Amazon launched its ad program in Australia, and it’s not just for online merchants – brands can advertise through the program even if they don’t sell on the marketplace.
Amazon Advertising offers display ads and video ads, and advertisers can use Amazon DSP (Demand Side Platform) for programmatically buying display and video ads at scale.
The Australian program explains to would-be advertisers that their ads can be run on Amazon websites, apps, and on sites and apps not owned by Amazon. “You don’t need to sell your products on Amazon to buy display ads – customers can be taken to a product page, a Store, a custom landing page, or an external website.”
Amazon entices advertisers by promising them they can reach the “right audiences” using its shopping insights. That’s a powerful message given the treasure trove of shopping data at Amazon’s disposal combined with the technology to analyze it. And Amazon promises to prove it can deliver when it states, “Monitor shopping activity around your products before, during, and after your campaign to see the correlation to advertising.”
A video on the Amazon Advertising page on the Australian website features Fossil, PopSockets, and Purina, and it promises to “deliver results throughout every decision journey.”
Quick visits on Sunday afternoon revealed far fewer ads for third-party brands on the Australian marketplace than on Amazon.com, though the advertising on both homepages were mostly for products and services owned by Amazon itself. A search for “Purina” on Amazon.com came back with results featuring an ad for Purina, while no ad appeared after the same search on Amazon.com.au.
Amazon is late to Australia, entering the market in December 2017 – prior to that, shoppers could only purchase digital goods and Amazon devices on Amazon.com.au. It launched Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) in February 2018, and launched Amazon Prime in Australia in June 2018.
So how well is it performing there? Australian newspaper The Age said Amazon Australia generated revenue of $292 million in 2018 with an after-tax loss of $5.3 million.
