Amazon Introduces New Ad Metrics for Campaign Optimization

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Amazon has recently rolled out a set of new metrics within the Advertising Console, offering a deeper level of insight into campaign performance.

While these metrics are available in select accounts, they hold significant value for brand owners and advertisers looking to refine their strategies and drive brand growth through sponsored ads. In this week’s email, let’s dive deeper into these metrics and discuss their significance:

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1. The “Add to cart” Metric

This metric helps to provide a valuable link in the conversion journey, offering insights between clicks and actual sales. It helps track the shopper’s journey from clicks to "Add to Carts" and, eventually, to completed sales.

Why is this important?

The "Add to Cart" metric hints at potential future purchases. When clicks don't immediately translate into sales but result in items being added to the cart, it suggests that these customers are interested in your products and may make a purchase in the future.

This metric also opens up possibilities for testing hypotheses. For example, advertisers can experiment with optimizing their campaigns to drive higher "Add to Cart" numbers, and find out answers to those questions such as whether this optimization ultimately leads to more sales, if so, how much is the impact, and how long it roughly takes for these potential conversions to materialize. All these findings can help strategize more efficiently. Based on those answers, one can come up with new ideas for running more strategies focused on effectively increasing the Add to Carts.

With the advent of brand-tailored promotions, specifically, the option to reach out to cart abandonners, the "Add to Cart" metric becomes a significant tool for higher sales. Advertisers can tailor their strategies to encourage customers to add products to their carts, then reach out via tailored promotions to drive more conversions from those Add to Carts. This can help in pushing for a higher sales volume.

2. The “Branded Searches” Metric

Branded searches are a key indicator of brand recognition and customer loyalty. When customers actively search for your brand on Amazon, it signifies that they are not just browsing but specifically seeking your products. If your advertising efforts are contributing to higher brand searches, this means you are effectively driving more awareness.

So, with this metric, it’s simpler to evaluate the impact of your advertising efforts in driving higher brand recognition and loyalty. For instance, evaluating this metric for a campaign targeting generic keywords, to see if that helps lift up the number of brand searches. Or if a new creative with a higher emphasis on brand logo helps drive them more, etc.

3. The “Units Sold” Metric

The units sold metric provides insights into the number of units your ad campaigns have driven sales for, allowing for precise ROI calculations. A higher number of units sold could also signify upsells and cross-sells.

This metric could help identify which campaigns lead to a higher number of units sold and can be optimized more. Tests can be run to see if they lead to increases in the number of units sold. For example, including cross-promotion campaigns helps in driving a higher number of units sold.

Regarding optimization, these findings can also shed light on whether variations in sales are linked to fluctuations in units sold and their frequency. This information can guide more precise campaign optimization strategies.

For instance, suppose a new campaign spent $10 and generated $100 in sales with a single order but two units sold. This scenario suggests that if a future shopper only purchases one unit, it could lead to a significant increase in Advertising Cost of Sales (ACOS). Thus, these insights add an extra layer of granularity to make more informed decisions.

4. The “Video start” & “Video completion rate” Metrics

Both are useful metrics for understanding video engagement. For advertisers using video ads, video engagement metrics are crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of video content. High video start and completion rates indicate that your audience is highly engaged with your video ads.

These insights can also provide useful feedback to improve videos for higher click-through rates (CTR) and ROI. Advertisers can test the effectiveness of the newer versions of the videos, or the impact of different video placements, bidding strategies, etc., and make data-led decisions.

These insights into video engagement will ultimately help improve video creatives which will, in turn, help drive higher traffic and higher chances of conversion.

Other learnings:

1. Amazon's Accelerate conference unveiled "Amazon Shipping". It leverages Amazon's extensive delivery network, enabling you to ship your own orders and products seamlessly. [Read more].

2. Hourly campaign performance report is now available for SP. This beta feature provides a lookback period of 30 days, enabling you to conduct more detailed and granular data analysis. [Read more].

3. Subscribe and Save details on the Store page. Individual products displayed on the Store now highlight the Subscribe and Save offer along with the CTA to set it up. [Read more].

4. Amazon launches Multi-country campaign manager. Currently in beta, the feature is designed to streamline Ad management across various marketplaces. [Read more].

Thanks,

Himanshu

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