Amazon OTT Advertising – A Complete Guide

It goes without saying that streaming services have replaced traditional cable.
You’ve probably used an app like Netflix or Amazon Prime to stream a show, a documentary, or your preferred movie. And chances are you’ve unknowingly come across Amazon OTT advertising.

Amazon OTT advertising began to earn a lot of popularity due to its distinctive goals. These particular goals include expanding audience reach and improving brand performance initiatives. And Amazon advertising was the beginning of it all. If you are an Amazon merchant, Amazon advertising is quite important.

By enhancing your product’s visibility, the platform’s advertising solutions, like Sponsored Product campaigns, greatly assist sellers by boosting traffic to your product listing and boosting product sales. In 2018, Amazon renamed all of their advertising products under the name “Amazon Advertising.”

The “Amazon Ad Console” now includes Product Display Ads, Sponsored Products Ads, and Sponsored Brands Ads. The “Demand-Side Platform” is a further branch that sellers should be aware of. It enables advertisers to purchase video advertisements and display ad placements, as well as engage audiences both within and outside of Amazon. It was formerly known as the Amazon Advertising Platform.

In the early months of 2019, they introduced Over-The-Top advertising, which coincided with the rise in popularity of video streaming services. Let’s explore Amazon OTT advertising and its significance in the current era of new media.

What is Amazon OTT Advertising ?

Over the top, or OTT, is a broad term that refers to any non-cable streaming service like Amazon Prime. It is possible to avoid using traditional television providers using Amazon OTT advertising.

Distribution of media and commercial advertising are under their authority. Brands, though, are also eager to get their hands on that audience.

The growth of OTT is critical from an Amazon marketing standpoint since it gives companies the chance for expansion and visibility. Businesses can distribute video material to users within streaming services and platforms by using these streaming advertisements.

Brands and companies have more options to profit from various groups thanks to Amazon OTT. This is especially valid for people who use streaming services to watch television.

How do Amazon OTT ads function?

Amazon OTT advertising runs on the Amazon DSP platform. Every day, millions of Amazon Fire Stick users will see these advertisements. The ads are full-screen and cannot be skipped. The ability to target an audience gives advertisers a significant advantage over traditional TV ad spots.

Please be aware that as these are not clickable ads, neither click-through rates nor direct conversions may be used to determine the effectiveness of the advertisements. Ad impressions are used to measure it instead. Therefore, unlike Sponsored Ad Campaign, these ads are compensated based on impressions rather than clicks.

For OTT ads, you can leverage Amazon DSP’s automatic advertising and audience targeting tools. The Demand-Side Platform allows marketers to purchase video spots in ad-supported apps on Fire TV.

What benefits do OTT advertisements offer?

Let’s look at the benefits of using OTT commercials now that we have a better understanding of what Amazon OTT advertising is and how it functions.

Better targeting

Unlike traditional television commercials, OTT ads on Amazon let you more precisely target your audience. Your ad will receive engagements from the appropriate audience thanks to Amazon DSP’s audience insights, which will increase product sales.

Amazon DSP provides insights regarding your audience based on:

• Interests in products and purchasing habits.
• Demographics including gender, age, and other factors.

Amazon offers three categories for targeting behavioral audiences:

• Achieves clients who belong to a particular interest group by using lifestyle targeting.
• Reaching people who have searched on Amazon for products in your category using in-market targeting.
• Retargeting: This strategy reaches potential buyers who browsed your products on Amazon or your company’s website but didn’t make a purchase.

You can use Amazon OTT to combine the potency of the visual format with the demand-side platform’s targeting capabilities.

Competitor Ad Contesting

You can target the audience who has also looked at your competitors’ products while using Amazon OTT advertising to promote your products. Currently, only Amazon OTT advertising offers this capability. This will enable you to attract a small number of audience members who are considering purchasing your competitors’ goods.

Less expensive than television advertisements

OTT commercials on Amazon are less expensive than those on traditional television. The price of advertising slots has increased dramatically due to the fall in TV viewing. As a result, OTT commercials are a far more affordable kind of visual advertising because the ad spend is much more manageable. Additionally, keep in mind that OTT advertising are simpler to track and that it is much simpler to obtain pertinent data after the campaign has concluded.

Access to the difficult-to-reach audience

You will have access to an audience that is otherwise difficult to reach thanks to Amazon OTT marketing. For instance, it can be challenging to target people who have ad-blockers enabled and those who either don’t have a TV subscription or have cancelled their current one. You can reach these audiences by using Amazon OTT.

You can learn about consumer trends.

OTT platforms gather information on viewers’ preferences and habits. You may learn customer behavior, such as product and brand searches, with the help of Amazon’s first-party data insights, and utilize this knowledge to enhance your advertising campaigns.

For instance, you can change your targeting if you see that a specific advertisement is successful with a particular audience segment.

For instance consider you are advertising a gaming laptop. You can change your advertising to display more frequently during a time period when people in their twenties are more likely to watch them on Amazon Fire TV if you discover that your advertisement for the gaming laptop is performing well with this demographic.

