Video ads are one of the top trends advertisers need to watch out for in 2023 and beyond. The global video advertising spend is expected to hit 210 billion USD this year and is expected to reach 318 billion USD by 2027.
HubSpot’s State of Video Marketing survey reveals 92% of marketers claimed they got good ROI from video marketing. This number is up from 87% in 2022.
Most importantly, 91% of customers want to see more online video content from brands.
Amazon Sponsored Brand ads help drive on-platform brand awareness like no other ad product.
The introduction of video creative to Sponsored Brand Ads maximize the impact this ad product promises to have, helping Amazon advertisers get more out of their Sponsored Brand budgets.
What Are Sponsored Brand Video Ads
Sponsored Brand Video ads feature a video creative along with a small section displaying critical product details like product photo, some details, and reviews.
These ads work on a Pay-per-click or PPC model and are keyword, category, or product targeted.
They appear within search results for relevant queries and relevant product detail pages and link directly to the advertised product’s detail page. So they can help advertisers funnel traffic from the search results or another product’s detail page onto their own listing.
The video in a Sponsored Brand Video ad plays automatically and on mute. Viewers can unmute the audio with a toggle displayed in the bottom right corner of the creative.
Unlike Sponsored Products, these ads only have a manual targeting option. So, you need to have solid keyword research experience to choose and target the right keyword for successful campaigns.
A brand’s product plays the central role in a Sponsored Brand Video ad and can be showcased in a lifestyle or product-focused setting. We will talk more about creative best practices in a bit. First, let’s understand why Amazon advertisers should consider this ad format.
Why Invest in Sponsored Brand Video Ads?
Sponsored Brand ads offer brands an opportunity to promote their brand via creative-rich ad formats. Video ads take this opportunity a step further, allowing advertisers to run campaigns that highlight their brand with a highly engaging, captivating ad format that the customers generally prefer.
High Visibility
Sponsored Brand Video ads occupy high-visibility real estate on the search result and product detail page. They reach the right people and are pretty hard to miss thanks to the auto-playing video format.
High Engagement
The auto-play feature helps the ad capture the audience's attention and a powerful creative can keep the audience engaged, ensuring they leave with the complete message your ad delivers.
The video creative is short. It takes less than a minute for people to view it completely. This feature makes the video ads easier to watch till the end and helps brands reinforce their presence in their prospects’ minds.
Help Drive Conversions
Most people that may interact with video ads may already be searching for the product being advertised. The video creative in Sponsored Brand Video ads helps brands highlight their product’s remarkable benefits while reflecting their brand personality.
This helps warm the customer up towards purchasing and nudges them further down the funnel so when they land on the product page, these prospects are half-set to become customers.
Allows Holistic Advertising
Sponsored Brand Video ads let you run a holistic ad campaign, complete with engaging video ads, on a budget. The PPC ad format does not require a huge upfront investment. Additionally, Amazon’s latest Sponsored Brand Video Builder enables advertisers to build video creatives without spending a lot of their ad spend.
A Chinese consumer electronics brand was invited to try the Sponsored Brand Video ad format at the time of its launch. The company deployed optimized budgeting tactics. They started with allocating 2% of their ad spend on this product and increasing to 5% once they saw these ads performing well and used smart advertising strategies.
All of this came together to help the brand experience a 3.3x increase in ROAS through Sponsored Brand Video ads.
Top Tips for Creating Sponsored Brand Video Ads that Drive Metrics
The case study in the previous section shows, Sponsored Brand Video ads are powerful. But brands can leverage their potential only when they augment the ad campaign with powerful strategies.
Here are some best practices for building powerful video ads:
Make Your USP Clear
You want to generate a ROAS from your ads. And that’s only possible once the ad delivers the metric you want it to deliver – brand awareness, consideration, or sale.
For this, you need to make your unique selling proposition – the feature or features that make your product different from the rest – clear in the video.
The Chinese consumer electronics company for example ran Sponsored Brand Video ads for their headphones. The creative showed how the product has good sound quality, is portable, and looks nice – all the benefits that appeal to a headphone shopper.
By doing so, you will be able to use the attention Sponsored Brand Video ads get to drive the right metrics.
Stills from a headphone Sponsored Brand Video ad:
Identify Your Goals and Build A Creative that Aligns with These Goals
You can leverage Sponsored Brand Video ads for all phases of the buying journey, from awareness to conversion. But you will need to shape the creative so it aligns with the goal or metrics you are aiming to drive for the best results.
For example, make sure the ad creative is memorable and builds an emotional connection with the audience for an awareness campaign. A lifestyle-focused creative may be the way to go here.
Your creative should highlight how your product is worth the customer’s money for a consideration-focused campaign. A sales-focused campaign can feature a past customer reviewing (and raving) about your product. You can use Amazon Influencers for this part.
Make Sure the Video Is No Longer than 30 Seconds
Customers’ attention span is low. Once you have it, you need to deliver your message before you lose it. For this, your videos must be as short as possible, 15-30 seconds is a good range.
Also, try and consolidate the most important information as early in the video as possible, so even if the viewers leave, they leave with your message.
Build the creative so your product appears within the first two seconds of the video and introduce the value or function of the product within the first five seconds.
Also, Sponsored Brand Videos ads loop automatically. So, consider introducing an end card so there’s a discrete difference between the start and end of the video.
Don’t Forget Mobile Shoppers
Mcommerce sales are expected to occupy over 40% of all ecommerce sales by 2024.
Amazon gets an appreciable number of traffic from mobile shoppers.
It is very much likely that a significant number of your Sponsored Brand Video ads get views from mobile. So, keep mobile viewers in mind when creating your ad and make sure the product is large enough to be visible on a smaller screen.
Include Closed Captions
Most people view online videos on mute. So your Sponsored Brand Video ad must be engaging and understandable without audio.
Include closed captions if there is a script in your video so viewers know what’s being said. Also, make the captions easier to read. Amazon recommends using Helvetica font, size 70 or 80 on a black bounding box.
Make Your Brand Clear
It is important to highlight the benefits, not just the features of your product while also reinforcing your brand in the video creative.
75% of people recognize a brand by its logo. Make sure your brand logo appears in the video. Also, align your ad creative with your brand’s personality and colors. Branding consistency reflects positively on ROI.
Finally, don’t forget to add a clear and crisp CTA in your video ad to tell the customers what they should do once they have watched the video.
Wrapping Up
Sponsored Brand Video ad format is a powerful creative that can help you take your brand awareness efforts further and leverage video advertising’s potential to drive important KPIs.
You can make the most out of your Sponsored Brand Video ads by targeting them carefully, optimizing the ad creative to your goals, and highlighting the benefits of the product (not just the features) early on in a 15-30 second long video.
Please note, you must be enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry before you can start pumping out branded video ads on Amazon.
Team Accrue helps Amazon brands expand their business and capture their market with all the tools needed to meet their goals. Need help building successful Sponsored Brand campaigns? Talk to our ex-Amazon ecommerce experts today.