Programmatic Advertising: Amazon DSP vs Google Ads
As part of the article series on Amazon Advertising, we present the Amazon Programmatic Advertising Platform. The software-based solution offers you the opportunity to book and optimize advertising automatically.
Amazon has rebranded the "Amazon Advertising Platform" as "Amazon Demand Side Platform" also called "DSP" as part of the restructuring of its advertising offering. On this platform, online advertising can be booked, displayed, and optimized automatically. Through DSP, you can publish your own advertising messages on Amazon-owned sites (for example: Amazon Shopping, Amazon Prime, Amazon Music, Audible, etc.) as well as on sites and apps of publishing partners. It doesn't matter whether you sell your own products on Amazon's marketplace or not.
Goals of Amazon DSP
Customers can be contacted multiple times in various situations along the entire customer journey. For example, the large reach can be used to attract attention among users who are not yet familiar with the brand. Then this advertising medium is used at the beginning of the sales funnel. Furthermore, potential buyers can be reminded of their purchase intent through various advertising spaces and offered additional products or suitable services.
Advantages of Amazon DSP over Google Ads
The unique strength of Amazon's advertising network is the first-party data, i.e., data about real purchasing behavior from first hand. This goes far beyond the usual demographic and interest-based information. Data from millions of users - from browsing product pages, to feedback within product groups, to actually triggered orders - Amazon DSP's data is based on facts rather than assumptions.
Advertising becomes more targeted than if it were shown to users who randomly read something about sports or leisure activities. Potential buyers who can be assigned specific wishes based on their individual search and purchase history increase the efficiency of display advertising. Even if the customer switches between laptop and smartphone, they can be advertised seamlessly through Cross Device Targeting. Usually, Amazon users have an account that they use on all their digital devices.
How does pricing work with Amazon DSP?
Advertising campaigns with Amazon DSP make sense with a budget from 10,000 USD. For programmatic advertisements, the Amazon algorithm first determines the availability of advertising spaces that match the respective advertising campaign. In the second step, it is decided in real-time bidding which advertisement wins the auction and is displayed. Billing is done per thousand contact price (CPM). So a price is charged per 1,000 impressions. The higher the demand for the available advertising spaces, the higher the price. With a sufficiently high budget, more impressions of the advertisements can be displayed over a longer period. Interestingly, the Amazon DSP algorithm is capable of learning. Over time, the advertising campaign can be continuously optimized through better understanding of user interactions with the advertisements.
