Marketplace Predictions 2023
Believe it or not, 2023 is right around the corner. A New Year for your brand to set resolutions for world peace, but also to reset sales and revenue goals. And if we’re talking about selling products online, then we have to take a look at Amazon and other seller marketplaces. To help navigate the world of marketplace listings, sales, and strategy, we turned to our Booyah team of marketplace experts.
The longer Amazon builds its online dominance, the more and more new features arrive on the platform. These intricacies touch other media disciplines like content, SEO, and paid advertising, so to help us understand what these predictions look like and what they’ll mean to your strategy we turned to Marketplace Supervisor Ryan Wright and Marketplace Account Managers Jack Garcia and Jake Allen.
Booyah asks: ‘What predictions do you have for marketplace marketing and advertising in 2023?’
Ryan Wright: Amazon advertising is becoming one of the main avenues for growth for Amazon as a whole. For years, Amazon was primarily driven by AWS (Amazon Web Services) and now the advertising side of Amazon is the third largest platform behind Meta and Google. Amazon is investing in its advertising tech and platforms, and I predict that coupled with the news about Meta doing mass lay-offs, Amazon becomes the second largest advertising platform on the web.
In particular, Amazon DSP will be more and more attractive to endemic and non-endemic advertisers. Since 65% of the Amazon search results pages are already ads, Amazon customers are used to this and will allow it. Unlike places like Facebook and Google where users don’t want intrusive ads. To date, almost all of Amazon’s advertising has been built upon endemic advertisers, meaning those who sell on Amazon, and thus there is a big opportunity for non-endemic advertisers on Amazon.
Jack Garcia: Amazon seems to be opening up more opportunities in the content space; including video assets, shoppable images on A+, Brand Story content, and Amazon posts. Each of these enhancements requires clients to have stellar imagery or video assets, and a comprehensive brand message. Since these are very visual-focused modules, a subpar aesthetic or low image quality could really hurt a brand. In that case, it would be better to have nothing at all. In contrast, brands that already have a strong library of content including video, product images, and lifestyle images, can plug into all these new features right away.
Think of it like a checklist for creative content, where before there were only 2-3 items on the list, now there are 5+ areas where you can implement branded creative. While listing requirements remain strict, the A+ content, brand store, posts, and video spots allow brands to really communicate their overall brand identity.
Jake Allen: Amazon will allow more opportunities to build your brand on Amazon in 2023. They already introduced new brand features in Seller Central in 2022, so look for them to build onto those offerings and add even more.
Booyah: Interesting! How will this impact the trends, tactics, or strategies that you’ll bring to your clients in 2023?
Ryan Wright: With the prediction that Amazon is going to become the 2nd largest ads platform on the internet and social advertising being a little dicey with troubles at Meta and Twitter, I would recommend clients should shift their budget away from social networks and onto Amazon for the direct response ads.
Amazon is pushing very hard for streaming video as well, though the platform has higher minimums, this will be a great opportunity for brand awareness tactics with audiences like Thursday Night Football and Prime Video viewers.
Jack Garcia: Sponsored Display has recently gotten upgraded contextual targeting and allows for more customization like brand logo or custom image along with the product image. You can also use video now for sponsored display. Sponsored Brand Videos used to only take clicks to the product listing page but can now send traffic to the storefront or a storefront sub-page. This is huge for driving a centralized shopping experience and will encourage more followers by driving more traffic to the storefront.
Amazon Posts as a concept have been around since at least 2021, but they used to be a very tertiary part of the ad experience. Now Posts are being given a new priority, with options to target store followers with email campaigns. Posts are now also showing up on listing detail pages, whereas before they were only shown on the storefront/brand feed.
Jake Allen: Take advantage of the brand features available by switching old attribution links for brand referral bonus links, running customer engagement campaigns for your brand’s followers, keeping your storefront updated with new products, and using brand analytics to measure your keyword effectiveness and gain demographic insights.
