Amazon Ads: The Power of AI in Full-Funnel Marketing

In today's competitive retail landscape, effective advertising isn't just about showing up—it's about showing up in the right places, with the right message, at the right time. That’s why many retail brands are turning to Amazon Ads.

At ADVANCE 2024, experts from Amazon Ads sat down to share the latest insights and strategies around full-funnel advertising and why so many brands are turning to Amazon Ads.

The session featured Lauren Corby, Senior Technology Business Development Manager, Roland Brenner, Head of Creative GTM, and Laszlo Miller, Senior Account Executive at Amazon Ads. Together, they provided an in-depth look into how advertisers can optimize their creative and campaigns using Amazon’s vast first- and third-party audience signals, giving attendees a tactical playbook for engaging with customers across the funnel.

The Power of AI in Full-Funnel Marketing

A full-funnel marketing approach is critical for modern advertisers as it ensures that brands engage customers at every stage of their journey, from awareness to conversion. This strategy recognizes that consumers move through different phases before making a purchase, each requiring tailored messaging and touchpoints. Panelists highlighted the importance of addressing the entire funnel—starting with top-of-funnel awareness through national campaigns, like their sponsorships with live sports events, and moving down to local, targeted efforts aimed at driving conversions.

A comprehensive full-funnel approach allows advertisers to create consistent brand messaging while optimizing performance at each stage. Consider a hypothetical restaurant chain promoting 'Taco Tuesdays,' using a full-funnel strategy. The brand could employ national awareness campaigns via live sports sponsorships on platforms like Prime Video and targeted ads in specific regions to drive in-store visits. This layered strategy supports brand awareness and engagement, demonstrating how a full-funnel approach drives not just visibility but measurable results.

Moreover, the integration of AI-driven tools, such as Amazon’s Performance Plus, further enhances the effectiveness of full-funnel marketing by providing real-time insights and predictive models. These AI tools ensure that the right messages are delivered to the right consumers at the right time, optimizing resources and ensuring higher conversion rates. By dynamically adjusting bids and targeting, Performance Plus allows advertisers to improve efficiency and performance throughout the entire funnel. 

How Amazon’s AI Tools Enhance Campaign Performance

The discussion kicked off with a deep dive into Amazon’s full-funnel capabilities. The panelists explained how brands can leverage Amazon’s premium live inventory—like Thursday Night Football and NBA games—to build awareness while using the Amazon Display Side Platform (ADSP) to retarget audiences and drive conversions. They emphasized using Amazon’s AI-powered optimization tools to tailor campaigns to specific performance goals.

A key takeaway was how brands can create cohesive, personalized consumer experiences by leveraging Amazon’s data-driven tools. The panelists highlighted the platform’s ability to help advertisers engage customers throughout their journey, from discovery to purchase and beyond.

Will Davenport shared four essential steps illustrating how Amazon’s AI models can revolutionize advertising performance. These steps help brands maximize their budget by ensuring ads reach the right audience efficiently.

1. Define Conversion Events: The process begins with advertisers specifying the conversion events they want to track. These events can include anything from online purchases to app installs or website visits. Advertisers set up these events using Amazon’s ad tag or the conversion API, which helps Amazon track the desired outcomes for each campaign.
2. Leverage Amazon’s Addressability Graph: Amazon matches user data from its various touchpoints, such as shopping habits, streaming activities, or browsing history, to build an "addressability graph." This graph helps identify which users are most likely to convert based on their past behaviors. The data is processed in a privacy-safe manner, ensuring it is used only for the advertiser's specific campaigns.
3. AI Model Scoring: Amazon’s deep neural network then scores users every hour based on how likely they are to perform the desired action. This real-time scoring allows Amazon’s system to continually refine who receives ads, ensuring that the ads target users most likely to convert.  A hotel chain, for instance, achieved a 95% decrease in cost per acquisition using AI-powered targeting in online video campaigns.
4. Serve Ads Through Amazon DSP: Based on the scoring, Amazon’s Demand-Side Platform (DSP) serves ads to users most likely to take the desired action. This dynamic process ensures that the right users see the ads at the right times, maximizing efficiency and lowering costs for advertisers by avoiding less relevant audiences.

Why Amazon Ads is Becoming Essential for Retail Brands

Throughout the session, the speakers discussed why many retail brands turn to Amazon Ads to fuel their marketing efforts. With its vast reach and ability to provide highly targeted ads, Amazon Ads helps brands not only reach new audiences but also deepen relationships with existing customers. The platform’s ability to offer personalized touchpoints at scale makes it a valuable asset in today’s competitive retail landscape.

Brands leveraging Amazon’s AI optimization have seen significant improvements in ROI, particularly when implementing full-funnel strategies and real-time AI adjustments that can dramatically reduce costs while enhancing engagement. Overall, full-funnel marketing, supported by AI, ensures a seamless customer experience and maximizes return on investment.

Smartly’s Amazon integration enables advertisers to scale and optimize their creative across Amazon’s platforms. This partnership enhances the ability to reach the right consumers at the right time with AI-backed insights that improve ad performance and budget allocation.

We’re dedicated to advancing the industry forward, redefining what advertising and creativity can achieve in the digital age. Stay tuned on our blog over the coming weeks for more inspiring takeaways from ADVANCE, and follow the event discussion on social media with the hashtag #ADVANCESmartly2024.