PPC Tutorial: Sponsored Brands - Functionality and Relevance

In this blog post, we'll explain the classification, how it works, and what you can do with Sponsored Brand Ads.

What are sponsored brand ads and what are the requirements for displaying them?

Sponsored Brands (short: SBs) are ads around the search results page with a link to an Amazon landing page or any brand store category. Depending on the format, an image picture and up to 3 products incl. individual headline are presented. The brand logo must be visible in the image picture. Probably the best known format is the Headline Search Ad. This appears above the search results page and includes the full content. Clicking on the image picture or the slogan links to the deposited landing page or the brand store, clicking on one of the presented products links to the product detail page of the product. The products presented in the banner must also be listed in the landing page or the respective brand store category. The playout is classically keyword-based via a second auction system. Since the placements are partly very prominent and also significantly limited in number, Amazon requires a minimum bid per keyword of € 0.1 for the playout.

As the name suggests, this advertising format relates strongly to a brand. Sponsored Brands are only available to professional sellers who are registered in the Amazon Trademark Registry.

Attribution and control

In contrast to Sponsored Product Ads, the attribution of sales for SBs takes place at brand level. The attribution window is 14 days. Accordingly, all sales of your brand, regardless of whether you, Amazon, or third-party sellers own the Buy Box, are assigned as advertising revenue after clicking on a SB of the ad for the respective keyword.

As with Sponsored Product Ads, the same keyword match types "broad, phrase & exact" are used for targeting. Recently, additional modifiers have been added for the broad match (currently only available for SBs). Here, a "+" in front of a keyword can be used to enforce that this word must be included in the customer's search query for a playout.

Amazon also allows custom bid adjustments for placements below the first search results page. This makes it possible, for example, to lower the bid by 99% and force the ad to be displayed as a headline search ad.

Likewise, like Sponsored Product Ads, negative keywords can be excluded as "Negative Exact" or "Negative Phrase Text". However, due to the current lack of reports with exact keyword searches by customers, it is difficult to determine data-driven conclusions for keyword exclusion here with broader keyword match.

Relevance of the ads

Since the ads are not linked to just one product, as is the case with Sponsored Products and Product Display Ads, but to a target page, the relevance of the deposited products is classified significantly lower in the ad relevance by the Amazon algorithm. This means that the ads are more self-contained and build up less product-dependent ad relevance.
Basically, sponsored brands and brand stores have a certain dependency on each other: sponsored brands are the most relevant traffic drivers for brand stores. Conversely, a well-structured brand store is essential for good ad relevance. If both are finely tuned to each other, a good synergy is formed. Continuous evaluation and A/B tests are indispensable for this.

Expert tips

Frequently, sponsored brands are simply advertised with the brand logo as an image picture, as "requested" by Amazon. However, all that is required for the ad to be approved is that the brand logo is legible on the thumbnail. By using an emotional image picture, the click-through rate can be measurably increased, especially if the brand awareness level is not yet that high. The image format with the largest possible displayed area of the image picture is 1:1.

A large part of the playout takes place without a product preview, especially in the mobile views. Accordingly, the customer only sees the image or brand image and the advertising slogan. Assuming the brand is relatively unknown and the slogan does not specify what products will be listed when clicking on the ad, the customer does not know what to expect: The click & buy probably remains off. Here it is important to find a healthy balance between content transparency & advertising relevance. For a brand that is still unknown, an emotional and meaningful image should definitely be chosen.