 Reasons Why Lowering Your Bids Won’t Always Lower your ACOS
- What to Expect From 30 Days of Running Amazon Ads
- Should You Segment Your Branded Keywords in Amazon Ads?
- Promoting your Products with Amazon Coupons
- Three Effective Ways to Optimize Amazon PPC Bids
- 4 Things Amazon Does Better than Google and Facebook
- Amazon DSP with Kiri Masters
- Increase Conversion Rates for Sponsored Brand Ads
- Clickfraud, Who to Hire, and More Common Amazon PPC Questions
- A Data-Driven Approach to Prime Day PPC
- Improving Your Account With Amazon Reports
- The Complete Guide to Self-Auditing Your Campaigns
- A Round-Table Discussion About Placement Settings
- My 5 Predictions for the Future of Amazon PPC
- The Importance of Indexation for Amazon PPC
- Click Through Rate (CTR) Rundown
- An Introduction To Bulk File Operations
- The Latest Sponsored Brand Ad Updates
- Defining Your PPC Goals & Setting ACOS Targets
- Making Sense of New to Brand Metrics
- Should You Bid on Competitors’ Branded Keywords
- Our Gripes About Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads
- Amazon Advertising Launch Strategy for New Products
- The Ultimate Amazon PPC Roadmap
- How to Scale Using PPC – A Case Study
- The Star-Crossed Lovers (Organic & Paid Traffic)
- Cranking Up Conversion Rates
- All Things Negative Keywords
- The Dreaded Amazon Data Reporting Delay
- What We Love About Amazon PPC
- First Look on New Bid Options in Amazon
- Dissenting Thoughts on PPC Budgets
- The Strangest, Most Popular PPC Strategy: The Keyword Dump
- Product Targeting – Into the Great Unknown
- Campaign Naming Systems
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to Sponsored Products (Part 2)
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to Sponsored Products (Part 1)
- Amazon PPC Advertising Stats
- The Advanced Basics of Amazon PPC
- Amazon’s New Product Targeting Features
- The Bid+ Conundrum
- Why We’re Living In The Golden Age of Amazon PPC
Watch Mike & Stephen on YouTube
If you enjoy supplementing your long reads with video, well, hot diggity dog, you’re in luck! We cover this topic on our YouTube channel too.
Watch it below and please don’t forget to ‘like’ and subscribe.