We have seen that video ads are becoming more and more trendy in the US, and they have been performing insanely well.
But, a lot of Amazon sellers seem to miss out on the opportunity to take advantage of this.
There are many reasons for that. First of all, not all sellers have their video creators and editors readily available. Also, not everybody is able to have video ad options on Amazon.
Lastly, a lot of sellers don’t even know they should use them.
Why should you use Amazon video ads
Simply put, because they convert. A lot.
Amazon Video Ads are videos that are auto-played upon viewing in search results or a product detail page.
Video ads merge two things that catch user attention: movement and sound. Both of these play an important role in conveying an efficient message, hence leading to better engagement.
Not only do video ads get more clicks (two times more, according to one recent experiment), but they give marketers more creative freedom to show off a brand’s personality and connect emotionally with an audience.
There are a couple of options if you do not have a video yet.
There is a tool provided by Amazon, which makes a video out of your images. It looks like a poorly made gif, but well, at least it lets you test out this option.
If you don’t want to use Amazon to make your video, there are several websites that can do this for you- i.e. biteable.com and some others that can make this very easy for you.
You also need to follow specific Amazon instructions for formatting.
Why You Should Localise Your Video Ads
Not a lot of sellers know that video ads are actually available in Europe.
So imagine if you have just a couple of sellers in the US doing video ads, how many of them are going to use video ads in Europe!?
The competition is way lower, and they also convert like crazy… but there is a catch.
If you want to use video ads in the EU market, you need to translate them and most importantly adjust them to the specific market.
For instance, if you have a person speak in the video, with subtitles, they should be translated to the target language.
Or if your video has text on it, that should also be translated. Everything should be in the target market’s language, otherwise the video ads won’t convert.
A US video ad content and angle would not be the same as your product’s German video ad.
It’s definitely important to localize your ads, as you would do for your listing. The US ad has more salesy speech and the salesy style and the audience responds well to a more emotional approach (depending on your product of course).
If you would run the same ad in Germany, it would not perform well. German ads should be straight forward, benefit-oriented information about the product and its usage and application without a lot of unnecessary information or an emotional angle.
Sponsored Brand Ads
Let’s talk a bit about Sponsored brand ads – previously known as headline search ads.
One very important thing to distinguish is that Sponsored Brands Video is VERY different than Amazon Video Ads (AVAs).
Sponsored Brands Video does not require any special applications or account approvals other than the brand registry. Any seller who is brand registered may create a campaign with SBV within Seller Central.
Amazon Video Ads on the other hand required special enrollment in the Video in Search Program and a minimum ad spend.
With these ads, it’s very important for the headline to be translated.
Recently Amazon introduced ”edit creatives” on sponsored brand ads. If you have a headline, which you should translate and if you don’t, Amazon will do it automatically for you – which is something I’d just never recommend.
But now you can edit your creatives without creating a new ad campaign and losing historical data.
What is very interesting is that in this headline you can also use a keyword.
If you match this keyword with your PPC campaign keyword you can reap the ranking benefits, as when they search for this keyword, the ad shows up with the same keyword in your headline. Cool trick.
I know a lot of you think these ads are not performing the best, but think about them as sponsored brand ads: they are there to raise your brand awareness.
Always Track Your Ad Performance
It is highly important to compare and track ad sales and PPC sales vs organic sales because sponsored brand ads cause an increase in organic sales and not PPC sales.
Buyers might not click on that ad, but they will remember the name and then they will organically search for your products.
It is important to follow your week-over-week performance to actually see the effectiveness of these types of ads.
If you need help with your listing translation and optimization by an Amazon trained team, we are always here to help. Contact us directly at info@uat.ylt-translations.com