Target without pre-scheduled broadcast terms

Schedule restrictions have in the past controlled the timing and format of brand advertising to viewers. This implies that some advertisements only air during particular popular programming. Others occupy positions with scant viewership and low ratings. With on-demand streaming, there is no set schedule or ideal time to serve commercials.

Customer Funnel Awareness and OTT Ads

A lot of marketers are curious about how an Amazon OTT strategy may impact their current consumer funnel. When a company invests in advertising for a product or service, it makes sense to be aware of the high ROI potential.

Amazon OTT advertising were initially used as an upper-funnel tactic. There weren’t many ways to gauge how well advertisements were doing on websites like Amazon Prime Video. For marketers, this was a problem because they required analytics and reliable data to support increased ad spending.

Amazon is currently seeking to provide tools that will make it simpler for marketers to monitor the effectiveness of OTT ads. To measure important KPIs, marketers can also employ other services. The conversion rate (CR) and click-through rate among these figures (CTR).

Many OTT advertisements are set up to be non-skippable, which means that viewers cannot skip them. Advertisers can set up analytics with this tool to measure the traffic or conversions they get from their efforts.

Metrics and Measures

Brands who rely on Amazon OTT advertising for their video marketing need to figure out how to track the following more effectively:

• Audience reach
• Frequency of ads
• Brand visibility and uplift
• Metrics for “new to brand” customers

You can clarify brand growth and performance with Amazon OTT when you are aware of Amazon analytics, and you can respond to crucial concerns about video marketing when you comprehend video commercials. These questions consist of:

• Should we increase our OTT marketing budget?
• Should our audience targeting tactics be altered?
• Do we need to add more captivating video components?
• Are there any other streaming services to take into account?

New features and modifications for Amazon OTT

In November of last year, Amazon made a few adjustments to improve their OTT advertising. Included in this are new programs that would present opportunities for more advertisements and new tools that would help advertisers develop their brands. Let’s examine these modifications:

Newer content for advertising

New movies and more material for NFL Thursday night football have been added by Amazon to IMDb TV and Amazon Prime Video, expanding the chances for commercials to reach a wider audience.

Blocking by genre

In September of last year, Amazon unveiled a tool called “genre blocking” that would allow marketers more control over the placement of their adverts. This tool allows you to block up to 5 content categories, ensuring that your advertisements only appear in those that are pertinent to your target demographic and are likely to generate impressions from them.

Customer guarantees

You will have the choice to purchase adverts targeted to the people you want to reach thanks to Amazon’s audience guarantee. In essence, you would only be required to pay for the impressions that reach customers who are interested in your brand and product.

Beta for Video Creative Builder

Even without their own video assets, advertisers will be able to develop video ads using the video creative builder beta. You can select from its collection of films and templates to test out various ad concepts without spending any time or money.

Who Must Utilize Amazon OTT?

You’ve now learned about the advantages and definitions of Amazon OTT, but there’s still one crucial question to be answered. Which companies and brands should begin utilizing OTT advertising?

The following companies, associations, and groups may find Amazon OTT to be a valuable resource:

Brands that have never before employed video advertisements

A versatile and incredibly interesting method to enter the world of streaming ads is through OTT. Utilize OTT to trial-and-error innovative video messaging. Then, you can determine which audience segments it appeals to.

Brands that no longer receive results from traditional TV advertisements

As more households cut the cord, traditional commercial advertising occasionally loses its effectiveness. Put a fresh spin on standard TV advertising if you’ve had success with them in the past, and see where that leads your brand’s expansion.

Brands with budgets below “TV level.”

Even today, conventional advertising can be alluring. The largest firms are typically the ones paying to play. If you don’t have the advertising budget for a dedicated primetime TV spot, think about OTT streaming alternatives.

Tips and Best Practices for OTT Advertising

There are a few techniques to ensure your messaging is effective when you produce new Amazon OTT ads. For the creation of polished, top-notch videos, collaborate with a strong video marketing team. Afterward, consider the following advice.

Keep it brief and direct.

Most OTT advertisements are succinct 30-second clips meant to grab viewers’ attention right away. These advertisements must be brief and have a clear message because they cannot be skipped. Make a call to action obvious if you want to include one.

Display products in their best possible light.

Use your strongest message since you only have a little opportunity to pique curiosity. Use alluring selling elements while promoting tangible goods. Find the design elements that are most appealing.

Present to the appropriate audience

Be relatable in your OTT marketing. Join forces with the best streaming services to target the proper audience with your adverts. You must be aware of who your target market is and which demographics are most significant in order to do this.

Conclusion

Internet-based video streaming services are where the future and present of visual content production and consumption will be found. This shift is evidenced by the loss of traditional television and the growth of streaming services’ user bases. Advertising prospects in these streaming services are mostly unexplored, which is fantastic news for advertisers as we are only starting this paradigm shift.

Because of this, OTT advertising on Amazon makes more sense for any brand owner trying to increase visibility for his goods and company. This is the ideal time to start using this mostly untapped advertising opportunity, before everyone else does and before they all start to swarm in.