Amazon Launches Marketing Capabilities

Amazon at its Accelerate sellers conference yesterday introduced three audience types within the Amazon Customer Engagement tool to help sellers increase their email marketing reach at no cost.

For the first time, sellers can now expand beyond brand followers when sending free marketing emails to reach their most loyal customers, such as repeat customers, recent customers, and high-spend customers.

"Brands are able to quickly acquire new customers in the Amazon store, but they expressed a need for improved tools to increase customer lifetime value," said Benjamin Hartman, vice president of Amazon North America Selling Partner Services, in a statement. "These improvements help unlock the value of remarketing as we further our commitment to helping sellers reach the right customer at the right time."

Amazon Customer Engagement's Tailored Audiences also allows sellers to monitor the impact of their email marketing campaigns and customer engagement with performance and reporting metrics, such as open rate, click-through rates, emails delivered, opt-out rates, sales, and conversion.

Amazon is currently testing Tailored Audiences in a beta program and  plans to make it available to all U.S. sellers in early 2023. Through this tool, sellers select the customer audience types and Amazon sends the marketing email directly to those customers.

Amazon also recently rolled out Premium A+ Content, an upgrade to the standard content management system that supports new, larger modules on product pages, such as video, interactive hover hotspots, image carousels, and Q&A.

Amazon also introduced marketing solutions that enable direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce sellers to reach engaged Amazon shoppers and help drive sales on their own sites. Amazon is piloting the solutions as part of Buy with Prime, a new program that enables sellers to offer Prime shopping benefits to shoppers off Amazon.

"Direct-to-consumer online sellers struggle with two key pain-points: driving traffic and converting shoppers. With the launch of Buy with Prime, sellers have begun to increase conversion by offering shopping benefits that millions of Prime members love and trust, including fast, free delivery and a seamless checkout experience," said Peter Larsen, Amazon's vice president of Buy with Prime, in a statement. "Now, we're taking the next step by piloting marketing solutions to help Buy with Prime sellers attract more engaged shoppers to their sites."

Through the Buy with Prime program, participating sellers can showcase their DTC products on Amazon with a new Buy with Prime page within their stores. Sellers can then direct Amazon shoppers to those DTC products by using Sponsored Brands, which are customizable ads for brands.

Sponsored Brands appear in prominent places within shopping results on Amazon. When a shopper clicks on a Sponsored Brands ad, it takes them to the new Buy with Prime page within the brand store's page on Amazon. From this new page, shoppers can preview product details and choose to purchase the product directly from the seller, off Amazon, by using Buy with Prime.

Together, Sponsored Brands ads and the new Buy with Prime stores pages help Buy with Prime sellers reach relevant shoppers on Amazon and direct them to their own DTC sites. Both solutions are now available in an invitation-only beta.

Co-branded Buy with Prime social media ads, which are funded and managed by Amazon, help participating Buy with Prime sellers reach shoppers on Facebook and Instagram and drive traffic to products on their DTC sites. Potential customers see ads from Amazon's Buy with Prime page on Facebook and Instagram that feature specific sellers. When shoppers click on that ad, they're taken to a product detail page on the seller's DTC site where they can purchase directly from the seller using Buy with Prime. Co-branded social media ads are now available in an invitation-only beta.

The Buy with Prime Marketing Toolkit allows sellers to leverage the Prime brand to drive shoppers to their DTC sites. The toolkit provides the Buy with Prime badge, which sellers can feature in their marketing alongside their own brand and Buy with Prime products. This enables sellers to show they offer Prime shopping benefits on their own DTC sites, including fast, free delivery; a seamless checkout experience; and free returns on eligible orders. The Buy with Prime Marketing Toolkit is a free resource available to all sellers with active Buy with Prime product listings.

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