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Advertisers have access to additional placements with Sponsored Brands thanks to some recent enhancements that Amazon made. This ad type appears in highly visible top-of-page placements and at the bottom of the page. The prominence of these ads highlights the importance of testing. With so many variables (products, copy, images, etc.), advertisers have lots of testing options.
You can choose to run campaigns concurrently (one test and one control), or iteratively (week one control, week two test). If iteratively, be aware of an apples to oranges scenario that may happen if volume is different for reasons beyond your control—for example, a sitewide sale that runs during the test week but not the control week. For reasons like this, this approach can be more difficult to qualify.
Let’s craft some hypotheses particular to Sponsored Brands.
Store or Product Detail Page
When you create a Sponsored Brand you have the option to drive clicks to your Store or to an aggregate page. A Store is a way for vendors and sellers to provide customers with curated content and a tailored experience on Amazon. Building a Store allows for a multitude of uses—including driving traffic via Sponsored Brands.
If sales is the primary goal, set a test to see where returns are strongest. A Store is going to provide a fuller, more immersive experience with your brand—to the point that no other brands or products will be featured. It’s all you. With headline copy, image, ASIN selection, and keywords all left static, which landing page experience produces the best outcome?
ASIN Selection
For a Sponsored Brand ad, you can select up to three products to showcase. Be aware of your keyword selection when deciding which products to advertise together. If you’re including broad, generic terms this might be a good campaign to include proven-winner products or best sellers. If the keywords selected are brand-driven, consider including products that are new to market.
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You should be able to easily measure performance by ASIN to see which should be featured in the Sponsored Brand ad and which shouldn’t. Promote products that have good reviews and images. Keep the other variables consistent and test to see which products get to stay.
Image and Ad Copy
The ad creative components for a Sponsored Brand ad require a custom message and a 400×400 pixel image. These elements open up lots of opportunities to test! Make sure the messaging copy lines up with your keyword selection and find out what messaging, in 50 characters or less, resonates with searchers.
Similarly, what image encourages shoppers to click the ad? There are the three images of your product selection, but how to best make use of the header image? You could use a logo or potentially a fourth product. Be mindful of Amazon’s creative acceptance policy, too, and the approval process these changes (and the aforementioned) all need to go through.
With this in mind, you should be ready to test. Remember to set the right parameters and frame your test before launching anything. You can get very precise and technical but the aim is more or less to change one variable, keep everything else consistent, and evaluate the impact that a single change has on performance. Now get out the lab coats and beakers!